A blood-drenched sticking plaster, the sort that caterers use when they get cuts so they can see them if they come off their bleeding fingers when they are making your sandwich.

is there anything comparable to the Alpkit Koala bag (on price and size), but in stock?

Ive got a Wildcat Gear seat harness that holds a drybag. Ive used it with a 13l drybag though not sure if you’d get all that kit into it, especially the mat. Have you tried rolling your sleeping bag in the sleeping mat? Lot of us do that as it helps make compacting the bag easier.

Anyhoos – linky below for the Wildcat harness.

http://www.wildcatgear.co.uk/shop/seat-systems/wildcat-gear-tiger/

The Islabikes are a great choice. Pricey but they hold their value so you shouldn’t lose too much if and when he outgrows it and you sell it on. What about a BMX? Easily get a nice one that’s not too heavy for heaps less than an Islabike. He’ll find the upright position easier to manage and you can put a longer seat post on it.

^^ How come? That Appleby 500 dome tent looks brilliant – should be easy to pitch, lots of standing room, and a built in tarp over the entry. Methinx one might be making its way into our home sooner rather than later.

Had a Halfords one for two years and its pretty good. Pretty good value and it’ll happily freeze stuff solid if you leave it closed for a couple of days. Only issue with it is it’s a noisy bugger.

Echo a lot of what was said up there ^^^^

Also choose the campsite carefully or you will end up in an overcrowded zoo.

Camping isnt camping without a fire but sadly most places have banned them (perhaps understandably) The sites on this website allow them:

http://campfiresburning.org/

And these ones all look rather nice too, though some seem to take the p… on pricing/pretentiousness.

http://www.coolcamping.co.uk/

Watches … meh. How about a nice took kit?

Dreams by the Cranberries.

Aussie magpies are nasty too. You’ll be blithely wandering through a park somewhere minding your own business when out of the sky swoops a two-tone feathered missile of death sticking its beak deep into your skull. Bigger than our UK ones too. Hate em.

On One Fatty here. It’s brilliant and will be even better when I finally get one of their carbon forks. Have you had a look over on the ukfatbikes.co.uk classifieds? Often some great bargains there.

Some waterproof sunscreen? Zinc stuff is good.

When it’s nearly midnight and you’re thinking it’s time for carriages and she asks which night club you want to go to.

Have you tried the Caravan and Camping Club site? Lots of the club sites have statics or lodges and you don’t need to be a member to stay at most of them.

http://campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/ukcampsites/

Pet dog white wedding dress (small)
Pair of Conti Tour Ride 29er trekking tyres
Long black hooded cape (scary)
Trangia windshield and stand
Clarks brake and cable end caps (500)

Yeah, Specialized for the fact they were there “at the beginning” and have pushed things on for decades. Great company and great products, none of which I have ever owner other than a few of their tyres …

Harry, clearly you’re getting soft. Get your arse up there son. We want pix after.

Those body bags look a right nightmare especially if you get hot and need to hang a leg out. I tend to just open up my sleeping bag if its not too cold. Have a look at some camping quilts or down blankets – not cheap in the UK but very light. Couple here. The UK Hammocks stuff gets good reports and they look pretty good value.

http://ukhammocks.co.uk/online/shop/category_4/Quilts.html

http://www.ultralightoutdoorgear.co.uk/equipment-c3/sleeping-bags-c21/sleeping-bags-c88/thermarest-auriga-down-blanket-p2414

We did it ourselves for the first year or two, and its a bit of paperwork and not that tough, but we eventually hired nannytax to handle it all and they were very good. It was about a tenner a month (that was three years ago) and well worth it, especially when our nanny got pregnant, which made things a bit more complex.

http://www.nannytax.co.uk/

This place opened up last year and have a good range of kids gear, mostly Polaris but some others. They’re extremely helpful with info on sizes if you give them a call too.

http://www.thelittlebikecompany.co.uk/cycle-clothing/cycle-jerseys/short-sleeve.html

I have a five year supply of freeze dried food in a bunker deep under my back garden. It has its own solar/wind powered generator, short wave radio, compost loo etc etc etc. If and when the world ends, me and mine will be fine till the radioactive dust settles. Don’t bother knocking.

