What are your jeans doing today?

[Hopethisoneisnttaken]

This really made me think of your adventures @Double 0 Soul . In a good way of course. That is to say - I’m jealous of the guy and of your biking/camping adventures 😊

 

Edited June 7 by Hopethisoneisnttaken

[Double 0 Soul]

"Don't drink anymore than 3/4s of a bottle"

Jeeze.. I'd have to go get my stomach pumped 

[chicote]

Reminds me of one of my friends in journalism school, who was editor of the "arts & culture" section ... for his weekly article he decided to ride his bike around our town and have a drink at all 8 bars that existed there at the time; he expected to get quite drunk doing so but didn't expect to run into several friends at the first spot, who of course bought him a few rounds to get started, then got other friends to meet him at the other bars & follow suit... I don't remember whether he ended up making it back that night or passed out in a ditch somewhere, and no sense asking him cause he probably doesn't either!

[Double 0 Soul]

Got up early so i thought i'd do a spot of pike fishing down the canal.. i was even wearing jeans in the "what are your jeans doing thread" .. unheard of right?

I'd got a nice piece of aged gruyere..

..made some scrambled eggs and sourdough for breakfast

..went down to the canal where i spotted an old Reliant Rialto, for the non brits.. these were the cheapest form of motoring for the working man, they only had 3 wheels so they were considered a trike rather than a car so one could drive them on a motorbike license meaning you didn't need to pass a driving test... most were rolled at roundabouts so you don't see them very often.

..fishing with a crayfish lure

Vintage Champion / SC47s

Narrowboats

Pike

Pointy

Local artist painting with oils

..pretty darn good!

[Dr_Heech]

Lovely @Double 0 Soul

[shredwin_206]

[Double 0 Soul]

Took my kid suit shopping today.. due to my.. let's say 'buying habbits' .. i was expecting a £600-800 touch, i was amazed how cheap a reasonable quality suit is.. Calvin Klein silk tie aside, all this came to less than £300 from Next..

Having never owned a suit myself, at 15.. he's allready a more rounded human being

I'm just cooking some Piri-Piri chicken on the old Petromax

None of these cats are ours.. they're Lenny's new friends from across the road

..all the gang in our living room

SC-47s

Chucked some clover and a handfull of wildflower seeds down this year

[PartTimeBarista]

A little bit different kind of Saturday ride than what @Double 0 Soul does - long and slow family ride. My kids are probably 20 pounds bigger than they were last year, the hills are getting really tough!

One of the four lakes we rode along (this is the Great one).

And a stop at our favorite playground.

[Double 0 Soul]

Offspring was wearing his vintage England shirt when we hit the courts this morning..

with all of David Beckham's magnificent work marketing alchohol to children you'd think the Royal family would thank him somehow?..

Don't get me started on that other wanker Peter Crouch! .. gotta love the ethics of multi-millionaire footballers

Having lost 6-4 6-4.. I went for a bike ride..

Burbage

Spring Watch was on location here last week.. Chris Packham and Bee'aaave Michaela!

..check this crazy tree out, the branch has grown to the ground creating roots then grown into a conjoined tree. i used to do this with cacti.. using rooting compound to graft

I bet it's bleak living here in the winter

I've never been up here before..

..who knows what this is?

Found myself on i think.. The Steel Cotton Trail

It got rocky

..then narrow

..i went down a hill, not really knowing where i was or where i was going.. and like all hills in Sheffield, the more fun they are to ride down the more painfull they are to ride back up.. I popped out at Strawberry Lee Lane, asked a runner for directions.. then headed back up the hill through Blackamore

..then home

Edited June 15 by Double 0 Soul

[rbeck]

This being my first time drywalling, I have been pretty pleased with myself. Mud is messy as hell though. Spent a few hours yesterday prefilling and then a few hours today taping. 

Also my brother got me a cast iron skillet as a housewarming gift a few weeks ago. Never cooked with cast iron before and I get the hype. Here's a quick curry I made in it last night. 

[rbeck]

Please excuse the double posting. Went for an impromptu bike ride yesterday since I finished work on the bathroom earlier than anticipated. Mtb trails are closed so I rode over to the metropark about 3 miles from my house and pedaled around there. Pretty nice spot, and the ride through the neighborhood was nice too to be able to really take in all the cute houses. 

[Double 0 Soul]

On 6/2/2025 at 9:29 PM, LazyS said:

I’ve always used JDownloader

I couldn't get along with JDownloader i had to uninstall it..

A friend suggested this one https://ytmp3.fan/ which is just copy / paste / download

It's foolproof

[Double 0 Soul]

Hotest day of the year so i took the day off work..

