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Second dibs on the skinsuit.

I’m out. Need a large. Can confirm they’re absolutely amazing suits (well, nicest cycling gear I’ve ever worn).

Always thumbs up and smile for the camera.
I didn’t mind the climb, but the long but not quite steep enough descent almost broke me. Would have been flying on a good day, but it was torture on Saturday. Hopefully I’ll be feeling better for Ilkley Moor on Sunday - which is a bit more in my wheelhouse anyway. Some steep enough descents to actually make progress with the application of sufficient reckless abandon.

Instagram Famous, even got a shoutout in the comments!

I would have had a beyond terrible day in bad weather. I can’t even entertain the thought. Genuinely broken right now, lol

High Cup Nick fell race today. Just coming out of a bit of a nasty cold and thought I might get away with it: which was categorically the wrong decision.
I felt absolutely awful the whole way round, really struggled, and generally just had a bad time. Definitely a different world to 2 weeks ago, when I raced in the lakes and managed to pull a half decent performance out of the bag.
Just getting home now and I’m just simply broken. And no I’m hoping so I won’t have brought the cold back with a vengeance tomorrow and the week that follows.

Eugh

How clean was it? You can definitely end up with a lot of aluminium oxide in the bottom if they’re left for a while. Stainless for the win tho.

Where are you?

Yeah I know about LED dimming issues. Just know there’s always a faff with various ages of drivers and lighting standards!

And @Airhead
This is the kind of info I need.
I went for a 60w 12v dc driver and gonna hope that’ll work!

That tape will make a big sticky mess and likely pull everything apart when you come to take it off to do the repair properly.

I’m just sorting it for a mate for nowt, I just want to replace the driver for now.

I wholeheartedly agree that GU10 spots would be better, but replacing all the spots rather than one driver is too much of a faff for me.

I’ll stick to fixing motors!

So a bit of reading tells me that 12v ac was the old halogen standard, some leds will work with old ax halogen drivers, but dc is the newer standard and most led bulbs will be dc.

This is why I hate domestic.

My domestic knowledge is lacking,
This is rated to 105W right (Volt Amperes max = 105).
So what would be an appropriate replacement?

I seem to be struggling to find 12v ac 105w

Top tip. You can use a cut up teabag as an effective aeropress filter.

Just need them to do a QR version like the back now!

Jesus Christ. Fuck yeah!

And 77kg today - I just checked and that makes my BMI 25!
Interestingly I just noticed the thing that says my waist should be about half my height to be healthy. I’m 69 inches tall but only 31.1 round the waist - I hadn’t expected the metric to be so favourable compared to BMI. Although I’m not sure how confident that I’d consider myself “healthy” when my waist is up to 34.5 inches.

It’s also weird. One thing that I’ve noticed with fasting and eating less, is that I’ve definitely become a lot more comfortable with hunger, and how I now eat to become “not hungry” rather than eating to become full. It’s a small change but after years of struggling with self control with food, I find it really interesting that I’m now able to avoid just gorging on food when it’s there, and instead I have a much better sense of what to aim for. Eg “I’m going to eat x, y, z for dinner, and that will do” rather than feeling the stress of being hungry, and wanting to literally feed that urge by making or taking too much food.

77.6kg today. Down from 87ish around November last year.

Definitely the leanest I’ve been as an adult, and most importantly I feel so much better than I have previously when I’ve tried to lose weight. Fasting from dinner: 6pm-ish to noon is very manageable. I’ll throw a protein bar or some toast in if I need it after training on an evening.
Cardio improves so much when I’m not eating shit!

I’m rank average (48/138 at the race) but I descend better than I ascend. The going up is improving although if I aim to keep going to the lakes this year, I’ll need to get some proper hill reps in sooner rather than later.

Seeing the front runners descending on the way back as we headed up was incredible - the speed paired with the expression of those at their athletic limit was something. I wish I could’ve seen them on the more technical bits. One thing I do see a lot of at my end of the race, is that people zigzag too much. I’ll regularly pick up a place simply by having the confidence to run in a straight line on the rougher stuff, while others try and aim for slightly out of gait but flatter placements. The day will come when I go down like a sack of shit no doubt, maybe then I’ll share their sense of caution.

Enjoying aeropress at work. Have tried the JH method today, which will need some dialling in, but excited about the process. Haven’t had that for ages! Need to grind coarser currently but otherwise a fine cup.

Getting after it

Lovely experience from today. Was smashing it down from Silverhow, decent bit of descending and picking up some places. Hang onto a group of runners, with one in particular showing his familiarity with the racing lines. I managed to catch up with him at the road crossing before going back up Loughrigg. I thank him for his good lines and route finding, and he asks if I know my way to the tarn and I admit I don’t (nor do I particularly fancy uncurling the map in my cold hand and straining my hypoxic brain to try and interpret it to navigate from). He kindly suggests I follow him in that case! He remarks he’ll be slow going up Loughrigg (he wasn’t). Every time I bobbed in front for a minute he offered me the route - “turn right at the wall but don’t go through the gate” etc. but I never need the advice as he claws me back each time. Towards the final mile I manage to put some distance in and he shouts to me to “take a right, then over the footbridge and down the road to finish”.
He’s a v60 (the category which he won), so has little to prove against some bumbling 35m, but it just struck me that it was a lovely bit of sportsmanship - he could have easily let me flounder, go wrong, or heaven forfend actually attempt to navigate for myself, but instead just handed over his inside info and let me get ahead. Maybe I’m just a big soft idiot, but it really made me think about the great spirit carried in these races, and how lucky we are to get to enjoy them.
He also climbed Loughrigg while basically giving a sales pitch for the yet unreleased Ron Hill fell shoes 🤣. Tony Bolton, you’re a legend.

Loughrigg Silverhow fell race today, AM category, but undulating rather than all up then all down. Legs wouldn’t have survived otherwise with so few training miles in them. Still, fantastic to be racing in the lakes again. Ran well. Hung onto someone who had reccied it and knew the lines, saved me a decent chunk of ascent, and no doubt gained me places and time. He was so polite to even give me navigational tips as I overtook him in the final mile “right at the wall, hit the foot bridge and down the road to finish” what a joyous bit of class and sportsmanship.
Finished the last mile with the bit in my teeth for sure. Should be some funny pictures to follow.

I always blow my Mazzer Super Jolly out with one of those rocket blowers after each use. The retention is surprisingly large (always noticeable after my wife has used the grinder and not blown it out after, a lot of retained grounds come out to the point which would surely affect the shot).

As a tight Scotsman, I’m loathe to spend money, but I got a carbon Planet X TT bike with carbon disc rear and deep carbon front wheel, amongst other bits, for the hefty sum of £350.

So while I am guilty of buying more bits, it doesn’t have to be at great expense.