*looks at Mk1 Joystick* Still works fine. *looks at Mk1 Race* Still works fine.. There is a reason some of us have spent money on our Exposure lights. Buy once. Buy well. No doubt for what they do they're unsurpassed. But they are pricey and they don't have replaceable batteries, which may be a fac...

https://www.bearbonesbikepacking.co.uk/budget-bikepacker-lumitact-g700/ Sounds like once the battery had been replaced, the main shortcoming was the weight. This £68 Fenix model comes in at 115g, so still 20g more than a Joystick, with the same 3500mAh battery. https://www.myfenix.co.uk/product/fen...

Anyone using a Fenix torch?

Quite a few of them run on a replaceable rechargeable 18650 battery, which makes sense for long durations, compared to a built in battery that requires recharging. Have often wondered how the beam pattern of these torches differs from the much beloved Exposure Joystick.

I recently wrote a big 'cheap but good' feature for Cycle, the magazine of Cycling UK (online here https://www.cyclinguk.org/cycle-magazine/can-you-buy-quality-cycling-gear-less ) The one area where I concluded it really wasn't possible to be cheap and good was sleeping bags, unless you find them in...

I think the NCN was created in the 80's / 90's on a wing and a prayer mainly because the director/founder of Sustran's wanted it to exist. True dat. Sustrans does / has done some amazing stuff, but the proposition of the NCN is an awkward compromise between urban/suburban utility routes and rural t...

I'd be inclined to skirt via the north of May Hill to Monmouth, James, taking in the Peregrine Trail beside the River Wye. It's gravel so not fast, but a nice off-road interlude mid-route. (B4215 from Gloucester to Newent is one of the more unpleasant B-roads round here so I'd avoid that) Then the '...

I’m planning on it. 19h45 start in 90h group. Still have the 600 qualifier to do (A Pair of Kirtons). Not really my type of cycling (ultra distance and organised fun have never much appealed to me) so probably a large helping of mid-life crisis, now or never and all that. Last year a couple of old s...

Thanks - very useful info. Polartec Alpha seems no longer widely used, wonder why? Macpac Nitro only available in a women's version. Am looking for something to boost warmth while riding overnight on long audaxes, down to 3-5 degrees. I have an Endura insulated gilet which is great in many ways bein...

Has anyone used OMM Core clothing? It's a layer of very lightweight woven insulation (Primaloft Next) without the usual nylon lining and outer. A sandwich without the bread. As most of us already carry some kind of waterproof/windproof outer garment, it would seem to be a sensible way of adding insu...

My point .... I live in a very Welsh area. Welsh is first language and as p1ss poor as I am at it, I try my best and certainly don't resent doing so;o) However, as much as this exercise is well meant, I tend to think that it's largely futile as most people will simply continue to refer to the area ...

this smacks of a woke exercise in re-branding I don't think calling a place in Wales by its( or a ) Welsh name rather than an English ( imperialist ?) one is woke unless you think England gets to name the world. I don't see what the problem is tbh. Apparently the English snowflakes don't seem to li...

I'm a fan of the general guidebook, if it's a good one. I like the Pallas series, now out of print: https://www.wob.com/en-gb/books/series/pallas-guides I also like the Real series, published by Seren Books. They tend to be a bit left field but have a lot stuff that I probably wouldn't know or disco...

On a serious note (how unusual) I don't think it'll make the slightest bit of difference. The vast majority will continue to call it the Brecon Beacons regardless. I'm all for the Welsh language and its use but this smacks of a woke exercise in re-branding / money wasting. I'm sure the NP could hav...

I sometimes pack a monocular. I bought a Hawke Endurance ED 8X42 during lockdown. Seems fine. Decently bright and powerful enough to see birdlife a bit more closely, which was my main motivation. Not really sure it's justified in terms of TLS bikepacking but then I'm more of a lightweight cycle tour...

Dunno about that Reg, some of the farmers up y way are pretty burly lads, I suspect I would come out worse in a square go.... Anyway, as mentioned on the BAM thread, I've just read "The book of the bivvy" by Ronald Turnbull - one of those short works that Cicerone put out. Fairly light he...

Stick them on your website would seem the best idea. Otherwise Garmin Connect and Ride with GPS will let anybody download them for free. Strava etc require you to be subscribers to download these days. It depends what your objective is. Sharing among a smallish group or to as wide an audience as po...

You can embed OS Landranger/Explorer with a GPX track on a Wordpress site using this free plugin. https://wordpress.org/plugins/os-datahub-maps/ But you have to register with the OS DataHbub service, and be sure not to exceed the map tile limits for the free user tier. I use this for the Lost Lanes ...

Great idea. I'd suggest RideWithGPS. Even with a free account you can compile your routes into a Collection which will have a single URL to a landing page. Disadvantage of Komoot is that only paid users can download GPX files from routes published on Komoot. Free users can access the route within Ko...

I'd not seen - or heard - of this 2003 journey before. If the film is truthful, I'm not sure I know of a more extreme bicycle journey (the film as posted below seems to have been chopped up a bit but you get the gist). https://vimeo.com/163966919 In 2003 Janne Corax and Nadine Saulnier made the firs...

Have suffered this - and variants - on and off for years. Plenty of good advice already but one simple thing that I found helped most, especially during an acute episode, was going for short walks. Try to do several a day. For as long as you can manage up, to about 20 minutes max. Don't worry if it'...

A antidote / alternative to Heinz is Bill Houston. I'm sure this film has been posted here before, but I never tyre of watching it:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKfNKNxntY0

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dahGaL6ehjc

I like it a lot. It's definitely more of a routing / navigation tool than a plotting / library tool, if that distinction makes any sense. And it's more focussed towards quiet lanes, cycleways, towpaths etc than technical, more MTB-oriented paths. But it's very powerful, and I use it in tandem with R...

woodsmith wrote: ↑Sun Jan 01, 2023 2:33 pm I know who Red Bull and Komoot are, but they could bring peace in the Middle East and I still wouldn't use either of their crappy products.

Too good. And so true.

As I understand it, the role of Specialized's ambassadors was as 'content creators' (photos and videos) for the company's social media channels, and more generally to be aspirational people who would showcase the company's products. So, as Dave has observed, part of the marketing budget. Is this is ...

This is more for the fitness part of the equation (rather than the technique and pure leg power which may well be more important) but in Max Leonard's book "Higher Calling: Road Cycling’s Obsession with the Mountains" Max meets and interviews the guy who invented Everesting. His top tip fo...