A nice read for a Friday afternoon, all about the joys of GPS*

*Graphical Pathfinding Scrawls

Hyppy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2024 10:27 am

voodoo_simon wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 7:36 pm I do the tube swap for them …

You're doing it wrong. We're all doing it wrong. I've just ̶s̶p̶e̶n̶t̶ wasted 12 minutes of my life watching this and don't know where to begin with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grnmMPnnhq4

Isn't polystyrene dissolved in acetone pretty much what napalm is?
Using bits of old inner tubes as patches in an old, old trick. Still better of using rubber solution though. I am, however, vaguely interested in trying the acetone and polystyrene goop in an inner tube trick to stop getting all these bloody punctures! (Cue exploding tyre)

Very cheery Friday here, actually going bikepacking for a few days, in what promises to be superb weather, from tomorrow evening

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2024 6:28 pm Very cheery Friday here, actually going bikepacking for a few days, in what promises to be superb weather, from tomorrow evening

Where the hell are you? Clearly not blighty

fatbikephil wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2024 6:59 pm

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2024 6:28 pm Very cheery Friday here, actually going bikepacking for a few days, in what promises to be superb weather, from tomorrow evening

Where the hell are you? Clearly not blighty

But yes it was!!!! On King Alfred's Way! Wall to wall sunshine for three days... post on BAM thread to follow in a bit...

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 5:23 pm

fatbikephil wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2024 6:59 pm

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2024 6:28 pm Very cheery Friday here, actually going bikepacking for a few days, in what promises to be superb weather, from tomorrow evening

Where the hell are you? Clearly not blighty

But yes it was!!!! On King Alfred's Way! Wall to wall sunshine for three days... post on BAM thread to follow in a bit...

Watch them stingers!

Dave Barter wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 5:34 pm

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 5:23 pm

fatbikephil wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2024 6:59 pm

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2024 6:28 pm Very cheery Friday here, actually going bikepacking for a few days, in what promises to be superb weather, from tomorrow evening

Where the hell are you? Clearly not blighty

But yes it was!!!! On King Alfred's Way! Wall to wall sunshine for three days... post on BAM thread to follow in a bit...

Watch them stingers!

Stingers? Nettles, brambles, or bitey flying things?? I think we had them all...

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 5:45 pm

Dave Barter wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 5:34 pm

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 5:23 pm

fatbikephil wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2024 6:59 pm

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2024 6:28 pm Very cheery Friday here, actually going bikepacking for a few days, in what promises to be superb weather, from tomorrow evening

Where the hell are you? Clearly not blighty

But yes it was!!!! On King Alfred's Way! Wall to wall sunshine for three days... post on BAM thread to follow in a bit...

Watch them stingers!

Stingers? Nettles, brambles, or bitey flying things?? I think we had them all...

Aren't they what the police use to stop recklessly ridden stolen mountain bikes?

Yup, cheery!
A fairly full on week at work as my colleague who leads on parking management is off on long term sick and I've been asked / told to stand in - so I'm currently responsible for parking enforcement in Fife, which is at least as bad as you can possibly imagine. However, my reign of terror will hopefully make it into the papers, just before my colleague comes back to work.

So, aside from that, I've sold some stuff which is good as it's going to good homes, and also in a one in / one out style of thing, I received this today:



Which is very cheery, although I'm probably due a kicking for getting another bike (sorry Straggler)

Also managed a 2 1/2 hr bike ride round the local woods and was just pedaling back up through the village when the rain came on - it's now weeing it down (again)

First beer evaporated somewhere between mouth and stomach, second incoming

Nice little photo there Phil, you building up a SS gravel?

voodoo_simon wrote: ↑Sun Aug 04, 2024 11:01 am Nice little photo there Phil, you building up a SS gravel?

Yup. Poor old Strag relegated to commuting duties now that the Crosscheck is gone.

Corrugated downtubes, is bamboo so last year?

ledburner wrote: ↑Thu Aug 08, 2024 9:59 pm Corrugated downtubes, is bamboo so last year?

