Just use it for ride tracking. Gave up long ago looking at segment times. Set it to approved followers only, no advertising cheeky trails. Mainly a diary of my rides plus tracks my bike components.

Though I could just use Garmin for that. It has the same data but I dont add any detail and haven’t set up bike component stuff on there. Strava is easier to use.

Occasionally kudos other people but loads are on Zwift these days and I don’t kudos garage workouts.

Maxxis often do it but have understood it’s just because tubeless ready tyres are slightly porous. The seal holds the air in but propylene glycol from the sealant weeps out a little.

Oddly I get it on the side of my wheels facing the wall when stored 🤷‍♂️. Makes no difference at all to pressure or quantity of sealant inside. Just slightly damp sidewalls, and only occasionally.

Was okay-ish in Passo Tonale last week. No powder, hard pack, crusty, but wasn’t all grass at least. Above tree line so probably helps.

Getting fed up of the post trip lurgy though. Nasty cough-tastic cold (maybe) this time, COVID last trip, may have been COVID previous one (just when it all kicked off). All been horrible. Package deals are bad especially. Too many sick people and families in the same hotel, sharing flights and transfers.

A lot of solutions I found didn’t support gapless playback which really annoys me. I did use an old Squeezebox with optical connection to my amp and Slimserver on the NAS but that stuff died and dated/unsupported now anyway.

My amp has network streaming but it’s not gapless.

Ended up with Plex on my NAS and an Amazon Fire box connected via HDMI to the amp and Plex app on the Fire box. Does gapless now.

Depends on your NAS though and the amp if it has HDMI. My NAS is Synology.

Another option may be to stream from a phone via Bluetooth.

It’s more enjoyable if you wander around outside of the all-weather cobbles and ginger, though of course there is no “off-piste” and you must stick to trails and “Fire Rides” (their words on the signs 😉). But if you do venture off, Crowthorne is worth a visit.

Problem though is more and more of the old school trails are being wiped out by logging. Used to be able to ride most of the stuff I rode 10-15 years ago up until a couple of years ago, then it all started to go, aside from the bits that were made official (the mainly dull bits).

I started my bike adventures though and it’s the birthplace of Bird as the guys rode there a lot. It’s got charms in a way, and I’ll still ride it occasionally. Just wouldn’t make a big trip to just ride there.

Gets mega busy though at weekends. Though “Bike Park”😝 Peaslake does too (though that’s only a fraction of Surrey Hills). Talking of Surrey Hills, it was surprisingly not that boggy yesterday.

Mines been in since ’87

Got a digital pre-smart meter, maybe about 2000. Was an old spinning wheel type before that and bet it would still be perfectly fine (seen a few businesses still running those kinds of meters).

Used to be on SSE and when smart meters were rolling out, they gave me all kinds of stories including must be replaced because it could be DANGEROUS! Threats of cutting off, getting a court order to replace it and all that. Ignored it all, switched to Bulb and they said nothing other than adverts saying, “would you like a smart meter”.

Though getting “your meter is old and needs replacing” stuff since Bulb got government owned.

Gas meter is old mechanical dial type.

You can pay 1/3rd of the price for 3/4/5 hours in the middle of the night or get paid to reduce your use during peak times…..

More a case that they can put up prices for peak and claim you’re saving money in so called “off peak”.

The whole project was driven by the savings to the industry of not having to send out someone to read a meter and the ability to charge different rates at different times (originally this was dismissed as would never happen).

I’m assuming they’re not so smart as to be able to identify what is using the energy, only the amount of consumption during the day so I can see what comes on when the consumption goes up?

A smart meter itself is just a meter in a cupboard. The only thing smart about it is it can in theory talk via a mobile signal to the network to send readings.

The In Home Display part is a gadget that can also talk to your smart meter and shows the meter reading and should show some kind of cost of use, if it’s talking to the supplier to get current rates. Purely optional part of the smart meter install. Billed as the thing that will make people save money but many forget about it once they’re over the novelty stage, or it never worked to begin with it, or they weren’t given one.

A smart meter would never be able to identify the actual devices. That requires all your devices to be smart also and the technology to be open enough for every gadget to talk the same language (it isn’t). Best you can do is switch something on/off and see what it shows before/after.

