Essem

I had a first whilst filtering on M74 a month back. Several miles of stationary traffic so I’m splitting between two lanes. Truck driver decided to open cab door so he could leave truck just as I was approaching. Just as well I was going slow.

Went for run on bike yesterday, only 90 miles of fuel in tank but filled up no problem, seemed all the no and Shell garages were empty, but the others - co-op, texaco, jet all had fuel. Queues no more than a few. This was south Shropshire.

That’s one good looking bike, looks like loads of fun.

Why anyone would give weight to an economists view on the science behind what is happening to the climate is beyond me.

Whether electric is a viable solution remains to be seen, but we have to do something to stop cooking the planet.

You can see where UK electricity comes from here https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk mate has had zero’s for about 5 years now, has highest mileage zero around and zero approached him for feedback. He uses it for a daily round trip 60 mile commute, loves it. I don’t think the range is good enough yet for other than commute.

I wear protective gear on the bike, always. Everyone has their own risk management flow.

It pretty much costs the same per mile for electric car if charged away from home, particularly motorway, as it does to run a petrol or diesel per mile. Electric car is only cheaper, at the moment, if you charge at home (or make use of some of the free chargers). Home charge can be had for about 4-5p per kWh, motorway can be as much as 50p per kWh. Typically, 60kWh would get you around 200 miles. Early days, technology will progress rapidly if acceptance of the science continues to increase at current rate. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that - if someone puts out a battery that can hold 300kWh for same dimensions and lower cost than current tech, it’s game over. Norway already got electric ships and planes, early days though. I’d like to hear how the infrastructure will cope if every bugger hooks up to charge their car each night. That’s a lot of amps down limited cables. I suspect there will be an awful lot of misinformation to have to filter through over the coming years. Super conductors anyone?

That’s a long old day, I’ve done that in the past but always ended knackered and just wanted to get there by end of day. Dangerous territory. I avoid this sort of stuff these days. If I were in your shoes, instead of blasting north in one hit, I’d break the journey to the top of Scotland into three days and make them a pleasant part of the trip. Choose quieter roads up through the Borders and west coast of Scotland. If long days are necessary, I prepare - good sleep, no alcohol day before, no heavy food, stay hydrated. I get 150 miles in the bag early - gets mind into it. Then regular stops after that - every 75 miles or so. I ride as smooth as I can, gets my head in the right frame. I pick a quiet back road early afternoon and have a half hour kip on a grass bank. Avoid anything that causes stress. All sounds a bit OTT, but it works for me.

I used Eurocamp in ‘18 and ‘19 for trips to bottom of France and back. There were 5 of us on two week tour. A mate did all the booking well in advance, and gets very good deal which includes tunnel. A couple of the group were on tight budgets, the Eurocamp approach was about as cheap as you can get and makes for easy planning - it cost us £301 per head for 14 nights accom and return tunnel. It’s one step up from camping, has its charms and makes for good crack. We did a mix of 1 and 2 or 3 night stays. We had booked for ‘20 including a push into Spain - there’s a Eurocamp near Bilbao which could be a base for day trips to Picos. If we are staying single nights we keep the mileage around 150-200, try to arrive at destination around 4pm. We tend to stay for more than 1 night at the end of a long day.

I had the “we are going to cut off your internet unless”. I told them to get on with it, which had the desired effect.

Tough times for voters at the moment, faced with choosing the least worst rather than believing your chosen party will deliver. Better off going for a blast on the bike, forget the buggers.

I’m heading to top of Scotland on Sunday, on my Tod and tent so can be free and easy. If roads chocka my plan is to start days ride at 4am ish when it will be light. Fingers crossed, will report on business. for later in year I’m looking at ferry to northern Spain and week riding around there.

Have found a product called Tourstart, has web and phone app, allows building routes connecting multiple points. Looks to be well developed, so will take the 14 day trial and if it works pay the 20 quid for a years subscription. It lets you download the road map for UK which is good, negates the need for a phone signal. Doesn’t cater for twistiness though, which will mean a longer planning stage.

Thanks all. I liked Inroute because it was so quick to use, just drop pins on map and tell software to join them using twisty roads, easy to modify on the hoof. Shame it’s iPhone only. I’m fine with google maps or similar for an A to B route. It’s the ability to choose twisty roads to join A-B-C-D-E that I’m after. I can always create a gpx and feed to a mapper, but that is a slow old process.

Thanks will try those. Is Tomtom not just a single point nav tool for their dedicated gps device, rather than multi point planning software for phone? The feature I’m after is that when riding through somewhere like France I can enter about 15-30 points I wish to pass through on a day of ~250 miles, and tell it to set a route with twisty roads. When riding through France, typically I set off in morning on a route of nice biking roads. If something changes and I just need to get to the end quick, I flip to something like Apple maps which is designed to seek the quickest route A to B but ignores the fun/interest factor. Ideally I’d also like to be able to set something which flagged points of interest based on personal taste (good food, historic etc). Have often thought it would be good to have my phone pop up a message ‘good pie shop 20 miles away’ and I could just press ‘go’.

I’ve used an app called InRoute on my iPhone for a few years, UK and Europe. I like it because I can just click multiple places I want to hit and press go. It also has a setting for how twisty you prefer your roads. Unlike typical nav tools - apple or google maps - where you type a single destination and get offered multiple routes the software thinks best. I’ve now got an Android phone to act as a dedicated nav tool for Mike’s and cycling. But Inroutes is iPhone only. Bugger. A web search brings up dozens of apps, so to avoid trawling through them all does anyone know of an Android app that will let me enter multiple way points as a route rather than a single destination. thanks Sean

Had a Zero on loan for a day last year, very nice ride. Only issue was range, 100 miles and it was almost empty. If that was 250 miles I’d have one.

The links below give good info about power use. Oil, coal, gas are just batteries. I reckon it’s the next steps in battery tech that will amp up the green revolution. https://gridwatch.co.uk https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

Came across the ‘tips’ below while setting up access to home network, and thought it might bring a smile to this conversation If you need 100% security, follow these steps: Turn off your unit Unplug any attached cable, including power connection Your QNAP is now 100% safe against remote attacks