iainc – Member
The bags are great. We actually have 5 of them now.

That’s the reason I’m still waiting, you greedy bursturds are hogging em all 😉

That’s helped me decide between Switzerland & France for family camping/biking/hiking trip. Vive la Euro!

proutster – Member
I just bought a £44 disc of Windows 7 from Amazon and used Base Camp so that I now have “2” discs and just select on start-up, so that I can run the Tacx TTS4 software for my i-magic turbo trainer.

Would that work for you?

Yup, I think I’m going to give Bootcamp a go first, with Win7. I can try that before I add more memory which I’ll need to run Win apps in VM.

cheekymonkey888 – Member
depends what you are used to and how much each os costs. I’m on win 7 on parallels but would gladly move to virtualbox when I upgrade to yosemite.. Its a real drag having to upgrade parallels every time osx upgrades.

So your version of Parallels will work on Mavericks but not Yosemite? Virtual box looks a little less user friendly. I’m inclined to go for 7 because the times I’ve used Win8 its exasperated me.

I fancy one of these: I keep going thru CO2 containers, I don’t have room for a compressor. Am still toying with ghetto coke bottle compressor. Just think the bonty will be hassle free.

Did it feel well built? Did you try the compression chamber?

Thanks. Worth a punt

commuter by iancparker[/url], on Flickr

Frame was new (a few years ago) other parts from eBay & old bikes (saddle’s off a tourer bought c.1984). Only ridden on road into central London.

[/url]Winter on Pitch Hill by iancparker[/url], on Flickr[/img]

v8ninety – Member
Still not received mine. :-/

+1 😕

only had my confirmation email on 14th December. It’ll be warm & sunny by the time I get it.

MrNice – Member
rode past with a cheery hello

may not have helped. The last thing I need if I’m struggling on a hill is some smug **** cruising past being jovial while I’m blowing through my arse

🙂

Many years ago I was climbing Mount Ventoux on a touring bike weighted down with four panniers. I was completely zoned out, head down, just concentrating on the tarmac, embracing the pain. A French roadie silently overtook me and broke the silence with a cheery “Bonjour”. I was so surprised that I fell off my bike and then stood there cursing. I imagine the French roadie thought what an idiot.

I went 1 x 10 in French Alps last summer with TA in Beaufortain. Trek Remedy. Ration 34 x (11 – 36). On very steep sections I ran out of gears. I’ve since fitted a T-rex extender cog. I hope 34 x 40 will help me on the steepest climbs. On the steepest climbs the people pushing kept up with riders grinding out their granny’s.

Travel cards would be cheaper I imagine; if you have to get 4 oyster cards (each traveller needs their own oyster card), there’s a £3 deposit on each one. If you have a contactless payment card, you could use that for one of the adults (unless other adult has one as well). You swipe your contactless card at the gates, same as an Oyster. That would be cheaper than Oyster (no deposit) and will top out at the same price as a travel card (or less if you don’t travel as much as intended).

Ahh the tapeworm’s the bonus: slim while you eat while you eat, or maybe not: parasitic slimming aid

Your biggest issue with sukiyaki is over cooking the meat: the dish in the middle of the table is on a gas burner, boiling away. You may not like the next bit: with your chopsticks you take the slice of beef or pork straight out of the cooking dish or nabe and dip it raw egg and eat. Oishii!

After much research I bought the Bose Soundlik mini from JL (Its a bit cheaper at present: £150). Its great. Use when traveling for work. I get over 7 hrs continuos use out of it. Mrs T now uses it home as well; never need to turn the volume up high. As everyone’s mentioned, place it backside to a wall to get deeper base/more resonance. I think the charging base is a bit pointless and annoying they didn’t use a mini USB port for charging. Its a 9/10

There are growing number of STW’ers that we have had the pleasure of hosting. Most are repeat guests.
Hopefully some are in the morning crowd and will share their experiences?

Happy to oblige: 6 of us had week in Whistler bike park courtesy BBB. Fantastic. Guide in the mornings took us around the bike park. Progressed us through the week: by the end we were hitting some of the pro line jumps/drops. The catered chalet is very good value. We had friends who stayed self catering in the village when we were there: they blew through more money on 3 meals a day than we spent for our week with BBB.

Hoping to return in 2016 when we’d like to experience the BC around Squamish.

For your 50th: a week with Bearbackbiking at Whistler.They provide a guide in the morning, park or BC. Our guide had us riding some of the Pro-line features by the end of the week.

Catered in a great Chalet. We did a week there; you’ll want more, but 6 days is fine; arr. Sat lunch. Ride Sun – Fri. Return Sat, flight arr. back in UK Sun am. We’re going back in 2016.

Downside is riding the park at Whistler will ruin all other bike parks for you, everything else will seem poor after that.

tuskaloosa – Member
Creme fraiche pancakes, bacon, berries and some good ol canadian maple syrup..

Snap: homemade American-style pancakes, crispy streaky bacon & Canadian maple syrup. Mmmmm delicious.

My Lake District Essential Trails book just arrived in the post: looks very good. Coupled with 2 or 3 days guiding I think I’ll easily fill a week with big mountain rides.

I assume from the link and your forum name you’re a professional guide?
How much are your daily rates (my emails in my profile)?

You have mail! Thanks

Tom, my replies to you are bouncing back (I xxx’d your address below):

“A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of
its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address
failed:

“tom@xxxxxxxxxx.co.uk”:
no valid MX hosts found

Cheers!

^^^ Nope, nothing yet. I was hoping to get it before my next appointment with a muddy car park at BPW on the 29th.

mtbguiding – Member
I’d recommend this one http://www.northerneyebooks.co.uk/neb/books/lake_district_mountain_bike_routes.php
But then I would

Happy to advise on any of the routes if needed?