Though many smart bulbs and some smart switches report power usage, which may or may not be reported in their respective apps, or you can use stuff like Home Assistant if you have a home server (or a Pi) to run it on, and the gadgets are compatible.

You’re welcome to pop round and try the quadlock and phone … before you buy something. Give it a try if you like down Westfield Common .. see if it works for you

I’m trying to declutter the bars really, hence the watch. I suppose the phone would be locked onto the watch if I used Garmin Connect app so can see what it’s showing. Though my phone is almost terminal and battery knackered. Need new phone.

Westfield is running surprisingly well despite the rain. Considering how much of a bog it can get in there 😄. My favourite route towards Whitmoor.

Got some new prescription contacts arriving after the current set run out, and think I’ll try the bifocal safety specs. Not sure how to work out the dioptre required.

Thanks all. Many choices.

Varifocals are no go. They do my head in, as in actually cause eye strain and headaches. It’s distance vision along the top that’s not as wide an area as I’d like or mid/reading in a narrow band in the middle (and I paid for the widest band possible). Everything else is blurred glancing at the sides unless I move my head and reading means holding head high and peering down which hurts. Maybe less of an issue for quick glance down riding. Still though I don’t really want expensive prescription glasses for riding. Been there and it got costly after smashing them up regularly. As short sighted and got astigmatism it’s not just an off the shelf prescription.

Don’t know about multifocal contacts. Opticians (Specsavers) said they weren’t quite “there” yet and weren’t offering them until better ones came on the market, a couple of years back that was. It’s faff enough with toric lenses though.

Bifocal safety specs though might work. The bulk of the area is clear so would get distance vision with contacts looking everywhere other than down and I think wouldn’t irritate me. Reading is still a small area at the base but with riding it’s a quick glance down to the wrist.

Even then it was so I could watch them in HD having ditched Sky, and I can’t get ITV2 in HD anymore

Interesting. Having said that, turns out ITV2-4 have gone free-to-air HD and are on Freesat now.

https://rxtvinfo.com/2022/freesat-upgrades-itv2-itv3-and-itv4-to-hd

Though my satellite reception is screwed now. Some channels are getting low to zero strength, others 80% strength and quality. I had that when I was using the old Sky HD box but put it down to the box as one of the inputs worked okay, the other was dodgy regardless of swapping the cables, then the box broke anyway. Plugged into the TV instead as it has Freesat and has been working fine on all Freesat channels for last few months, but now playing up. Oddly it’s different channels to what was going wrong on the Sky box.

Though I struggle to find anything I want to watch on Freesat. Had got to that point with Sky even paying for it.

5lab
you can’t download new faces for an instinct (well you can’t with the 1, assume its the same with the 2)

The 2 does have downloadable faces. There are limits compared to some other Garmin watches though and there’s always the round thing in the top right, but many are compatible.

Though I think only for the main face. When tracking a ride, I think you only have a small selection of fixed layouts. You can customise which fields are shown in which area though and choosing a page with only a couple of items does make them bigger. Or maybe I can put some of the tracking data fields on the main face. I need to have a play.

Kryton57
Move my arm back and forth hoping I can see the time before I need to grab the bars and avoid a tree..

Kryten as a human zoom mode, move your head back and forth😄

Been stuck in a rut like this for ages. Though it’s general procrastination and increasing social anxiety for me. Covid and loving working from home hasn’t helped.

I over think things. Always have. My mind looks at consequences of every option. Has been an advantage in ways for work as I spot and plan for things way ahead that could go wrong. Though frustrates some who want things done now, but then almost always the things I knew would go wrong does and shit hits the fan. Age old, release crap now and fix it when customer complains, or wait and get it right first time.

Going for a ride, by the time I’ve decided, it’s getting dark! 😄. Though riding from home I’ll often just force myself out and make random choices as I go and see where I go. If I try to plan, I’ll never get out the house.

