Nice1 Dave. Don't forget, no bikes allowed (to touch the ground).

faustus wrote: ↑Fri Oct 11, 2024 9:41 pm I'm in Hay ready for an early morning ride in the Black Mountains

Lovely!!

redefined_cycles wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 12:28 am Nice1 Dave. Don't forget, no bikes allowed (to touch the ground).

Don't worry Shaf, I'm not taking a bike just to carry around!

It's Saturday morning, but not long past Friday... Managed a short run today, only 3 or 4km but it's my first one since bending my left knee the wrong way in a fell race in May and then inflaming my plantar fascitis by running the last 5km of that race with a wonky knee.

Feels good so far, fingers crossed I'll be back on the fells soon!

After many years of attempts I finally managed to clean a climb in the Dales Long Lane out of Clapham.

There's two ramps: the lower one isn't too bad and I usually manage this one, loose for the lower two thirds or so and you tend to ride into rocks that are just too big to push out of the way then it eases, still steep but solid. The upper ramp I've never managed in one, I've always either picked the wrong line or spun out. Again it's rather loose in the lower section but once that's knackered you you get into a set of disjointed rocky steps and I've always come undone on this bit - usually about two bike lengths before the difficulty eases when trying to find the right step to aim for. Grr! Got it right this time but I was breathing out of orifices I didn't know I had at the top!

I nearly said that I got up that SS Bob but I'm pretty sure I pushed both those bits .

I think I got up it back in the '80s on my 18 speed 26er

Not so cheery this week...

The farmer spread slurry on the fields behind the house (legally using that long umbilical system and applicator that pushes the slurry onto the ground). Unfortunately 12hrs later there was a deluge that hadn't been forecast. That flushed a lot of slurry into our water supply

Currently have a standpipe running full time and I've dug up an old pipe that began to leak a few years ago and set that running (I'd a good idea where it was and was within half a spade of it when digging it out!) in an attempt to try and drain the system but there was so much rain that the water level in the settling tank hasn't started to drop yet.

Once it's drained then I think a couple of fill/drain cycles on the settling tank are needed, then we need to flush the system in the house a couple of times.

Joy.

So sorry to hear that Bob. This week I've been noting a slight oil residue near the front radiator. It has an external ATF oil cooler so it doesn't rust into the radiator (or something like that, other way round) and knacker the gearbox.

Anyway, the leak is a corroded power steering pipe. £250 from them at Lexus and not made any more. Thankfully it's not the high pressure side and I messaged BMC Motorsports who do hydraulic lines. Nice man message dback and confirmed it a low pressure pipe and he has a 250psi rated one for just a few quid.

£15 spent on some jubilee clips (stainless) and the nice blue pipe. Got my pipe cutters so will sort it on Monday, God Willing.

Hope you get sorted Bob, sounds horrible!
Quite cheery here, successfully escorted Dad from care home to the Audiology clinic to get his ears re-impressioned for new hearing aids, him having lost one and broken the other sometime during his hospital stay. He was also in fine form so hopefully he is finally coming out of his delirium. Transport provided by community ambulance service which was top notch and made it all hassle free

Hope to grab a bike ride tomorrow, now drinking a well earned beer.

Good luck Bob ... private water supply is great until it isn't. Don't ask me how I know that.

A week of plumbing, boiler mending and other lovely tasks was rounded off quite nicely by finally getting another floor in the barn finished - only 2 to go now. I also got chance to begin making a fairing and so far, it's looking better than I thought it might at this stage

Go on then, I'll bite with the 'dark humour' post...

Now's your chance, Bob, to find out how good that Trailshot really is....

TBH Reg I did think of trying it

One of the neighbours has a borehole so we can grab water from that until we get sorted out.

10 years. Blimey. Thank you Stu, Dee and many others here for a remarkable period of my life, creating numerous fantastic memories. 2034 here we come....

Whilst it gradually gets harder and harder to find decent feeding and watering holes in BB Land, I've just noticed that the Railway Inn at Abergynolwyn has re-opened. Handy for WRT's in that direction. Wonder if there are any mad cows round there too....

For me, today, very cheery.

My old car had to go to the great car park in the sky. Bought another, not the same but a 2019 Ford Tourneo (10 years newer) and was very pleased until someone said,

“That's got a wet timing belt, that has. Yer wanna check it’s been done! Or you could end up with a blown up engine”.

