I did RAB 7 years ago in absolutely awful weather. It was a great experience and really stress free with everything organised (like bike transport to and from start). I’ve done loads of cycling trips over the years and it was one of the best

It depends. I’ve broken left and right. Right 15 yrs ago complex break and ligament damage, required surgery / plating and lots of medical intervention. I broke the left 9 weeks ago (first day in alps and same day of the year as 15 yrs before) distal break and has pretty much fixed itself, sling for a week, I didn’t even bother to see the GP. Just a bit of physio on it now.

450 Bhp  hybrid – but it never feels fast or that powerful (it’s probably the way they add up petrol+electric). It is a nice lazy tourer and local runabout on the battery.

I pootle around like a OAP in my Volvo hybrid these days and I’m not much into fast roads. I wouldn’t but another fast estate just since it never seems worth it here in the SE. I do have though a couple of quick track cars. Definitely the best place to get speed kicks these days. I’d suggest a boring Skoda estate to the OP and a cheap track car for thrills?

I’m with Submarined. I wouldn’t have a car like that since they can attract the wrong sort of attention to your home. Even in leaf Surrey lots of similar cars get nicked, mostly via relay theft, but occasionally with aggravated break ins. I wouldn’t want that risk/hassle.

Perfect thread timing. mrsG got a 3monthj AppleTV subscription with her new phone and we binged quite a bit of Slow Horses this weekend. Superb series and Gary Oldman is brilliant…

MrsG is Ted Lasso fan and we’ll try Bad Sisters based on the recommendations above

I have a Top Fuel Ex (carbon frame) that I bought earlier this year. It’s a short travel bike (120mm front) but with slightly slacker geometry. It rides really well, it’s very quick, but it isn’t a skill compensator, the Ex would be more along those lines. Although my “skills compensator” is a 150mm travel Stumpjumper.

The climb from Bedoin is relatively steady to start with and providing you are starting reasonably sensibly you should be plenty warmed up by the time you get to the start.

What I would say is check the weather very very carefully. The top of Mt Ventoux has some of the highest recorded wind speeds on earth. Check the weather and if it’s forecast windy – reconsider it! Ride the Gorges de la Nesque instead, it’s beautiful. Also the loop around Mt Ventoux is a great ride.

I did the Cingles 2 years ago. We started in Bedoin and had a lovely ride up to the top in cool early morning airs. There were shepherds with their flocks near Cafe Reynard and it was a lovely ascent. Not a breath of wind at the top. Half way down to Malucene it was blowy – holding tight onto the bars stuff and then back up. Malucene has some tough 13% stretches. I used my 34t x 34t bottom gear here. Second time at the top it was really blowing and it was a bit shaky down to Cafe Reynard. Riding up from Sault was great until we rode into a thick fog just above Chalet Reynard. Coming round the corner in the fog were 3 angry Pyrenean mount dogs belonging to the shephard (first ascent). He was nowhere to be seen. Think 100-120lb pissed off hounds, iron spiked collars and me alone in the fog. After a about 5mins of shooing and trying to get past them. One went for me and grabbed my arm. Cue even more shouting and throwing stones (I’m normally a dog lover!) before they cleared off. I got to the top with one arm covered in blood. I got in my fiends van and didn’t ride back down. Beware of the dogs!

Lots of good suggestions. Also maybe a trip out to Versailles? Although it’s a bit of a walk from the station to the Palace but nice to get out of Paris a bit.

Hotel? We stayed at the Melia Maison Colbert which was very nice. Just near Notre Dame.

its going to be lots of taxis in Paris if you don’t like the metro.

The Jedi is who me and my friends have used for jump training

jedi – UK Bike Skills https://ukbikeskills.co.uk/category/jedi/

Excellent to hear. We are with them on the 4th of August. It’s been 5years since I’ve been to Whiteroom.

We have wet UFH heating right through the house, upstairs and downstairs. We just leave it all on all the time with the thermostat set and it keeps the house at a very consistent temp. We have had to change a few valves over the years but no other issues.

Having said that our house is about 10yrs old with very good insultation and built on concrete slabs. I wouldn’t put it anything other than a new build.