Buying stuff is the same. Start with a great idea of what to buy, then looking at the pros and cons, all the reviews, alternatives, and then I’m fed up and leave it for another day. End up never buying anything. 🤦‍♂️

I use it to watch Family Guy and American Dad, that’s it. Even then it was so I could watch them in HD having ditched Sky, and I can’t get ITV2 in HD anymore. Was watching those live with it but that did my head in as it would show an ad in the ap before switching to any live TV channel, only to find the live channel is showing an ad also! Now I just watch on demand, but still get too many adverts for too long. All4 ad breaks are better.

Anyway, ITV Hub is getting replaced with ITVX which also replaces BritBox with ITV taking full ownership as the Beeb have chucked in the towel (though it will still show Beeb shows).

Yeah, I’ve got an Edge 510. I got the watch partly to get away from having a gadget on the bars😄.

Bring back Google+ 😝

Sounds like another non-starter nice platform like Diaspora and a bunch of others.

Sign-up and faffing with servers is complex, so average idiot won’t sign up. Though if it gets rid of the average idiot then maybe that isn’t so bad.

I could do with ditching twitter though. It’s too toxic and under Elon’s Bond Villain like reign it will only get worse.

A legend of many talents.

While I don’t use the landline because no one else does that I’d call or be called from, I prefer the quality compared to variable dodgy quality mobile signal and constantly asking other person to move to a better location, repeat themselves or be asked likewise.

Though parents discovered Skype thanks to Covid and that’s way better on the audio than mobile voice, even on a phone. Video is another matter but it keeps them happy.

Also find my head getting warm with a mobile stuck to it for a long call. Landline and cordless phone is fine (noting, I do have a wired phone just in case, though god knows where it is).

I remember growing up in the 80’s. You’d get a huge buzz finding 1ps and 2ps (hell, if you were lucky maybe even a 5p!!!!) on the floor on the way to school. Straight to the newsagents to spend it on penny chews.

Pennies fallen out of penny falls in the arcade when you hadn’t put any in and just walk by. Used to actually be able to buy things with a few pence. Though would get chucked out for harvesting the arcade, especially the 10p coins in reject slots. Free games 😁

Earliest coin for me was 1/2p and yeah probably Black Jack’s for that. Cause of many fillings, and removal of. 50p pocket money would go a long way. £1 if your parents were well off. 😄

My main interest is a phone with a telephoto lens option and that limits choices a lot.

Most phones take way too wide angle shots and something that looks great to your eyes, looks small and distant with a lot of wasted space from the phone. Sure you can crop but often the quality is poor even with super mega pixel cams.

Though as someone used to SLRs I’m expecting way too much from tiny camera sensors in phone, but lugging and SLR or even compact around is hassle these days when just want some nice shots on a walk or ride and minimal carry.

Only advice is only eat the ones higher up.

Great job 👍. I’ve yet to check it out. Waiting for a time when kids won’t be around watching my numpty skills 😄

Been round the houses with originals, Superstar, Uberbike and others. Back to Superstar Kevlar pads now they’ve decided to stock them again and think I prefer them. They work. Least squealing. Last reasonable time and cheap. Long ago stopped using sintered or any metallic based stuff.

Uber Race Matrix I went off when then moved to thin backings. It makes the pistons come out too far when worn and on a 4 pot they get uneven or more crud gets on the exposed piston sides. Could change them earlier but kind of waste of pad.

I don’t do anywhere near enough braking to justify finned pads. Less braking is good anyway 😝

Following this. My Civic air con needs sorting out and garage say it’s a leak and needs new condenser, and want to add replacing the radiator at the same time as it shows signs of a leak at some point and cheaper to do that at the same time (but no guarantee is necessary). Would sort it, but it’s a 2008 car and cost is half the value of the car really.

The only issue I see with Oppo is their lack of commitment to Android updates

Pretty much standard in the Android world.

Most companies are looking to churn out new models all the time and Android is such a mess that it needs dedicated firmware and drivers for each one and hardware requirements limits options on latest Android for old models. Firmware has to be made for different regions and carrier deals also, per model. Then has to go through certification process which is time consuming and costly. They don’t want to be supporting old models for long. Plus if people could upgrade the software they won’t buy the latest model.

A few do three year updates I think. Many less, and some of the cheapies are basically none.

