Halfords price match anyway…..just bought a Thule 591 for £55 today as found I couldn’t fit as many bikes on my towbar rack as thought!

found cheapest web shop , printed out basket and took to local store

Cycle toured for several months on my own all over Europe/north Africa – left bike outside every night Mainly unlocked…..25 years ago though. I reckon if I was doing the same now it would get nicked

times have changed

Dahon is the best budget choice
Brompton are best for foldability and will get best resale though they are overpriced to begin with
Mezzo are best compromise between foldability and rideability if you can’t afford a Birdy

Did it with CRC earlier in the year. Several email exchanges with a CR rep of limited imagination really wound me up so I pushed the nuke button and got a personal reply that evening even apologizing for his delay responding but that he had been on a day off! Whole issue was sorted by his personal dude in record time with constant follow ups and I’ve probably spent double my original stake there since…

Most CEO’s are CEO’s for a reason

Restaurants for special occasions are mostly disappointing these days – spend £150+ and get average food and even more average service. Prefer pub grub and we do that a lot

Not serving crisps as a main on date night might be why we are still together after 17 years….

Scallops with Chorizo is winning with Breton chicken as a main a possible

Tartiflette would just remind us of being a chalet host!

Any more for anymore?

No Hel 20 is only on selected helmets. But 55 is pretty cheap already! Also I had a mystery discount as well (why mystery its always £5!!)

They are supposed to be warm but then for most of the year the UK isn’t so I’m sure I’ll cope and use my old spesh lid for the really hot days

The Aldi watch is superb for the money – been using it almost daily for a few weeks now and the battery life is actually better than advertised. HRM band is a bit old school but other than that can’t complain. They sell on ebay as Runtastic.

Comments on that Voekler vid are ace

@konabunny

because just like I ‘insist’ on using the train in peak hours and ‘insist’ on going away in the school holidays, as a family man in the SE of England with young children I will be using power in peak times to frivolously cook, bath my children and wash their clothes etc

Handing the power companies a license to print money to set up variable pricing where I will be the loser doesn’t thrill me too much.

“By charging more at these times the companies hope to smooth out the daily usage and thus save them money.
The consumer shouldn’t see much effect on their bills unless they insist on using mainly in the high price time bands.”

This bothers me a lot.

It’s an open act of defiance, and it’s aimed DIRECTLY AT YOU
We could form some kind of alliance, we could do what we wanted to do
And the young would live forever
And the sun would shine through the blue
If we got our hands on this nation, we could do what we wanted to do

The Malibu is better for 3 as it is bigger, more stable and has more useable storage

The Gemini is lighter (easier to get on the roof) and made in East Sussex!

You can’t go wrong with either and resale will be good on both too with the Malibu probably just edging it

Veluwe National Park Nederlands – 4hrs 10 mins

Modest mtb

Lots of GF friendly stuff too

I’ve stayed in many many statics. My method is always:

In and around the park and at night: Slid under the van on its side and locked to chassis – out of sight is normally 9/10 of the battle.

Walking off the park (to the beach etc ) or going out in the car: In the static – bin bags on the floor if muddy

Not just no mountains but no bridleways, clay soil that never drains and its way too far from the sea

Good pubs though – many pleasant evenings spent in the Live and Let Live

Hardly suprising really, Wine is designed to be drunk with food. Maybe a chilled glass of rose before hand.

Unfortunately the UK supermarkets have sussed our national psyche and leads the industry by the nose to provide endless cheap rubbish pinot so the accepted aperitif has now become 2 bottles of white and a bag of crisps. Very sad.

Grew up there. Pretty much the worst town in the uk for mountainbiking

Weird website – like its built by aliens pretending to be bikepackers. Almost too perfect!

Nobody?

Stumpy – I used to work in Katoomba. One day I was up at the resort in dense mist (very common so you weren’t that unlucky) and bus load of Japanese tourists pulled up. They all trooped out and the leader asked me which direction the three sisters were. It was a total white out, visibility down to about 10ft but I pointed in the general direction and apologized for the weather. They all pointed their cameras that way and took a photo – every one of them.

You want to be a bit careful with old luxo-barges these days
The new MOT is a lot stricter on broken gadgets than the old one was – i.e warning light on the dash telling you the heated gearknob is broken might fail you. Basically if its on the car it has to work….so the older and more fully loaded a car is the cheaper it becomes ….to start with

Hydrapak appear to be made of tissue paper – bought one from Merlin (jolla) at the beginning of April and its already going at the stitching

My Mule however is now almost 9 years old and still going strong

2cv?

Squeezebox in the lounge plugged into hifi
Squeezebox in the bedroom plugged into active speakers
Squeezebox boombox in the kitchen or garage

Music on an old dedicated imac running LMS (Logitech Media Server)

Sonos is way overpriced for what it is.