I assume from the link and your forum name you’re a professional guide?

How much are your daily rates (my emails in my profile)?

DP

A good variety of routes but you might also want to have a look at the PedalNorth site

just don’t choose this one

Is it bad in a good sort of a way or just bad in a pointless sort of way?

I’ve seen some good routes on there and 3 from our group road the Dales with one of the guys from Pedal North; extremely nice bloke who was prepared to show strangers the trails.

Big 13mm chain through bikes & rack when in car park. When riding all the arms on the rack go in the boot. Thule rack locks on tow ball.

Yeah thats what I thought about the bell. But its more an extra security add on for what was/is just riding rather than DH discipline.
Option of Bell at £70 30% off that is without chin bar and iirc comes with mips as standard…?

I fancied new Bell Super with MIPS. Had a feel of one in the States. Thought £70 was a bit steep (only on my return realised the MIPS version is about £120 on CRC. Doh!). I still like the look of it: good rear coverage, like the styling, go pro mount and the MIPS sounds promising. I’d buy it at £70.

I found the coke didn’t make it sweet. Generally underwhelmed by the kitchen goddess’s ham recipe. Imagine it would be good with a strong vintage cider.

I vote Stoke as well;

I spent many a weekend there visiting girlfriend at N. Staffs Poly: she was the only one on her course who was a 1st choice candidate. She visited the college in a blizzard and didn’t see Stoke. She cried for the 1st week she was there. Grim 5 towns pretending to be a city, and we come form the North East: it makes Middlesbrough look cosmopolitan. That said I haven’t been back since 1988, and I aint ever going back.

I put 180 totem coils on my Voltage. Single crown good for tighter twisty trails but burly enough for straight lining thru the rough stuff.

8.5 mile commute. On one scandal: 1 x 1: 32 x 15. You might see me pedalling my nuts off on the Old Kent Road (London). Does wonders for my cadence. Only issue is when it snows: single speed on slicks is not much fun.

I thought the point of Secret Santa was to give people utterly shiiiiite presents? ….dawning realisation why no one talks to me at work…..

After successive weeks in the Alps/or Whistler since 2010, I’m taking our bunch to the Lakes for a week of natural riding. Self catering & self guided.

Tried to organise a weeks guided riding in NW Scotland this summer, but it was about twice the price of a week in Alps fully catered. Pity.

boku wa torihada!

1. The Doges Palace. Amazing place: you realise what a powerhouse Venice was.

2. The Guggenheim Museum. Most amazing 20th Avant-Get arde art collection.

3. Drink Aperol Spritzer. Hic

4. Eat cuttle fish black ink pasta. Mmmmm

Once took my waterproof gloves off on a cold wet winters ride in Swaledale. I couldn’t get my freakin numb fingers back in the darned gloves. “My kingdom for a wooden spoon”

I want to replace them (without dedicated liners). But can’t make my mind up.

My replacement 90cm wide rangecooker due this morning; installers removed old Baumatic Range cooker (12 yrs old and not economical to repair, esp. as Baumatic went bankrupt). Fitter tested gas & elec. and went to get new Rangemaster off the truck: “sorry mate, your cookers not on the truck. It appears to be out of stock.” Meh!

My tuppence worth:
1. make sure smaller tall oven is fan assisted as well as larger oven (and you can select fan assist or convection).
2. Dual fuel; gas hob & elec. oven is best (I never get on with induction) especially if you wok cook.
3. Make sure ovens go to near floor level. You’ll see on cheaper cookers (like my Baumatic) space under cooker and a storage ‘drawer’ below ovens. On the more expensive cookers there is no drawer, resulting in a second oven that should be the same size as main oven and a dedicated grill.
4. Make sure doors have vertical hinges (open left & right rather than up or down). My ovens have hinge at the bottom, I think the levered weight has contributed to hinge failure. Also you have to lean over open hot door when loading/unloading oven.

footflaps – Member
Don’t go for two ovens if they are both too narrow to get the turkey in
Well you could always cut the turkey in half…

When I was a kid my Dad bought a 47lb frozen turkey for Christmas from someone in the pub. No way would it fit in the oven. So while still frozen he had someone run the beast through a band saw. We had 1/2 a turkey for Christmas dinner.

thanks OP for the heads up. Dunno how I didn’t know about these. Just ordered the large duffle bag; no more standing on a sainsbury’s bag in a muddy car park for me.

I was charging my 3 yr old iPhone 4s 3 times a day; took it to Apple. They checked & the battery was FUBAR. Considered buying off eBay and DIY fitting, but it seems a lot of the ‘genuine’ apple batteries are refurbs or reclaims (from old phones), hence people complaining their ‘new’batteries have 300 cycles on them already (have a look at some of the Amazon comments). As far as I’m aware no one supplies ‘genuine’ Apple batteries. Did’t fancy sticking a chinese copy in my iPhone, though some people have had no problems.

So for £59 and 45 mins at the Apple store, I now have a iPhone that is lasting 2 days. Interestingly they offered me a ‘new’ replacement like for like iPhone for £149. This maybe because I buy my phones from Apple direct, contract free.

I’ve got a 60 plate Outlander. I bought it because I wanted a car big enough to get a family in for 3 weeks mountain biking/camping. I’ve taken four big bikes and four adults to the Lakes, Scotland & the Alps (with a roof box). Its not the new PHEV but the diesel is economical (with bikes on the tow bar). Driving is comfortable, car’s reliable (good old Japanese) and fellow bikers have commented on much room there is for rear passengers. I’m keeping it until the wheels fall off.

Sticks Pass at the end. Great descent. Will be back for more.