Mark Forrest

First event of the year today for Mrs F and me, the Alpkit Hatersage Winter Gravel ride. We picked the shorter of the two routes, about 24.5 miles. Really nice route out from Hathersage to the Fox House, over Houndkirk Moor and down to Ringinglow, past Redmire and along Stanage. Dropping down to Ladybower then heading across to Brough to climb up onto Shatton Moor, finishing off with brilliantly muddy and slippery bit of bridleway before returning to Hathersage for soup, cake and beer. Really well organised event and a great route, perfect gravel bike ride - challenging enough, but at no point did I think I'd have rather been on a MTB. Looking forward to the next one.

That's interesting Jim, you've now got me wondering if the increase I saw in mine was as much about stress as it was fitness.

Improving physical fitness and mental health are the main reasons that I ride, I'm also a bit of a geek when it comes to data so do a little analysis of how it's going, but nothing like what a proper athlete would. I wear a Fitbit which is my main way of tracking general fitness/wellbeing over time, I find the weekly dashboard that they email to me has most of what I need to see how things are going. If I was to focus on one metric alone, it would probably be resting heart rate. After a significant life event in July last year, the amount of exercise I was doing dropped off to virtually nothing; at the same time I indulged in some comfort eating (and drinking). Both my weight and resting heart rate increased during this time. I'm now watching what I eat and exercising more and I'm starting to see it come back down and fitness on the bike is improving. On the bike I use a heart rate chest strap (more accurate than a watch at higher BPM, I'm told) linked to a Garmin head unit tend to glance at it on climbs just to get an idea how far off my maximum I am, but that's about it. It's rare that I look at Strava for anything other than distance and time on specific segments. I'd never really looked at power until started riding Zwift (which uses w/kg to determine categoriesfor some races); doing an FTP test on there is an interesting experience but not one I'd want to repeat too often!

@big jim presume that you're changing gear as you would in real life? Obviously you can leave in one gear for the whole ride and treat it like a singlespeed but you can of course shift to an easier gear for the climbs just as you would in real life. I've got 1x10 MTB gearing on the bike on the turbo, great to sit and spin on the climbs (which is generally how I ride in real life), but often find myself spinning out in races against riders with road bike gearing.

It is; taken from the bridge that carries the Pennine Bridleway over the Monsal Trail at Chee Dale

A day off work today so went exploring a corner of the Peak District that we normally overlook. While daylight hours are in short supply we started the ride from Parsley Hay, saving a fair chunk of time that would otherwise have been spent in the car. Anyway, north to the end of the High Peak Trail, Pennine Bridleway over to to Chee Dale, then looped around past Tunstead to drop back down to Millers Dale for a gentle spin along the Monsal Trail before heading back to Parsley Hay. Tough going in places, but definitely a route I'll do again, particularly when things dry out a bit more. We got really lucky with the weather, apparently it was grey and misty most of the day at home.

I have some concerns about the changes to the Highway Code; not in what they set out to achieve but more in how the changes are being/will be communicated. Until I Googled it just now, the only places I've seen details of the changes mentioned has been in bike related social media posts. Most of the news websites that have reported on it have made no mention of the road positioning changes (rule 72) advising cyclists to adopt a more central road position (in certain circumstances) - I think there is a real risk that the majority of motorists won't be aware that cyclists are being advised to ride in this position. Personally, I take the view that any faster moving vehicle (whether that's a car on the road or a faster cyclist on a trail) behind me when I'm on a bike is a distraction I could do without and one that spoils my enjoyment of the ride, so I'd prefer to let them pass as soon as possible so I can see what they are doing rather than having to worry about what's going on behind me. For a long time I was reluctant to fit a bell to my bikes, preferring to call out a cheery "hello!" to the few people we did see. However, since getting a gravel bike and riding on more shared trails I got sick of the "where's your bell!?" response to what I thought was a nice friendly greeting so have fitted one. I'm amazed how much more positively people seem to respond to the sound of a bell than the human voice.

While some of the earlier Cambrian kits could be a little challenging the more recent and retooled kits generally go together very well. The thinness of parts that you mention probably puts them closer to scale thickness than some of the alternatives. My personal preference is to replace most of what goes below/between the solebars with etched or cast components, so can't really comment on the axle length issue - although if I am building a rigid underframe experience has taught me to dry assemble the components to check they fit due to variability in axle length, bearing depth and axleguard thickness - unfortunately this advice probably isn't much use to you at this stage. If there is a choice between a Parkside and a Cambrian, I'll still pick the Parkside over the Cambrian; but as there is little overlap between the ranges I don't hesitate to build a Cambrian kit where their offering suits the prototype I'm looking for.

Useful and reassuring info as I have loco and tender kits to do Coal Engine 8088 with a 2500 gal tender. I really must find the time to get started on that.

Have you tried firmware update and calibration of the turbo? Not much else I can think of trying, may be that the turbo is broken.

Managed to squeeze a bit of railway interest into today's gravel ride. Got the year off to a decent start with 50 miles on the Tissington and High Peak trails, starting out from Ashbourne, up to Parsley Hay, then over to Middleton Top and back to Ashbourne. Not the most exciting or challenging ride, but great to get some miles in.

