My old neoair (now called xlite?) is still going strong. I don't notice the noise but then I'm asleep. They always sound louder to the user as your ear is right next to the mat :grin: I don’t hear it either. My (unintentional) solution to the crisp packet noise was to get older and deafer. My ears ...

Took it apart into large lumps. I’m off to Spain in September for an “adventure before dementia” ride from Seville to Santiago de Compostela. I agonised for a few weeks about renting a bike there (easy but expensive) or taking my own bike and having to find out how to get it there and back again. We...

Looks like a nice ride with spectacularly good weather. Nice video too. Thanks for sharing.

July BaM done, so 7/12 for this year, with a nice bit of three generational male bonding. Pedal to Chester, to train to Anglesey to hammock-in-the-woods with my son and grandson. De-trained at Bodorgan and started pedalling. When I got to Malltraeth I realised I'd not had lunch yet. Then a chippy pr...

sean_iow wrote: ↑Mon Jul 24, 2023 9:43 am How about sewing velcro on the bags and and the back of the patches like they are on military uniforms these days? You can then swap the patches to match the event you're at

How about just sticking the Velcro on?

I know, I know, but I just couldn’t resist it.

I’ll get me coat.

RIP wrote: ↑Tue Jul 18, 2023 7:32 pm Fab! Alfresco woodfired pancakes;

I too am impressed by the pancakes and pleased to know that I’m not alone in taking a full-sized frying pan on a bivvy trip.

Thanks for a lovely write-up that made me smile…

Whenever I've had to transport something long I've just strapped it to the top tube in two places. Done this with garden tools….. We used to see lots of this back in the days when people didn’t have cars, but did have allotments. Fork/rake/hoe etc on the top tube and a basket on the front or back t...

Yikes! I got caught in a storm while crossing the flanks of Cadair Idris a few weeks back. It was close enough at one point that I dumped the bike and adopted the position. Hmm! That’s got me thinking, that given that metal or carbon are good conductors, a bike frame could act as a lightning rod an...

kvragu wrote: ↑Thu Jul 13, 2023 11:02 am I have a bit of a fear of thunderstorms….


What are your best practices for thunderstorms? Just treat it as a normal storm unless you're at high altitude? Is there an obvious 'red flag' in the forecast, apart from literal flag warnings?

Don’t wear an underwired bra…

pistonbroke wrote: ↑Sat Jul 08, 2023 8:28 am ...do you want a link to the book? There's lots of maps and pics and the Spanish is straightforward.

That'd be great - a ride guide and Spanish lesson combined...

When have you booked your flights? MrsPB and I have a loose plan to ride it this autumn, it's an area of Spain we haven't explored much apart from a visit to Sevilla 3 years ago. I bought the cycle guide book from an amazing shop in Barcelona, think Stanford's Spain, which divides the route into ab...

I don’t know if it’s all that cheery, maybe scary would be a better way to describe it ‘cause I’ve just booked my flights to Spain to ride the Via de la Plata from Seville to Santiago de Compostela. I’m terrified. Never done a ride longer than 4 days - don’t know how the arris wil hold out, for one ...

On a not-quite-completely OT note, there was a TV advert on today, for a Cancer Research charity. They said that half of us will get a cancer of some sort in our lifetime but if we all contribute (to the charity) we can beat cancer. All well and good but that means that if we do, half of us will hav...

At the risk of embarrassing the poor chap (“too late!” :grin: ), for a while I’ve been thinking that I should pay my respects to Kev Blackhound as the man without whom this thread would not exist, and correspondingly without whom the whole Place would be much the poorer. A very pleasant BaM, in a l...

My thought was to pick something cheerful, like Bright Side, but then I thought “Let ‘em get the misery out of the way first” so how about :- Psalm 23, The Lords my Shepherd, and “Abide with me” Ya can’t get much more miserable than that. Then, for the wake, ceilidh music with maybe some country dan...

BaM June '23 - Done :-bd As mentioned in another thread, I pedalled up to the dragonfly kingdom by the Ellesmere canal. Bivvy:- https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53008844668_5d41e48e1b.jpg I thought I'd make a bit more of an effort with the food again, so for breakfast:- https://live.staticflickr....

We rescued this chap from in the canal between Llangollen and Trevor the other day. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53002941039_88463639e3.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53001244949_740968c46a.jpg He's got a broken wing, poor thing, maybe from trying to swim or being hit by a car (there...

I didn't know if I should put this into "Todays' Ride" but decided it was more Cheery than Ride, so here it is. Every year at around this time, I gather lime tree flowers. These are my family remedy for colds - 6 flowers in a one-cup cafetiere taken before bed will dry up a runny nose unti...

Just got back from a lovely ride to Barmouth up and down the Mawddach trail with 8 family members. 'T was a perfect family day out - not too hot, not too windy, not too crowded and a lovely fish 'n chips in the town.

It was a truly lovely day out, so very cheery.

Extreme Ironing. Remember that? Of course :smile: For an AGM of a society of which I'm a member, I once suggested holding said AGM on the 70' high Headstone Viaduct - the famous disused railway bridge at Monsal Head in Derbyshire. For no good reason I convinced everyone to take a chair and a random...

Thanks for all the comments folks. I'm glad you liked it, but I feel a little guilty posting it in the BaM thread because it's not really (to my way of thinking, anyway) a BaM - more of a gimmick of the same ilk as Extreme Ironing. Remember that? A proper bivvy has a decent ride and a cooked meal be...

May 23 BaM - Last minute, but Dunnit! 5/12 for 2023 and 101 altogether. These... https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52939308272_c73928bfd9.jpg ...cattle troughs are on a local loop that I pass once or twice a week.They look to have been dumped in a wide part of the Bishop Bennets way, by the farmer...

Żubrówka. On my May '23 BaM. Lying in my water bed, waiting for the Starlink chain to come over...

Not bike related, but life affirming? Oh yes. Many years ago Mrs Frog and I were in Ireland for 4 nights. 1st night was in Avoca (where they'd filmed Ballykissangel), then in Killarney and then we would look for a B&B somewhere near the ferry port at Dublin. The trouble was, that at the same tim...

Straightened the rear mech hanger that somehow got bent on first day of WRT and gave me trouble until the end.