Yay, it's cheery Friday.

[RIP]

At a loose end (of a piece of string...) for an hour, so am fiddling around on NetKnots.com. Knot tying is one of those things that's very satisfying. Can't imagine a cheaper hobby - a 2-foot bit of string and no tools required! Maybe a chair leg to tie round. Obviously selecting a Chippendale chair would turn it into a very expensive hobby.

If there's one Superpower that I'd like it would be to know how to tie every one of the knots on that site from memory and to instantly know which one to deploy in any given situation.

I had a fair repertoire a while ago but lack of use means I'm very rusty .

How many do you know off by heart?

[whitestone]

I had a fair repertoire a while ago but lack of use means I'm very rusty .

How many do you know off by heart?

Knots, bends or hitches?

The Ashley Book of Knots has over 3,800. I can say with confidence that I know several magnitudes fewer than that!

Edit. A quick trawl of my memory gives: Bowline, Figure of Eight (on a bight and rethreaded), reef knot, sheet bend (Beckett Hitch is essentially the same), Farrimond knot, Prussik knot, French Prussik, tape knot, double fisherman's, overhand knot, trucker's hitch

Possibly a few more.

[RIP]

Knots, bends or hitches?

All of 'em . I used 'knot' as a generic term really.

The Ashley Book of Knots has over 3,800. I can say with confidence that I know several magnitudes fewer than that!

We'd best get practising then! 3,800??! With no 'duplicates'? And all from one length of string. Blimey.

With a fair wind I can manage Bowline (+ Running Bowline ), Clove, Cleat, Buntline, Truckers, Tautline, Fig 8, Alpine Butterfly, Prussik, Cow, Flemish, Constrictor, (and slipped versions). Mebbe some others. So I've only got another 3787 to go!

[fatbikephil]

Errr. Granny knot, double granny knot....
Oh yeah, shoelace.

[faustus]

My namesake knot...looks difficult!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Walker_knot

[RIP]

Errr. Granny knot, double granny knot....
Oh yeah, shoelace.

Sigh .

[Dave Barter]

Off to see the Chameleons tonight in Brizzle

Cue national train disaster ....

[RIP]

Well many routes are in trouble due to GSMR radio network failures including GWR so fingers crossed! Enjoy the gig anyroad.

[RIP]

So Cheery Friday eh.

Well certainly interesting Friday.

SWWB weekend. Storm Darragh. Heavy rain tonight. Possibly 90mph winds. Highest village in Wales. No idea where we're kipping.

Added to which there's a train problem as mentioned above and I've got four trains to catch. At least I'm on the second one so I've got that far. If it all goes pear-shaped I can kip on a luggage trolley at Brummie New Street.

Seat of the pants, you gotta love it.

[RIP]

Enough bike reservations to last a lifetime. And the conductor wanted to charge half fares for the pandas. It's fun when people get into the spirit of the game, livens the day up a bit

[Bearbonesnorm]

Enjoy but careful out there, these kind of winds don't mess about

[Verena]

Enjoy but careful out there, these kind of winds don't mess about

Will do Boss

Best get packing....

[MuddyPete]

Enough bike reservations to last a lifetime. And the conductor wanted to charge half fares for the pandas. It's fun when people get into the spirit of the game, livens the day up a bit

After your first tarp blows away, you can sticky-tape those tickets together to use as an emergency shelter. Or as a sail.

[Dave Barter]

Off to see the Chameleons tonight in Brizzle

Cue national train disaster ....

I’ve baled out back to Devon. Too high risk of being stranded tomorrow. Good luck bivy crew

[Bearlegged]

Or as a sail.

Paging Jay Petervary...

[RIP]

Still alive but it has been interesting.

[fatbikephil]

[Bearbonesnorm]

but it has been interesting.

I bet it has, although I believe it's meant to stop raining about midnight, so just 30 hours of continuous heavy rain then

[RIP]

I've just put a snack in The Bear's food bowl.

If you've had a nice time on t'Forum this year, I'm sure (s)he'd enjoy any other titbits going spare....

https://www.bearbonesbikepacking.co.uk/donate/

[RIP]

Right, that's got Crimbo out of the way so we can start being Cheery again. First of '25.

And what more cheery way than a bottle of Black Death from (depressed) Eeyore Brewery eh! Jigsaws have to be the ultimate in futile wastes of time don't they? So in my usual contrary fashion I'm doing a Wasgij (*) instead.

If anyone can see the piece with some bricks and a bit of drainpipe on it please let me know because it's been driving me round the bend for the last couple of hours.

(*) the picture is what you see in front of you if you were someone looking out of the jigsaw. Infuriating.

[fatbikephil]

Cheery, here - spent a good few days with friends oop north and got a bit of fat bike snow time. Just back home, which is always nice after visiting folk and looking forward to more snowy bike riding tomorrow. Drinking beer whilst planning a route.

[Tractionman]

Cheery walk on the north coast with my son, he snapped me resting my achy legs

IMG-20250103-WA0004.jpg (75.3 KiB) Viewed 5325 times

[Verena]

CF yesterday, lovely walk at lunchtime in the sunshine, scouting for a January BAM spot, and looking forward to a few days away by train to visit my mum, leaving round about, er now...
Wish us luck dodging the snow and ice...

[RIP]

Connected to the fact that BBB events make substantial donations to Air Ambulance, I discovered that E Midlands AA will take old laptops, phones, other computer equipment etc for wiping / refurbishing / recycling. When ours became life-expired we just shoved them in the loft but it's time to do something useful with them. They send you a label, you bung them in a box and take to a Connect+ shop, and away they go.

Done my bit for the day.

https://theairambulanceservice.org.uk/w ... o-charity/

[voodoo_simon]

Just spent 4 days in Rome as it was Mrs-Voodoo’s 40th

Not really cheap place to visit, food isn’t too bad but some of the sights are eye watering*! Food was great and reasonable priced.

It’s almost as Rome has too much history that it doesn’t know what to do with it. Everywhere you look are ancient building, I reckon we walked passed most of them without realising what each building has been used for

Walked just shy of 50KM in 4 days which I think is alright going with a ten year old in tow



*£200+ for the coliseum and £100+ for the Vatican