Hedging against future inflation rises.

I did think about putting the light on the fork like that but then...I didn't do it? So....I don't know. It probably would have been fine. But if I mount it to the fork leg then I don't need the front rack, but I want the front rack. So it's staying as is for now. Might try what you say on another bike though.

The 47 canonballs looked good and were probably wide enough for road plus. Would you consider 700s in future? I am waiting for another dynamo to come up second hand before I get started on another wheelset.

Much prefer to post rides than endless bike fettling. Trying to move my life away from fettling towards riding.

New page so new bike pic.

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Yeah I quite fancy a front rack like that for aesthetics but i really wouldn't put much on it.

Would you consider 700s in future

Yes - I'm in the process of setting up some Hope 20Fives, i bought used 700x32 Ramparts and they're not sealing up as easily as the Cannonballs did. And I'm going to work away from home for a few weeks so wont ride them for a while yet.

Much prefer to post rides than endless bike fettling. Trying to move my life away from fettling towards riding.

I agree, in fact I'd like to really move my life away from thinking about fettling. I hoping to take some time for some 3-4 hour rides soon once my kids sleep better.

Not really the season for riding this kind of bike. I did a few seasons of winter "gravel" back in the day but my mental health is a lot better now and I no longer see the point.

It was 9 degrees this lunch time though so I managed to get out for an epic 11km tow path to town smash fest, which gives me the excuse to upload this picture featuring my new witslingers bags.

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Yes that's really good, the bags and mental health improvement

Pretty good bike

Excellent

Great bags and bike

Lovely colour combos :)

Missed this somehow, but this looks really good. Perfect frame bag as well.

It's because the thread title is completely inscrutable. Why would you click on it. It reads like a subject line from a pump and dump scam email.

I first scrolled through this thread in black and white on my phone, but then came back for full colour on my laptop. Those bags really pop.

Whilst we were sitting on a bench a solo guy on a iridescent Cervelo smashed past us without looking up from his top cap. We salute you HR zone 3 gravel bro, godspeed.

Between that, catching my pedal whilst in a rut and the pungent smell of rapeseed, my bingo card is full and I declare the 2023 East Anglian gravel season open.

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Took the bike on a family holiday to Norfolk. Every day except for Tuesday the weather app forecasted rain so when it came round I got up, threw a pb + b sandwich into the bag and set off to ride two lengths of NCN connected by an unpaved and extremely gnarly rail trail.

Typical Norfolk riding. Always at risk of stopping at too many cafes and finishing up over caffeinated and dehydrated. It started raining as soon as I was far enough away from the house to make turning back seem unpalatable. I hate riding in the rain without mudguards. It feels like I'm letting my clothes down. But on this trip I had brought a dusty Vaude poncho which kept me and them suitably protected. I really like this bike. Need to get a win wing or fendor bendor to leave in the frame bag though.

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Quick, it's the last first day of summer. Just enough daylight after work to ride a bike for 30k across some byways bridleways bike paths next to trunkroads through corn field monoculture uninhabited new build desert. Plums in the hedgerows unmolested by the locals, unopened dual carriageway not yet plumbed in. If we set off 30 minutes earlier we'd have finished 30 minutes earlier and could have got Burmese takeaway to take home, but well, maybe next time, if there is one.

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A last minute plan to take a crack at a new loop after work, through some villages and up grassy inclines. Harvesters with their flood lights on working the fields nearby. We ride out to the big Tesco in Bar Hill, skirting the industrial estate I worked on and past the shuttered A14 Travelodge that I stayed in the first weeks after moving to Cambridge. The BP garage next to it covered with metal window covers and the letters on the Burger King blacked out so that all the sign says now is UR KING. After Tesco the light starts to fall and we cross new infrastructure into Northstowe. The dual carriageway between the two places acts like a kind of mirror, on either side of it are two different planned towns, one from the 1970s and another the 2020s, each with problems befitting their era. It's almost dark as we ride through Northstowe though, the lack of lights in the houses highlighting the minimal number of residents. It begins to rain as we travel into paths that seem familiar to begin with, but lead to places I didn't realise existed, bridle paths I didn't know linked together, and when we shoot out, back into the light of quiet suburbanism my GPS screen has turned off and I really don't know where I am for a while. It is the beginning of dynamo season, when the paths are dry but the days are short, and a layer might be needed not just for the stops, but maybe also the riding too.

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UR KING

NOT MY KING

Greta pictures, fun write up!

Took the bike with me on a family holiday again. The perfect bike for when you don't know what the ride will be like. Slow on the road, unsteady on the rough stuff, the brakes have never been set up properly so they scream even in the dry, even without much pressure on the levers. Devon is too steep for me but I keep stringing climbs together, checking the map, asking a man riding a Bob Jackson in sandals where are the best places to go. He indulges me and I feel like I've cheated my way to obtaining secret knowledge. The locations he mentions get bookmarked like waypoints on a mini map and I route myself further away from home, not paying attention to the elevation profile and trusting my suspicions, going the wrong way but regaining the road by cutting over a tractor track covered in broken bricks. Wild strawberries in the hedgerows and giant, black beetles edging across the road, extending myself further and further. Eventually it all falls apart, 20km away from the holiday rental. I can't face another hill, my drive train is squeaking dry, two packets of crisps and a snickers and a coke have just given me a headache. I push up the final hill home.

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