Yes, that's how the controllable thing works, Zwift controls the resistance on the trainer

I think that ride is organised/sponsored by Saris, I'm using a Tacx turbo which I connect as a controllable to the Zwift app running on an iPad using Bluetooth. I've had a few problems with the Zwift app recently where it will initially show as paired to the turbo, but then doesn't seem to recognise it when I start a ride. I've had to go into the menu during the ride and reconnect to the turbo; don't know if that helps at all? Other thing to try would be a firmware update on the trainer to make sure it has the latest version - on the Tacx there is a separate app to check/update the firmware and calibrate the trainer, not sure if the Saris trainers do the same. Hope that helps.

Strava (combined with a heart rate monitor and a Garmin head unit) appeals to my inner data geek, I like it for tracking fitness over time and occasionally for comparing my times on segments to other people I know. I'm never going to be fast enough (either uphill or down) to trouble the top end of a KOM leader board, but do like to see how I compare to a few people I know who ride locally. In the past, setting myself a 50 mile a week target has helped motivate me to get out, but that didn't work quite so well this year. Most of my route planning I prefer do on the OS Maps website, creating a gpx to load on the Garmin. Trail Forks on the Garmin can be useful when out and about too.

Great idea Jim, I've just given you a follow, so you'll see me in your followers, or this link should work: https://www.strava.com/athletes/15189502 I've also just set up a Strava club for RMweb members, if anyone is interested, https://www.strava.com/clubs/1010944

End of year Strava stats... It's not been a good year for me, think this is the first time in 5 years my annual mileage has been below 2000 and elevation gain below 200,000'. That's despite adding a gravel bike to the fleet and doing some rides on Zwift (both of which make hitting distance based targets easier to achieve than a MTB). Motivation to ride in the second half of the year has been a real problem; resulting in a vicious circle of riding less often, losing fitness/gaining weight, then finding rides less enjoyable as a result of lost fitness and so on. I know that, to have the best possible summer of riding in 2022, I need to start getting back in shape now - waiting until the sun is shining is leaving it too late.

Stunning views up above Hope this afternoon. Although after the descent down Lockerbrook the Derwent dam was looking quite spectacular. A day of cleaning bikes and clothes to look forward to tomorrow I think.

Mrs F and I braved the cold and drizzle yesterday to take part in the Salop Sludger a MTB/gravel ride starting out from Bishop's Castle. The event raises funds for Midland Air Ambulance it's a point to point ride with grid references provided at each point. Interesting mix of bikes taking part from full suss enduro MTBs to one lad who did it on a road bike with 28mm tyres and rim brakes!

I'm neither historic myself or a drinker of historic beer, but do happen to have an area in our garden that previous occupants of our house appear to have used as a rubbish tip. Most of the bottles we've unearthed have been half pint capacity; these two (Lichfield Brewery and Ind Coope) are approx 2.5" diameter. I don't have an age for them - could be anytime in the past 220 years.

It's not like GCN to miss an opportunity to promote Zwift - I thought that would be their number 1 suggestion for avoiding cold hands

Are the Gore Tex MW7s the current iteration of the Shimano boots that you mention? Just been looking at a pair to replace a battered pair of Shimano shoes that I've been combining with Seal Skins overshoes for winter MTB and gravel rides. Looking at either the MW7s or Northwave Celsius as a replacement.

No you are not; you should contact the retailer who is likely to be able to resolve the issue more quickly than posting about it here will.

I think mine include a 27, a couple of Hymeks, Falcon and a 128. No quality issues and I've always felt that the running was marginally better than comparable Bachmann and Hornby locos; no complaints here.

I actually think that as 4mm modellers we are lucky to have the choice of a number of different standards which we can chose from depending on what we want to get out of the hobby and how much time we have to spend on it. I visualise it as a graph with the gauges/standards along the x axis arranged 00, 00 fine, EM, P4 and the amount of effort required on the y axis. I think it used to be (or at least used to be perceived to be) an almost exponential increase in effort as you moved up the standards. However I think developments over recent years (better RTR locos and stock, drop in replacement wheelsets, EMGS points, etc) have made this more linear and meant that good results in all of the gauges have become more achievable. The way that I see it that doesn't mean any one of the gauges is better than any of the others; it just means we have the freedom to chose the one (or more) that work for us, which can only be a good thing.

One thing to consider is the difference in effort required to do P4 depending if you model steam or diesels. Having made the switch from EM to P4 myself, I found that for a lot of diesel locos, conversion to P4 is (or should I say need not be) any more complex than to EM - in both cases we're talking about a simple wheel swap. The difference in effort is greater when you start looking at converting RTR steam locos, new chassis that might be optional in EM are more likely to be necessary in P4, meaning the time and effort needed increase, making EM that bit more achievable. I think that to some extent the choice between EM and P4 depends what you want from the hobby. Personally, I like the technical challenge of P4, but if I wanted to spend more time operating a layout than sitting at the workbench I'd probably revert to EM.