Rode past the waterwheel.. the local heron was fishing

..a bit of drystone walling at Ringinglow village for @Dr_Heech

Peak District is quiet on Fridays

this is where i fell off a couple of weeks ago

..rode to the Intrepid micro brewery at Hope

.. up to Mam Tor

..sheep leg

..cows

..outside Speedwell Cavern

back through Hope.. and home

..pushing back against the manosphere

..used a Brewdog Elvis Juice rub and cooked some pork medallions on the bbq

..on top of noodles, garlic, spring onions, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, pak choi and waterchestnuts

..hello cat from down the road

..my purchases from Intrepid.. Porter was £5.. Bitter was £3

..kids off to fancy dress party dressed an Indianna Jones.. wearing my Lone Wolf Mechanics

..i got him a cheap sex whip from ebay.. word to the wise, don't type whip into ebay

[Broark]

Beautiful scenery 00, how hot was it?
I always like the thought of getting into riding bikes, just too damn hot most of the year.

[Double 0 Soul]

It was around 30°C but the sun hardly broke through the clouds.. personally, i thought if felt hotter yesterday but it might have been psychological because it was blue skies, beaming sunshine and i was stuck in work.. (thinking fk this i'm having tomorrow off)

The heat is ok in the Peaks because it's a lot cooler/ breezier at the top.. you can feel the heat hit you like a hairdryer as you descend..

i think it's just what you get used to.. i see Italians riding Colnago and Bianchi road bikes in 40° heat hardly breaking sweat when we holiday in the summer.. yet for me just being out in the sun in those temps is exhausting..

[Broark]

Yup it's all about what you get acclimated to, I don't mind wearing jeans in 100+F heat here since it's usually quite dry.
Hell, I'll even go walk a golf course in those temps, not in jeans of course. But I think about riding a bike when it's this hot and I start sweating.
But I see people here doing it all the time, so I'm sure I'd get used to it eventually. I'd just have to sell all my jeans and buy them all in a size down. 

[ATWM]

^ It’s actually not as bad as you think.

I’d rather go ride 30-50k on a bike in sweltering weather than walk the golf course. The breeze from bike riding helps. Of all the outdoor stuff I’ve done in sweltering heat riding a bike is lower on the list of miserable ones, short of surfing or being out on the water. Now, I’m not in Texas, but we get heat waves up here and I did spend 5 years in central North Carolina. 

Edited June 21 by ATWM

[Broark]

That’s a good point, I think the worst part here is the amount of concrete that just bakes off so much heat. I’m sure the breeze helps, but whenever you’ve got to stop at red lights and wait you start to heat up. 
My buddy is big on riding and does it here often, he’s been telling me to get a bike for some time now.

[julian-wolf]

^ One of the big keys to enjoying riding is going somewhere without red lights

[Double 0 Soul]

What type of riding would you be doing @Broark

MTB, road bike or split the difference with a modern gravel / adventure bike?

Somthing that doesn't require lycra i hope..

 

[Dr_Heech]

4 minutes ago, Double 0 Soul said:

What type of riding would you be doing @Broark

MTB, road bike or split the difference with a modern gravel / adventure bike?

Somthing that doesn't require lycra i hope..

 

Does FW do lycra? Asking for a friend 

[Broark]

2 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

split the difference with a modern gravel / adventure bike

This would most likely be the best choice. We don't live very close to many true off-road trails, but there are quite a few gravel trails around town.
Honestly getting into riding has always seemed daunting for some reason, there are so many options out there that it's hard to know what's worthwhile.
I know I don't need anything fancy, I just want decent value for my money.
And don't worry, I wouldn't be caught dead in Lycra. Unless it was made by FW. 

[Double 0 Soul]

50 minutes ago, Broark said:

This would most likely be the best choice. We don't live very close to many true off-road trails, but there are quite a few gravel trails around town.
Honestly getting into riding has always seemed daunting for some reason, there are so many options out there that it's hard to know what's worthwhile.
I know I don't need anything fancy, I just want decent value for my money.
And don't worry, I wouldn't be caught dead in Lycra. Unless it was made by FW. 

Yep.. when i first started riding MTB in the early 90s.. my one bike (GT Zaskar) did absolutely everything from trails to commuting to pump track, to XC.. the only adjustments i made while riding was saddle height.. come the mid 90s DH became a thing and you needed full suspension with lots of travel meaning you couldn't ride any distance on those bikes.. so that was 2 bikes you needed.. maybe 3 if you wanted to ride serious road miles.

Some of the trails around me are now so extreme that you need super slack, full sus e-bikes, the jumps are massive.. the only way you can generate enough momentum to clear the gap is electric assist.

Modern gravel / adventure is a bit of a marketing fallacy.. it's basically a late 80s - early 90s MTB with drops, larger wheels, disc brakes and a carbon fork with lots of tyre clearance.. alas, trying to convert a cheap early MTB to gravel is a nightmare because all the standards have changed, again, minimal advancement have been made, it's mainly to keep us buying new shit.. this is what a lot of folks find daunting.