Shame Windows Phone died as at least Microsoft, for all their faults, produced an OS that runs across a lot of hardware and mobile version updated on same schedule as regular Windows 10 updates.

My local bin collections takes batteries. I just have to put them in a bag and leave it with the bins. Depends on your council though.

Outlook.com I don’t think has ads. Though I use business accounts on it not the freebies. With a modern browser esp Edge in Windows, you can install it as a Web app in Windows).

The authentication stuff is because they’re trying to force everyone off basic auth and they’d prefer to get away from IMAP/POP and SMTP. That leaves email apps that use their own protocols, ie their own apps. Though for free Outlook I don’t think they’ll kill IMAP/SMTP any time soon (they’re disabling it in new business 365 accounts). Should be able to use Thunderbird or similar.

If you’re not going to upgrade Office 2007 I’d bin it and use a freebie solution, though they’re no match. 2007 is going to be full of vulnerabilities.

ps a 365 sub gets you office plus 1TB of One Drive storage. Personal sub is cheapest, Family let’s you share licence across family accounts. Though personal you can install on multiple computers and mobiles for one account.

Secondly you could get rats

Rat in Mi Kitchen

Then what are you going to do?

I keep thinking about one of these, but I suppose I’m not that fussed about a bell on MTB trails. I’m rarely faster than anyone else and I’m also able to politely wait. Main use for me is general xc wanderings. Gravel if you like (not a gravel bike). I have an old a bit broken bell. My Covid bell as I call it for all the Covid walkers.

I’m concerned with the Timber about it not likely to be ringing on smoother surfaces. Sure could wiggle the bars but may as well have a regular bell.

Also been looking at Granite Cricket. Same idea but adds a manual ding option. Great but reviews aren’t so great. Quiet and maybe not of great construction.

I like the idea for alerting walkers in a less aggressive way though.

One posh bint shouted ‘tell your friends to get one’

I’ve had “at least you have a bell”. Yeah, thanks 🙄

I’m not sure anyone’s saying it’s irrelevant. Charging away from home is very expensive for starters.

I’ve had arguments with EV preachers about problems with charging if you don’t have off street parking. Their argument is you don’t have a petrol pump at your house, you just go somewhere else to charge as you do filling up.

However, it doesn’t take a couple of hours on good rapid charger. Usually talking about 45-60 mins.

On the above argument I had, I looked up public chargers near me and many were 13A 3kW only, shopping car park points especially. Many 7kW which is still not that nippy, and far less at a decent rate, and reviews said they were often out of service.

Full EV, another cost of charging from home is installing a charge point. Though can trickle charge from 13A domestic plug but I imagine this isn’t great.

If on street parking, that’s more tricky.

Some argue the whole issue of charging at home is irrelevant and you just go to a public charge point. Fine if you can find one rapid enough and have a couple of hours to spare with somewhere nearby to go to while it charges (I checked near me. Big town, but seriously lacking in useful charge points. Many are just 13A).

Not gone there yet but I’m EV curious as my ancient Civic is showing its age. As reliable as Honda are, anything going wrong now could be major and costly. Plus fuel prices and emissions and all that.

I wanted next car to be EV. Though I really want another Honda. Ideally an e-Civic. I’m fine with half the range, around 200/250 would be good. Honda just don’t do anything decent though. Hybrids or their city mini thing which is useless for range and no where near enough space inside.

WFH has meant more riding for me as I’m not sat in a car for 2-3 hours per day.

It should do for me but I find I’m working more at home and struggling to force myself out on a ride. Meetings with people spread over UK and other countries makes it difficult to pop out during the day and work later, so has to be night rides.

Problem with Covid is it’s screwed up a lot of the regular group rides, so often only got solo option. I like solo rides but less so in the dark. Summer is better though.

Driving to office I hated (again 2-3 hours a day depending on traffic) but I got exercise wandering around the office and to the local shop. I get very little sat at home.

Though I’ve got a new laptop now that’s got enough grunt and bells and whistles to work from anywhere so I should force myself out elsewhere to work at times (just not the office commute, hate that).

As all the above, for skiing/boarding it has some of the best powder resorts on the planet (Japan probably better, I’ve yet to go there).

