I carry mine & my lads fatties on 591’s but use some 10mm bungee cords to secure them.

I struggle with finding wide shoes. Disappointed to hear Five-Tens may have got narrower, the older ones I have are spot on. I forgot my usual trainers & ended up spending the last 2 weeks wearing them whilst on holiday.

Done plenty of camping in the rain over the years, from backpacking to full on family holidays, to Scout Camps. As fun as camping is, you’d not get me picking family tent camping over holidays in the dragging shed. We once trial packed for a fortnight camping in France & knocked it on the head in favour of the tin shed. Was just easier.

Game changer for camping though are these big event shelters. And tents with canopies giving a dry covered area to take off boots & coats. Even caravans are crap without some form of awning or basic shelter to cover the door.

We have a few of the Coleman event shelters at my Scout group, they really are excellent.

Have you tried the Steel is Real FB group ?

Never mind lithium extraction, it’s the length of modern hyperlinks that will kill this planet. ^^^

We bought a new 150hp, 1.4 litre petrol Tiguan last year. Went for petrol because it was to be the Wife’s car & would be doing all stop/start miles.
It is horrific on fuel, truly rubbish. Probably 30 mpg tops. She now uses a 1.0 Focus, which is much better.

Years ago I bought a Peugeot 309 1.6 GL, in an awfully dull burgundy, for £409 out the newsagents window. Was owned by an old boy who was handing in his license.
Ran it for a few years, went through 2 MOT’s with no spend!!!

If I knew how I’d post a pic of my rigid Puffin below.
And my rigid SIR.9.
Both equally ace.

I always use stainless inners, bought cheaply in bulk from EBay. Always use standard Shimano outer but taking time to prep the outer correctly makes a massive difference. I always square off the end after cutting, with an angle grinder. Regardless which cutters you use it always crushes the ends in, creating drag on the cable. Then open out the inner sleeve with a drill bit. Use only metal ferrules & give the inner a blast through with a teflon based oil from an aerosol with straw.
The difference it makes, especially to a child’s bike, is enormous. Once a year I’ll draw the inner out, blast some oil in & re-fit. Replacing inners is much easier afterwards as there’s nothing to snag & frat the cable.

“I’m so tempted this autumn by an old 2 berth touring van, end bathroom. Budget under £1k…
If it lasts more than a year, I’m quids in…”

Do it.
I often think back to our first caravan, bought for £800. Was only 850kg but housed the four of us when the boys were little. Did a few jobs on it, lined the squeaky floor & re-carpeted, re-sealed the seems, added black out roller blinds from Argos!!!, updated the electrics. If you can change a plug or fix a bike you’ll do anything on a caravan.
We doubled our money when we sold it.

Join the travelling community. They have some epic old fashioned battles, as seen on YouTube.

Somewhat shamefully, I followed a football team for many years. Always loved away games, especially somewhat rough, in London. I was eventually nicked at one & spent a night in the cells. But in those days it was all bravado. A bit of fronting up, a charge & a few punches or kicks. But it was with similar likeminded idiots, never with anyone not looking for it. It was usually one on one & all over in a few mins. None of this 6 lads stamping someone half to death.

Sadly, the acceptance of low level crime in the last few decades has brought down the acceptance of more serious crime too, with too many idiots ready to stick a knife in to someone.

I was glassed 19 minutes into the new millennium, so will happily walk away from a fight with a moth these days.

Great user name Mr Pitt.

Careful, you’ll have so many puritanical killjoys leaping down Moral Hill it will look like a Cheese rolling contest.

E-bike threads are seconded only by the opportunity to bleat about never taking on any form of credit.

They look like a laugh. 😁

Did a long weekend away with my lads earlier this year.
Van has 110ah battery. All LCD lights. Was cold so was running the heating on gas with its 12v fan all weekend. Fridge on gas too. Needle barely moved.
I keep the battery on a C-Tek conditioner when not using the van. I’d highly recommend one.
Gas fridge works absolutely fine in hot weather, you can add a 12v fan from a PC to blow across the heat exchanger that makes it work a bit better but even in France we’ve not needed to.
The 12v feed to the fridge while towing will just maintain the tamp at best, it won’t cool it any further.

Awful news.
PP says “Fund closed…” ?

I bought one for work. £1900 lifted in to place for a new 20ft one. Nothing is thief proof given enough time & the right tools but to say they are only as secure as a shed is a bit off the mark. You wouldn’t be peeling up the side easily, like a cheap metal shed.
They need ventilation otherwise a wet bike would wreak havoc.

Pay it. Chalk it up & move on. Life is too short.