Anywho.. if i lived in the US and i wanted a fancy gravel bike i'd buy this..

or for a first gravel bike.. you can buy something that looks like this^ with all the same attributes.. single chainring, drop/flared bars, front fork (doesn't need to be carbon) and rear stays with lots of tyre clearance for 2.2 - 2.4 tyres (your tyres will be your cushioning over the rough stuff) disc brakes and brifters so your brake lever is also your gear shifter.. you could get something fantastic for a fraction of the cost of the above (i just desperately, desperately want one) .. just go to your local bike shop and ride some.

Edited June 21 by Double 0 Soul

[ATWM]

If you’re really curious about it, forget all of the internet research rabbit holes and just go into a bike shop and just spend some time riding a few. So many of the shit you pay for to make your bike nicer is stuff that might give a racer a marginal benefit but is sort of a distraction. If you ever get to the point where you actually have opinions about components and geometry and all that stuff, you’d have already logged quite a few miles and noted what you want to change.

I recently purchased my first new bike in nearly 20 years, but before that I had and quite enjoyed a rather cheapish ($450 new in 2007) trek single speed. It was an aluminum frame, cheap components, nothing special by any means. I rode it everywhere for just about everything except total off-road stuff. Took it on 50 mile rides even - not fast but enjoyable. I’m still not very knowledgeable about bikes but it doesn’t stop me from riding 30-60 miles a week just for regular life stuf (this doesn’t count going on a ride for the sake of it, which I occasionally also do). 

Bottom line - it’s worthwhile if you ride it often, no matter what it is. FWIW - I bought a “bikepacking” bike, https://www.wildebikes.com/products/supertramp which is really just sort of a cruiser/mountainbike thing. It’s just the most comfortable for carrying crap really and deals deftly with the often crappy roads we have here - and then for a gravel ride it’s no problem. It’s absolutely a touch slower than my old single speed - which I still use as well - but that’s not the point. 

Edited June 21 by ATWM

[Maynard Friedman]

Unless you’re a serious athlete or need specialist equipment, it doesn’t matter much. So many (usually men) are sucked into this world as part of their mid-life crisis - they have a bit of spare cash and can afford a £3k bike that they’ll never use to anything like its potential but do it anyway.

I don’t have a bike anymore but if I decided to purchase one, I’d buy something cheap and ride it for a year to understand what, if any, sort of upgrade I’d want/need.

In London so many bikes are stolen and, in certain ‘hotspot’ areas, like the Regents Park Outer Circle, riders of expensive bikes are frequently violently bike jacked by criminal gangs on mopeds.

[Double 0 Soul]

15 minutes ago, Maynard Friedman said:

Unless you’re a serious athlete or need specialist equipment, it doesn’t matter much. So many (usually men) are sucked into this world as part of their mid-life crisis - they have a bit of spare cash and can afford a £3k bike that they’ll never use to anything like its potential but do it anyway.

£3k..? you sound like me when i bought 2x pints of Asahi last weekend for £18

This side of brexit / the cost of living crisis .. £7000 - £10,000 is the price bracket of choice for the slightly porky, spilling out of lycra, mid-life crisis Peak District cyclist.. and London folks have much more disposible.

[Broark]

Yeah I’m definitely not in the market to drop a considerable amount of cash on something that I know next to nothing about. I just was trying to do some preliminary research on beginner bikes, but like y’all mentioned it’s probably best to just go to a shop, tell them what I want and my budget and go from there.
Austin has a big biking community so it shouldn’t be a problem. I just needed some encouragement to go do it. Plus I’ve got to get comfortable on a bike again, in a few years my daughter will want to go on rides. 

[Double 0 Soul]

5 minutes ago, Broark said:

Yeah I’m definitely not in the market to drop a considerable amount of cash on something that I know next to nothing about. I just was trying to do some preliminary research on beginner bikes, but like y’all mentioned it’s probably best to just go to a shop, tell them what I want and my budget and go from there.
Austin has a big biking community so it shouldn’t be a problem. I just needed some encouragement to go do it. Plus I’ve got to get comfortable on a bike again, in a few years my daughter will want to go on rides. 

Before you buy anything, you need to know what size frame you need.. geometry, reach ect.. your local bike shop will offer you great advice.. they'll measure you up and wot-not.

Edited June 21 by Double 0 Soul

[Maynard Friedman]

Shows how much out of the loop I am but £10k is an extreme example in anyone’s books and shows how futile this whole thing can become. Also, Londoner’s don’t necessarily have much more disposable cash as there’s a lot of poverty here and for those of us fortunate enough to buy a property, we pay much higher prices than (most of) the rest of the country.

[Thanks_M8]

Maybe even try a budget version in the likes of the decathlon in house brand. Great value for your money.

Beware: if you want to try bikepacking or something along those lines stay away from classical road frames and try gravel, had to learn that the hard way last week and need a new backpack...