Recycled cardboard bicycle frames are the future

Looks nice

Survived a weeks camping with the rest of my family, including the apocalyptic rain on Sunday afternoon / evening.

Recycled cardboard bicycle frames are the future

“A century’s-worth of padlocked walk-in freezers, fifty vacuum cleaners charging themselves at a row of numbered stations, rolls of broadloom stacked like logs. More people in work clothes, some in kitchen whites, but she’s trying for tag-pulling attitude and looks, she hopes, like she’s making a delivery.

She finds a narrow stairway and climbs. The air is hot and dead. Motion-sensors click the lights for her at the start of each flight. She feels the whole weight of this old building pressing down on her.

But her bike is there, on B-1, behind a column of nicked concrete.

‘Back off,’ it says when she’s five feet away. Not loud, like a car, but it sounds like it means it.

Under its coat of spray-on imitation rust and an artful bandaging of silver duct-tape, the geometry of the paper-cored, carbonwrapped frame makes Chevette’s thighs tremble. She slips her left hand through the recognition-loop behind the seat. There’s a little double zik as the particle-brakes let go, then she’s up and on it.

It’s never felt better, as she pumps up the oil-stained ramp and out of there”

William Gibson, Virtual Light

I do that pretty much every week Gecko

Actually it's much worse than that as the new bolide feels like it's made from re-purposed coke cans. Sadly the build has stalled due to a massive brake faff. I'd ordered a rear Flat to Post mount bracket only to discover that the forks also need a rear FM - PM mount, not the front one I had already....

So I ordered another one. Except, as per IS mounts, this needs a 20mm bigger disk. I have one of these but Salsa say no (Pity they couldn't tell you the brake mount intel in the frame spec) I've also had to re-hose the brakes as they were too short. Hey ho, should be rolling next week as down to Mum and Dads this weekend

So still a cheery Friday as I'll take the motorbike down via various scenic roads.

Cheery Friday here as I have both kids around this weekend (lol both over 25) and no plans apart from much blathering

Finally took the old Soul for a proper shakedown ride. Felt pretty darn good, and i've not had a 'trail' bike like it for quite a while. Getting used to it being set up mullet, and the slight flop of the the steering compared to my rigid 29er...and seeing how the fork is for one that is second hand and a little ropey looking. It seems to work pretty well, but there's scope for some fiddling there. Need to swap shifters as the XTR one seems to be shot. Felt like an updated but much less twitchy version of my old old Rock lobster 853, which is a GOOD THING.

Today I came across a new word. Two words for the same thing, actually.

I give you:- horripilation and piloerections.

They sound so silly they cheered me up anyway.

Osculation is another, but that came years ago.

I went swimming in the Oslo fjord today, it was absofuckinglutely brilliant.

After being in Scotland, returning for only a couple of days of work, now back off for the weekend. Love short working weeks. Main reason for cheeriness was both my eldest aceing A-levels to confirm their places at Uni. They've done amazing.

Well done the Rapideye kiddos. Happy Friday here after a few beers watching the sun go down over the harbour

Friday you say? Well I'm not sure whether this is Cheery Friday, or What Are You Listening To Now or What Are You Drinking Now, or probably all three, but it's 'folk night' at Leighton Buzzard Brewery. Curiously I'm getting some quite strange looks when I attempt to initiate a conversation based around sleeping in ditches in the pissing rain.

Or maybe I'm just getting some strange looks full stop........



I requested a Macc Lads number but apparently they don't know any. Still, there's lots of singing with a finger shoved in their ear and closed eyes so it's all good . The dog's had three pints of "Train Robber" (Train Robber? Leighton Buzzard? Geddit?) so he's having a lie down.

This is getting weirder by the minute....and now we have the LB Folk Group singing The Ramones! (check out the T shirt! Ramones on a ukelele? Well why not eh!)

They"re piling in the back seat wack fol a daddy o....