I’ve been many times skiing and always stay in SLC as it’s cheaper and not far from the two Cottonwood canyons which have the best resorts. Park City / Canyons are now one huge resort, but meh and insanely overpriced. Conditions don’t hold up so well there.

Access with a little drive to other places, in particular Powder Mountain which really lives up to its name. Can pop over to Wyoming for Jackson Hole, Grand Targhee and much stronger beer.

Bikes, don’t know really but I hear it’s good, though I’ve seen strict rules about not riding in mud as it “damages the trails” (clearly they’ve never ridden in the UK). Then there’s Moab down south. North America is fairly restrictive though compared to Britain on where you can ride and a lot of private land and “wilderness” areas which is off limits (and land owners with guns).

SLC downtown itself is a bit dull, though good bars and brewpubs. Beerhive is great. Tonnes of beers. Spent all day in there 😄.

Club membership thing has gone really and you can get stronger beer from stores and also places serving food. Bars also if in a bottle. Just draft mainly is lower percentage.

The salt lake itself and Antelope Island is good. Nice suburbs around the city. No idea on education and stuff.

If there was a place in US I’d want to live it would be there. But, guns, some of the attitudes (Utah still has racism issues), politics, health care costs put me off.

I still don’t know what to do or what I’ve really got.

My existing VR sub is

Subscription name Valid from Valid to Trial Period Will Auto Renew
PREMIUM Subscription 18 Sep 2018 Lifetime Subscription No No

This comes from way back, long before 2018, more like back in old Nokia days as I bought something that gave me the app for life on any phone I installed it on. Not sure it gave me much more. OS maps are pretty low scale. Road map basic really.

Main thing that’s important to me is Open Cycle/Street Map at the current detail I get. I depend on it a fair bit to check where I am and what’s about with good detail.

Also, that you as the seller got charged VAT would indicate it’s the seller fees. You wouldn’t pay VAT on the item you’re selling, even if you were VAT registered. They buyer would (then seller passes that on to HMRC).

Second hand doesn’t mean no VAT is due. Private seller who isn’t VAT registered does. Though VAT will be due on service fees and postage which I guess is the case here.

If VAT registered trader, some second hand items can qualify for VAT margin scheme (as in VAT on the profit margin).

Imports are another matter. The buyer can still get charged VAT and duty on import to UK even if it’s a second hand item (even if it was originally bought in UK, went abroad, then you bought it from someone abroad). That’s charged by HMRC or courier though usually.

Lots of factors. The cable, the charger it’s plugged into and current it delivers (and if multiple devices on a charger, does it deliver specified current per socket or divide it up). Various charging “standards” and proprietary ones for fast charging.

A number of phones have special chargers that are able to flip into a higher voltage mode than the 5V standard, else they crawl along.

Also some get confused if they detect data and will drop into drawing 500mA which will be very slow. You can get little dongles to stick on the end of the cable that block the data pins so it will think it’s plugged into a mains charger. I use them on my powerbanks and car socket to ensure it charges properly.

FoD is overrated IMO, much prefer Surrey Hills

Depends if you mean FoD the trail centre (including the off piste), or FoD the area (inc Wye Valley).

It’s like looking at Surrey Hills as in Peaslake area or the whole of Surrey Hills which is huge and loads of great stuff.

Though I’d still pick the wider FoD over all of SH 😏 (and not just because there’s less grumpy anti bike stick people).

In home display is just a gimmick. It’s used to sell the idea that you’ll monitor your usage and turn things off to save energy and claim that’s why we all need smart meters.

There’s nothing really smart about the meters anyway, they just send readings via a signal to avoid the energy company having to send someone out, and if that works the data is more granular on usage at times of day.

My parents got one but didn’t get the in hone display, I think their choice. It’s never sent the readings as I suspect the signal is no good. Then they switched suppliers and now it definitely doesn’t work as think it’s a SMETS1. So they just send the readings regularly.

That it was a trap on an MTB trail means it was intended to harm if not kill a mountain biker. Doesn’t matter who it actually harmed and makes a more important point that often traps are on shared trails that may have unintended consequences. Though in this case I understand it’s a dedicated MTB trail (official?).