The new Honda Prelude concept was a great looking thing. Not BEV sadly. Lots of generic Honda BEV SUV things though…

I was at the Goodwood Festival of Speed today looking at electric cars. Ford were there and I had a poke about a new Capri. It was a generic BEV SUV with an iconic name but not much else to make it stand out from all the other BEV SUV. Yes very similar to the Polestar 3. One thing though was that there were numerous Chinese brands (Eg. YangWang – BYD’s premium brand apparently?) that I’d never heard of (and I own a Chinese Volvo so no issue). Maybe they will kill most Western car companies.

Also The design compromises of a high floor and sloping roof in these BEV SUV meant they all seemed to have small boots for large cars, except the BMW i5 Estate (yes not a SUV) and the Tesla Model Y which has a massive boot. Not enough for a couple of medium/large dogs for instance.

For all you retro Capri fans, there was a fabulous Mk1 Capri going up the hill

Great to see your updates Spicer. I had a complete tear of my ACL 30yrs ago and my son did his 3 yrs ago, both playing footie.

My lad, who is very good footballer, had a patella tendon repair and did huge amounts of physio. It took him ~18months to get back to full competitive fitness. He has no issues now.

Mine back 30yrs ago, was a very invasive surgery option with lots of long term issues (“you will need a knee replacement in 20-25yrs). I gave up all the less knee friendly sports, squash, running, footie and concentrated on cycling. I’ve raced at a high level and I’m still biking (Alps in 3 weeks) and I have the same knee. I get the odd niggle and I’m careful about some movements.

Hopefully it all continues to get well for you! Try to avoid the worst sports for your knee.

Our lovely sweet little Border which didn’t make it through his cancer op last week. 10yrs old. Too young for a Border. Was Sonic, sonicator or Mr Sonic. Much missed.

Shadow our Patterdale is Shad or more usually the Patterdevil or the Twaterdale…

South Pembrokeshire would be my choice. I’ve never found it too busy and most importantly it has some epic dog friendly beaches. Especially for an energetic collie. Like Freshwater West (Dobbie Beach), Newgale, Boshertom etc…

Non tutbo, natural aspirated Japanese petrol (speaking at the owner of a 16yr old Honda Accord estate that has never given us any issues). Maybe auto too (no clutch?)

We had a futile attempt to get across the airfield last week and can only echo what everyone else said. You have to head into Ripley to get across the A3.

The planning for the airfield houses news it is a bit of a non sh*t Sherlock moment. Why else would they build the Ripley access road on the north side of the A3 with a fly over when they could have built a much cheaper slip road on the south side. For the new houses!

I’d also say that given how awful some care homes are I would consider spending the cash to give someone you care for (in terms of a loved one) a decent standard of care if they can.

My favourite version of Road to Nowhere, after Talking Heads, is Nouvelle Vague/Sandra Dee. Really beautiful version.

Once your wife/partner gets a horse there are never any arguments about time spent doing or cost of MTBing..

Doha was great this morning. On to LGW which gets a special “best” mention for the most efficient security system in any major airport I’ve been too. American airport security people should be made to come to Gatwick to learn how it’s done.

Worst. Luton, LaGuardia, Geneva, Brussels. All depressing hovels. Terrible security queues in Geneva and Brussels. Luton and LaGuardia like they didnt finish building them. Dublin is pretty grim too.

Lots of good ones. I’m just 20mins from landing in Doha now, which is pretty nice. Detroit Metro – so well organised for a US airport. Copenhagen – scandi cool. Just simply the coolest one. Palm Springs. Glass walls and no buildings means you can sit in the sunshine waiting for your plane at the gate.

The most impressive worst to best transformation. The terrible old New Orleans terminal to the fab new one

You should be fine as long as you aren’t changing airlines. Say emirates -> emirates is easy. No need to go through customs or anything like that. It’s an efficient place

That is a terrible mixture of parts, some interesting (brakes, forks) some cheap (new alvio chainset) some horrible (stem). It’s a frankenbike at best.

