This comment had me laughing...

We are hoping there is no intervention from the Tennessee state legislature, as we currently have seven runners in transition

£100 an hour for skilled labour We live in very different worlds if you think £100 an hour is a reasonable hourly wage for any human beimg to earn. ( shaf is a nurse and is nowhere near that for example nor is a teacher etc or indeed almost anyone working. Remember that this isn't a full time rate,...

As Dave says, the guy is also taking the risk that he doesn't wreck the surrounding material. If the guy is good then that's unlikely but he still has to factor it in to his pricing. I just did a search for "uk bike shop labour charges" and got figures from £40/hr up to £65/hr (that was in...

One way to look at the cost is how many hours at *your* pay rate would you spend on it. A rough estimate is your annual salary in thousands divided by 20 so £30k = £15/hr. Of course you need to factor in whether you can do the job in the first place or if you want to do it - there are jobs I can do ...

Given the gales I've swapped dry stone walling for some database normalisation. As you do

Tony, you could do a good loop from close to your door:

Head to Mytholmroyd, up Cragg Vale, down to Rippondon, up Oldham road over the M62 to Denshaw, road back over Buckstones and down to Huddersfield.

Three long steady climbs, the first and last are quite alpine like.

The number of times I've woken up with a start thinking someone is shinning a torch in my face only to realise the clouds have cleared and it's the moon :lol: Unless you sleep outside you don't realise just how light it is on a full moon, but it needs to be otherwise how would the werewolves see wh...

It's longer than feared https://ridewithgps.com/routes/45752621?fbclid=IwAR3Bcf39yHtaZBWBS4ueBj_q1-NXJR8nW3raXT3eeT17m2JzuintYO5poT8 He's a naughty boy. For those on FB https://www.facebook.com/share/p/ASRKat84arWhpB9C/ Start Skipton, reverse YD300 to Pately Bridge, nip across to Thirsk and ride NY...

Tony, 14m per km is pretty flat for the Pennines/Dales. I've a local loop of 30km, half of it's along the canal and that has 490m of climbing (not the canal bit!), here's a Strava link https://www.strava.com/activities/10687539854 . This one is just riding up the valley to Kettlewell and back - http...

I had a chat with Stuart a couple of months ago. He said that everyone was so fast last year he was thinking of making things a little more "interesting" to slow people down a bit

I'm pretty sure that I've not engaged the clutch on my derailleur for several years, the NW works well enough.

There are various "alternative" battery technologies being developed/in use - gravity and sand are two that spring to mind. Sand batteries basically work by taking the electricity and converting it to heat and heating a big f-off heap of sand to around 600C. We're talking 50 tonnes and upw...

Living by the sea and witnessing day in day out the power of the tides that are ALWAYS flowing, unlike wind, I find it amazing that we've not properly invested in harnessing this free power that surely could be done in a much less obtrusive manner. There have been long term tests in the Pentland Fi...

This popped up on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZXzXH4gBfs about the "revolution" that NW chainrings enabled. As he admits, his testing isn't "scientific" and has a small sample size regarding runs, etc., but it's interesting nonetheless. One point he doesn't mention...

I've seen talk of reinstating the site once the masts/turbines reach the end of their life but as Paul notes, surely once the base infrastructure is in place then the topside stuff can all be replaced/upgraded? There was discussion on Countryfile about wind farms - turns out that so far "they&q...

However, just where is the energy we all need going to come from if no-one wants the production facilities (of whatever nature) on their doorstep? The community where my sister-in-law and her husband live campaigned against a small (4 masts) wind farm. They then approved a floodlit football pitch! ...

I have to admit to being somewhat ambivalent, on the fence, about wind farms. On the one hand they certainly aren't aesthetic in any way and by their nature have to be in areas with (reasonably) reliable wind which does mean our more upland areas or a reasonable distance out to sea. However, just wh...

My latest Deschutes pitching experiments have led me to do it like the flat tarp in an A config - peg out the two rear corners, in with the pole and peg out the pole guy, peg the rest out - works every time! That's pretty much how I do the Gatewood which is essentially the same design. I've found u...

Apparently it was "International thingymijg" or something at the weekend so in a mad moment of joining in we headed south picking up the Pennine Bridleway. If you weren't on rocky tracks then the going was very soft and slow. We were aiming for a bivy spot that Cath had been told about clo...

Have done both half and full Yorkshireman, can't remember the years but should be in the results from about 12yrs ago. Even though it's an FRA event it's closer to trail running terrain. Edit Scratch that! Did the full in 2004 (4:57 finishing time) and the half in 2005 (1:54) and 2006 (2:04) /Edit E...

Depending on how turbid (cloudy/dirty) the water is, then filter to remove the particulates and bigger Protozoa. Then bring to boil. No need to have a rolling boil as is often recommended, you just need to get it above 70C (or thereabouts) to kill off any remaining bacteria and viruses. I did post a...

I might be wrong but I struggle to believe folks genuinely think in KM in the UK.... "oh the speed limit on a UK motorway is 112km" it's not, it's 70mph. But like I say I might be wrong. I'm 64 and while, like you, I mix and match much of the time (I'm 1.80m tall with a 42" chest :??...

I had noticed the route being posted. A good way to make use of some of those frustrating "tracks" that just stop in the middle of nowhere, most will be stalking paths so just lead to close to the edge of that particular estate - there's two tracks on the north side of Loch Mullardoch for ...

A mixture. I just put on the damp leggings but had an Alpkit mid-layer top that I used instead of the thermal top I'd been wearing on Saturday. I'd taken a spare pair of socks but they were almost as wet by the time we got riding.

Well that were a ride of two halves John. Saturday was almost a horrid day as you could hope for in February in the Lakes. Perhaps its only redeeming quality was that it wasn't cold, it would have been really serious if it had been. Meanwhile Sunday was just about the exact opposite, more like an Ap...