“Herding Cats”…I thought this was going to be a thread about being a Beavers Scout Leader. :-)

Head to Whitemead. Indoor pool & lots of outdoor activities you can book on to. Nice pub on site with decent food too. We are there in a fortnight. Kids were given the choice for hols this year but chose Whitemead, which we were over the moon with because we love the place.
We might be heading down to Simmonds Yat while there, to see about canoeing.

A 415mm fork is quite low. Would it even fit a 29” wheel…

Calpol or Medised, with a Piriton chaser.

Please don’t do this. :-)

Amazon or EBay are bound to have fabric you could drape over their inner tent.
Could you position a gazebo over their sleeping pod, adding sides if needed ?

Youngest just woke me, kids bedrooms are like ovens.
So got him dressed & the two of us went to Tesco for a couple of fans. :-)

The FSA web site had a list of lenders with links to their claim pages. They then contact you with a link to an online form, one of mine was a paper form though, but the actual form is the same. Part of the process is a phone call, but they are just asking the same questions of s script. It’s honestly not a lot of work for what was for me as substantial number of payouts.
I honestly had no idea some of the lenders had these policies running.

The Go-Outdoors one is pretty good. Certainly as good as our Kampa one.

I built my lads a pair of Spesh Hotrocks. S/H full bikes are usually knackered, but the frames are pretty bombproof, & light. They get on ok running 1×10. Both bikes are ridiculously light, the XS one especially as it runs carbon rigid. It’s about 21 lb. I’ve some Sid’s to go on shortly.

I’m running a FDS wheel on my lads RDS carbon On-One fork, I just milled some off the calliper mount.

I did my garage with a kit from an online firm. Old roof was sound so just over boarded with 18mm OSB. The EPDM is an easy enough job for a confident DIY’er.

Had a few tents over the years, I wouldn’t buy Kampa again. Our £900 awning lasted a year before we needed to re-proof it. A year on it needs doing again. Kampa couldn’t give a toss. Their kit looks very good but one bitten etc.

Outwell Montana hasn’t leaked, in almost 10 years. Would happily buy again.

Coleman even longer than that. But this is Coleman of old, not sure what new stuff is like.

Avoid anything with large, flat areas unless they have a good slope on them.

I built my lads a Spesh Hardrock each. Rigid Exotic forks, big tyres, basic 1 x 10 Deore kit. They loved how light & chuckable they were. Both running Sids now, picked up cheap off classifieds. If I was doing it again I’d put a 29er forks on them, the slacker HA worked better when running rigid over rough stuff.

Bad Moms. Predictable, shallow & crass in parts, but it was funny.

My lad is nagging me for one of these..,
Apparently it’s Ryan Taylor’s brand.

BMX's

This needs to go on Dull Men’s Club.

I bought the Wife a new Tiguan last year. Its surprisingly roomy inside, in a different league to the nold Tiguan. Basically the same as the Seat Ateca & Skoda ?? (something).
Drives very nicely, has lots of toys etc. Very impressed with it as a family motor.

Not a patch on my olf Ford Galaxy though.
Its like a posh (old) van.

Bucket seats, in my 1979 Capri, from which I’d already removed the rear seats in readiness for my attempt at a roll cage from some scaffolding.

Needed to pop to Motormania so just loosely bolted the aforementioned bucket seats in. Big mistake, the impact of which became apparent when I tried to drag race from the lights. Front bolts predictably came loose & the seats tipped back. Car lurched forwards & stalled, in the middle of the lights. I was now trapped, clutching in vain at the hand grips & steering wheel. Luckily someone spotted my predicament & opened the door, allowing me to crawl out into the road. I was more peed at tearing my snow washed denims.

Is it the Wet belt ?

If so, new engine time.
Probably £5k it thereabouts, double that from Ford.

“We can do that, cant you…”

Adequately sums up life at the cutting edge of pneumatic s design.

Did it with 26” / 29” on an Inbred once, that was s beast.

Of late my SIR.9 is set up 27.5+ / 29+.
You get the daft roll over anything of the 29+ but the 27.5” rear gives it better acceleration.

I ran a rigid single speed like this for a years worth of pounding around Cannock. I popped an off cut of steerer in to stop it crushing the stem.

They need lubricant, first off. Not much, literally just a smear. O-rings will try to roll if dry.
If you can, try tipping it slightly, so one bit compresses into place, then roll it around the rest. Sometimes, trying to radially compress one is diffucult.
We assemble pretty much everything thing we make with o-rings, I’m as ham fisted as Shrek, but the assembly girls make it look easy.

Beko Heat Pump model here, had it a year. Used several times a week. Does an excellent job. Programs range from damp dry to bone dry. Very impressed with Beko. Certainly on par with Shitpoint.