HoD / Profs can make good supervisors but you are probably going to see less of them than someone lower in the food chain. Especially if they are constantly out at conferences / meetings etc..Or do they run their PhD students supervision via Post/docs – if so do you get on them. You sound pretty grounded and probably need less day to day supervision which might suit a Prof/HoD well

Some very good advice here. To do a successful PhD student  you should to be hugely interested in your subject – it’s going to be your life for the next for years. Also choose your PhD supervisor(s) very very carefully. The personal relationship between the student and supervisor can really make or break a studentship.

Can you talk to former PhD students? See how it went for them? What’s the supervisors pass rate for students (should be near 100% these days)? How many students are they supervising at one time? Are they normal (as much as any academic can be 😄)? Will they be hands on / hands off? What’s their publication record like. Great researcher’s won’t necessarily make good supervisors?  I say all these things as a PhD supervisor.

And to those folk who “I want to be called Dr”. Forget it. Otherwise you spend your life telling people “no not a medic”. I never use Dr anywhere except where required in the career.

lastly will it be worth it for your career?

When I walk the dogs round the local rounds there are a few places where the footpath is above the road and I’d say between 1/4 to 1/3 of drivers are on the phone. Usually in one hand below the window line where you can’t see them. Kinda terrifying as a road cyclist
This is what our profileration of speed cameras etc is missing ..

Yep progressive taxation. Lots of people don’t seem to understand it!

of course once you reach the higher tax band you get taxed more but you do receive higher pension benefit too in terms of tax relief.

I’d say buy some of the company shares and pay some into pensions. It’s all about diversification- investing – IMO. Pensions are low risk but to have some other investments isn’t a bad idea. The company shares are certainly more flexible for lifetime requirements than a pension. Who know how old you will need to be before today’s 21yr olds can draw a pension.

Nobody knows the future but investing in Tesco should be far less risky than a small company’s shares.

We have a XC60 petrol PHEV with the 18kw battery ( the later ones are a bit bigger for battery). Ours will do 20miles on battery so not quite your full commute. It’s better if you preheat the car with the app before travelling. We do mostly local runs and an almost weekly 350mile day round trip. It works fine for us. Diesel PHEV would probably be more economical but I wanted a petrol. Some of the latest PHEV will easily make your 24mile commute.

I can understand when people don’t realise that cycling is a team sport. They should look at todays ride. Vermeesch closed down chase after chase from the moment MVDP went and thoroughly demoralised the chasers. Epic in a very different way and seriously contributed to MVDP’s win and Phillipsen’s second

Nice colour!

2hrs is a minimum to transit in the US since (depending on airport) you will need to clear customs, pick up your luggage, check in again if you have hold luggage and go through security again. PITA

MIA is generally better than JFK for security but it’s always hard to predict.

Matrix heads are amazing to drive at night. Much better for the your view and the driver coming the opposite way. Although I appreciate they are not common and pricey. But definitely the best solution. Much better than auto dipping lights.

Also as mentioned before, driving a really low car is a major PITA now. I avoid driving my Elise at night for long drives.

I think that we all focus on these mega expensive +£10k bikes but in reality how many are sold compaired to mid and low range bikes? Also how much has Bike to Work distorted this high end market?

if you don’t want the latest model then there are always bargains out there. It’s in no way cheap but I got a carbon fibre Trek Top Fuel 9.7 (‘22/‘23 model) with a smattering of XT for £2.7k. I could have spent x3 on a new Top Fuel but past the point I bought at it’s definitely law of diminishing returns.

I can fully recommend the mid life Lotus. Enjoyable at 20mph in Wales…. or on track

The white roads Id call “easy gravel”. You can manage with normal road tyres fine even in the bumpier sections. Although if it’s wet (and I did the Strada Bianche sportive in torrential rain) the white road substrate is a bike wrecker.

Sienna is lovely to visit.

My mate’s crank fell off 5 times, no matter how much we tightened the arm bolts, on our night ride last Friday. In the end I had to push him back from the pub. The chainset was toast by the end and he had to order a new one. Riding on a loose NDS Shimano crank does seem to knacker them quite quickly.

Super frustrating for a small thing like that to ruin a ride. On a ride a couple of weeks ago one of the guys had a puncture and we couldn’t get his maxle out to remove the wheel to get a tube in (the tubeless had failed).
That was a long walk home!