If he’d been an Old English Sheepdog you would have been fine

everything I have ever used from Oregon Scientific has been total pants

If you want cheap, you can’t go wrong with the Aldi one – 4 profiles for Hiking, running, sailing and cycling plus a custom option, HRM and 10 routes of 99 waypoints plus a digital compass wrapped up with a 3 year warranty all for £65!

If you can’t get to Aldi, they sell on ebay as Runtastic. Think they are a bit more though

I bought one and used it for the first time today. Seems perfectly good for the money. Small, light and reasonably clear. Easy to set up and the software works. Handlebar mount is a bit shonky and doesn’t fit oversized bars very well. HRM seems to be ok

All in all very pleased to get so many features for £65 and a three year guarantee – pretty useful I reckon as I can’t see it lasting that long!

I will also be using it for sailing races and it ticks those boxes as well with countdown timer, lat/long readout, waypoints etc

How about a Salsa anything/bikebuddy on each fork leg?

The column is very badly written and clearly confuses cause and effect several times as well as contradicting itself as to be a total irrelevance in the current debate.

I welcome it and more like it – let there be crappy click bait like this as well as properly thought out pieces putting forward solutions and also plenty of funny articles too

Successive governments, town planners and county councils have totally ignored cycling since the 50’s in this country

But slowly their hand is being forced and even junk like this will eventually work in our favour.

Hora, look at Derbi Terra’s Usually can be had for £1k or 1.5k and sold for the same

OP I passed my test at 40 (4 years ago) as a typical middle aged crisis biker though I did need something to commute on as well.

Lots of ground covered already in this thread but a couple of observations:

A lot of bike gear is crap. Expensive and crap. Crap jackets which aren’t waterproof and don’t fit properly for £250 etc. Same goes for boots gloves etc – compared to mtbing kit lots of it is useless and not fit for purpose. I can’t believe bikers have put up with it. Just be careful what you buy unless you can afford Rukka or one of the other top brands – even then a lot are massively overpriced

The exception is Kriega which are fantastic and worth every penny

Buy an ‘adventure’ bike or fit crash bungs – this way you can drop your bike as many times as you feel like it.

Always carry a headtorch and a high viz vest. This way when you breakdown you will be visible

Second the advice above, especially for Scotland. Get a double sit on to start with – there are some nice designs these days which don’t look like bath toys and paddle reasonably well, Wilderness systems Tarpon 130 for instance You are a bit exposed on them but you won’t get into too much trouble and they are unsinkable

Then if the bug bites you will probably want to join a club and get into Sea Kayaking – Scotland is made for this.

Topeak superchuck

Someone on here recommended it.

Best thing ever bought for under a tenner

You will injure yourself. Not if but when. Everybody does eventually. Its a real pisser as long distance running (especially over tough terrain) gives you real legal high quite unlike long distance cycling. Longest race I did was only 36 mile so a baby ultra really and it was only 2 years ago but now I can’t really run more than 2 miles……luckily it hasn’t impacted my cycling too much

Edit: Completely agree with nedrapier above. I wasn’t.

Delta kites are more fun in this price range as £50 won’t get you much of a traction kite (the soft wing style) and are more fun to use in parks etc

Decathlon do a great range of cheap delta kites

almost as boring as guildford

I think Rick Draper has stolen her Nomad

Got woken up by a cup of tea and my two girls singing a special fathers day song they wrote!

Then downstairs for a cooked breakfast with MTB UK (suprisingly OK considering I havn’t read it since the 90’s) and THE CYCLIST on the table along with a couple of craft ales for later.

Wife unfortunately had to work so I got a coupon for a unrestricted day off sometime soon

Took the kids to the beach with some friends and flew kites

Went to pub on way back for a pint of LongMan beer

Back now and drinking aforementioned craft ale whilst eating Pizza

Mtbing is an incredibly cheap pastime to get into and has never been cheaper due to the amount of secondhand kit now available and generic Chinese imported stuff.

A secondhand on-one with some cheapo consumables from the online chainstores can be had for less than £250

Decathlon shorts,gloves and a pair of trainers and a £30 helmet is all you need to ride

Lessons? Nope
Expensive club fees? Nope
Specialised transport equipment? Nope
The outdoors is FREE (and even trail centres don’t cost much)

On most UK trails an expert rider will blitz most mediocre riders on the above kit (hardcore downhill gnar excluded)

Its a BARGAIN!

All the rest is just nice to have

Transalp every time

The engine is totally unstressed (as are most Transalp riders) and will go on for ever, 100k no problem – plus its more tolerant of bad servicing and consumables are cheaper

The bike is far more comfortable and will be less irritating day to day on the commute