Years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and needed a pee, so off I went to the bathroom. Mid-stream I let out a ripping fart, a right pearler, and then a split second later, I heard the sound of someone’s exasperated tutting and I turned round to see the shape of a woman in a white dress floating over the bath. I squealed in terror and fled the bathroom, peeing all over myself in the process. My wife came running but saw nothing. I have no idea whether I was still half asleep and just dreamt it but even now it brings the hairs on my neck up thinking about it.

What poonprice and others say – go social media postal. We had 2 months of crap from BT just to get connected until Mrs Browndog went on a twitter rampage and it was sorted in days.

Selle San Marco Rolls on my touring/shopping/carting the dog to the vet bike. It’s 10 years old in June, has done maybe a million miles, give or take, mostly in blizzards and its still rather nice. They come with ti rails these days too.

So what happens when they dispose of something that isn’t actually on what sounds like a very long list of stuff they won’t carry? Does Nell F get compensated for their idiocy?

on and on ^^ :D

Kathmandu have a range of reasonable quality/value mats. LInky We had some of the self-inflators for the kids and they were pretty tough and reasonably light. But check out the range from Exped – the down mats and synmats – if you think you might want something lighter and better insulating.

You can’t really go wrong with an MTB in that area. Finding trails is easy – there are forests all over the place, most with fire trails throughout them and loads of single track trails. No hassle from anyone for riding them either. Take a couple of different tyres, some semi-slicks and some for more rocky stuff.

I’d take the road bike though. You can ride the strada bianchi which are brilliant white gravel roads mostly the Chianti region, but stay on the tarmac and marvel at how smooth and well designed a back country road can be. The drivers are great giving riders more space than you will ever need. Italian clubbies are right friendly too. If you get passed by them they will call you in the bunch and try to teach you Italian.

Are those socks with Crocs? Yes? Glad Im not the only one.

I love him and hate him but I think I hate him more.

I’m glad we settled that, but more importantly what sort of classroom has 18 girls and only 6 boys? Some real gender diversity issues going on there. And it couldn’t be an inner city government school, could it? Never seen one with less than 30 kids in it. Bloody outrage!

Can you turn it into a camp ground? Sort of place where your kids can run riot, you can have an fire, rope swings from the big trees etc etc. You’d need a shower block/washing facilities but proper campgrounds are becoming very popular as more and more folk are trying to get away from caravaners and manicured lawns.

I watched this some time ago when I was thinking of making my own frame bag (never did). Some great tips and hints.

Point North have a good solid range of outdoor fabrics.

http://www.profabrics.co.uk

How about a Wildcat Ocelot? Doesn’t fill the whole frame space but range of sizes there.

http://www.wildcatgear.co.uk/shop/frame-bags/ocelot/

1999 WRX just like this one. Bought it new and only had it for six weeks before it was nicked. Fun six weeks though.

My Inbred 29er. Use it mostly for overnighters these days as my OO Fatty comes out a lot more often.

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Ignoring the above, captainsideburns, sorry, didn’t measure the internal rim width and Ive got the tyres on and Stans goop in there so will be leaving them there till the mud dries up.

I don’t mind being sold bankrupt stock and will update if and when the hubs fail and what OnOne’s response is. Hoping that wont be for some time.

Ok, so:

– the hideous graphics are indeed stickers and they are not all that sticky and come off easy enough.
– they come with QR’s and they’re reasonably light and work fine, though not exactly the prettiest things.
– spokes are round rather than bladed.
– no idea whether they are Shimano hubs. OO says they are but they aren’t branded, but then the Shimano hubs on my wife’s bike aren’t branded either. FWIT, the bearings are nice and smooth and we’ll see how well sealed they are in the next month or so.
– they are proper tubeless rims and I fit some regular tyres to them today (Michelin mud thingies) and they went easily enough. No rim tape needed.

These Selcof wheels arrived today (less than 24 hours after ordering). Weighed them and they are just under 1600g so a tad less than the claimed 1650. All spokes are tight and evenly tensioned. I stuck them both on my jig and they are as close to perfectly round as a wheel needs to be.

Did some more googling on the wheels and if you were in Spain and genuinely stupid you could pay up to 700 euros for them …

Perfect – thanks for that. Had searched ebay but these didn’t come up.

Same wheels on ebay out of Germany for £130. Ive had Selcof components before though never a wheel set. Im taking the plunge on these wheels. Bought heaps of stuff from On One over the years and they’ve always been good (to me at least) on after sales service, repairs and exchange. Might get some socks while Im at it.