It hasn’t. Oh Gawd, I thought, I’ve bought a pup. A new wet belt can cost over £1k because it’s a major job.

But today, and this is the cheery bit, I find out that my Tourneo has a DRY cam belt, according to the ford motors online chat service. And they should know.

Yay, how cheery is that?

Witnessed my first broken spectre yesterday

It’s kept a smile on my face today

frogatthefarriers wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 7:41 pm “That's got a wet timing belt, that has. Yer wanna check it’s been done! Or you could end up with a blown up engine”.

It hasn’t. Oh Gawd, I thought, I’ve bought a pup. A new wet belt can cost over £1k because it’s a major job.

My wee Fiesta has the EcoTec engine with the wet belt. Will probably have to have it done next year, was quoted £1.5K when I asked at local the Ford dealer. If I had the space, tools and time, I'd fancy doing it myself, as it looks like quite good fun taking it to bits...

https://youtu.be/0yx1-50iqnA

Boab wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 8:15 pm

frogatthefarriers wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 7:41 pm “That's got a wet timing belt, that has. Yer wanna check it’s been done! Or you could end up with a blown up engine”.

It hasn’t. Oh Gawd, I thought, I’ve bought a pup. A new wet belt can cost over £1k because it’s a major job.

My wee Fiesta has the EcoTec engine with the wet belt. Will probably have to have it done next year, was quoted £1.5K when I asked at local the Ford dealer. If I had the space, tools and time, I'd fancy doing it myself, as it looks like quite good fun taking it to bits...

https://youtu.be/0yx1-50iqnA

I had the same angst prior to buying my Transit until mates 'in the trade' told me to stop worrying and just buy it. Yes the wet belt seems a daft idea, but then so is the thingamabob in every doodah: every modern van seems to have its naysayers and some awful component that is gonna blow up and kill ya. Nobody is ever going to go online and say 'my van is fine' as there's no drama in that. The vast majority of all vehicles tick along quite happily. I get it serviced on time, using the correct oil, and will kick up a fuss should it ever go. Life's too short to worry about motor vehicles when there're bikes to faff over.

Hyppy wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 8:54 pm Life's too short to worry about motor vehicles when there're bikes to faff over.

Amen

The monumental faff I've had with my DRZ 400 in the last 9 months has been a bit trying but it's largely down to my own stupidity. But if one more person moans on about different 'standards' for bicycles and difficult jobs, I'll.... I'll, err tell them to stop being a drama Queen and get on with it!

I've neglected this thread a bit of late, which is a shame, but I noticed it's still my "most contributed thread" or words to that effect, which I guess is cheery in itself.

A very cheery day making the most of the nice crisp cold weather and dry leaves casually riding trails in the local woods with a friend and one of his friends, which was even more appreciated knowing the weather is going to completely turn tomorrow.

Already had some cheer carried over from yesterday when I spent the morning helping plant some trees in the local park. My partner got some funding to plant orchard trees and with some help from the local Friends of the Earth group, organised planting them in one of our local parks, which are already very nice, but often get overlooked in favour of more salubrious parts of the borough. Very proud of her, and a really nice thing all round. The excellent council parks staff had already done a lot of the hard work by rotivating it and starting to dig the holes, so I can't really claim to have had much input.

Nice. We discovered an oak sapling hiding amongst the tomato plants when tidying up the greenhouse the other week. Into a largish pot and I'll keep it going for a couple of years until it's ready to plant out. Planted out a couple maybe ten years ago and they are quite sizeable trees now.

All around here was black ice this morning, anything that hasn't had reasonably direct sun is still icy. Not the day to be out on the bike

Good work 'Wind. Having done a lot of that meself, the critical thing is "ongoing care". May sound obvious but for the first couple of years don't forget to water them in the hot (ha ha) summer months... getting the gallons of water to the trees is the challenge, I planted mine next to our river .

The first oak I planted from a tiny seedling 15 years ago is now over 20' high .

Had the day off to go the the motorbike show at the nec and managed to buy the two things I went to get , both cheaper than the Internet and tommorow looking at a new second hand car thats only got 11k miles on the clock which I'm almost certainly going to get.

I may be sponsoring Torquay United

Don’t ask