Holidays 2024

[Gemmill 44561]

Looks beautiful on the telly. Could I fuck ride a bike up it though. 

[wykikitoon 19998]

We stayed in Bormio very close to it.  Day we did it we did the Umbrail pass and then the Stelvio.  A nice 100km ride.  But in that 100km you do well over 3000m of climbing.  I was fucking roasting too.  I got to just over 2400m and had serious issues.  I bangged two gels down and virtually a full 750ml bottle and still only just made it to the top without dabbing.    Got to the top, had 3 espressos and a massive slab of cake and only then did I feel I could cope with the 20 minute descent

The Umbrail I did in 1h 40 and descended in fucking 20mins man, madness. 

[Renton 21451]

48 minutes ago, wykikitoon said:

I was fucking roasting too.

 

Quote

 I bangged two gels

 

You dirty bastard. 

[PaddockLad 17167]

1 hour ago, wykikitoon said:

We stayed in Bormio very close to it.  Day we did it we did the Umbrail pass and then the Stelvio.  A nice 100km ride.  But in that 100km you do well over 3000m of climbing.  I was fucking roasting too.  I got to just over 2400m and had serious issues.  I bangged two gels down and virtually a full 750ml bottle and still only just made it to the top without dabbing.    Got to the top, had 3 espressos and a massive slab of cake and only then did I feel I could cope with the 20 minute descent

The Umbrail I did in 1h 40 and descended in fucking 20mins man, madness. 

 

Rare footage of that very err 'dab' from Wykiki here..

 

 

Edited February 7, 2020 by PaddockLad

[Alex 34954]

6 hours ago, Gemmill said:

 

Have you done the Stelvio Pass? 

 

I was in John Lewis yesterday and they've got a bunch of cycling related artwork in there, stuff like this. 

 

https://www.johnlewis.com/sassan-filsoof-giro-d'italia-framed-print-73-x-53cm/p2235856

 

"85 quid?! Is tha chuffin daft, claart-eead?!" 

https://thenorthernline.co.uk/collections/cycling does some good stuff 

[Renton 21451]

I'm on a train back from a 4 day break in London at the moment. Used to go down all the time but this is the first time with the kids, so other than the odd there and backs same day for work, I've not really been for nearly a decade.

 

My observations are that despite a decade of austerity, London's done very nice thank you. The city is unrecognisable from a decade ago with the skyscrapers built, as is Canary Wharf. Transport is simply amazing. And homeless people certainly aren't as apparent in London as in Newcastle, Manchester, or Edinburgh imo. Scratching my head as to why.

 

It's an incredible city, no doubt,  miles better than New York or Paris in most respects. Now the kids are older it's back on the map for short breaks. But it highlights the disparity between London and everywhere else when it comes to investment. If really is a different country.

[wykikitoon 19998]

I have only been to London once, but this year it's on my list to go and explore down there more.  

[NJS 4375]

I don't know how other cities are at the moment but I see quite a few homeless around Liverpool Street, Bank and St Paul's. 

[Alex 34954]

There’s fucking loads of people sleeping rough all over central London but it’s hard to argue with test of it. Same as it ever was tbh 

[Renton 21451]

33 minutes ago, NJS said:

I don't know how other cities are at the moment but I see quite a few homeless around Liverpool Street, Bank and St Paul's. 

 

I was staying at the premier inn near Monument (amazing value btw), mainly using Bank underground as the C&D line had engineering works this weekend. There were homeless people there, but per capita, I'd think a lot less than the cities I mentioned. Same with Westminster and the west end. I think I posted  in early January what a mess Edinburgh was becauseof it, but it just struck me London was nowhere near as bad  I don't live in either city though so obviously it's just superficial perception. Do they congregate in specific areas?

 

Fuck me though, it is incredibly affluent, pretty clean, and even the water tastes okay now. Amazing free museums, parks, and something interesting around every other corner, pretty much a perfect tourist destination. Double my wages and I still couldn't afford to live there though. 

[ewerk 30409]

It’s a fantastic to visit. My view on working there depended on the length of my morning commute. Any more than 20mins wasn’t enjoyable. Obviously there aren’t too many people living there with a sub 20 minute commute.

[Meenzer 15467]

1 hour ago, Renton said:

Double my wages and I still couldn't afford to live there though. 

 

Nah, you just need to not have kids.  

[Dr Gloom 21868]

2 hours ago, ewerk said:

It’s a fantastic to visit. My view on working there depended on the length of my morning commute. Any more than 20mins wasn’t enjoyable. Obviously there aren’t too many people living there with a sub 20 minute commute.

Commuting is tolerable as long as you avoid the tube 

[ewerk 30409]

Aye, well anything under 20mins I’ve walked. Anything over and it’s been the tube and it’s simply miserable at rush hour.

[Dr Gloom 21868]

My quality of life improved immeasurably after I moved to a part of town served by commuter trains rather than tubes. The tube is for London newbies and tourists 

[ewerk 30409]

Two million users a day. That’s a lot of newbies and tourists.

One of my first jobs in London meant living in Canary Wharf and working on the Seven Sister Road. Any suggestions on how to do that without using the tube?

[Renton 21451]

So what's the issue? I commute to work on the metro. Basically 10 mins walk, 20 mins metro, 10 mins walk. Perfect in theory, those 40 mins there and back walking are my sole weekday exercise. On the metro of course, podcast and reading the Metro newspaper time. Of course, the reality is the metro is permanently fucked making the above impossible and long waits on freezing platforms, and trains more overcrowded than the busiest tubes are the norm. On the tube you wait literally 1 minute for the next one. On the metro, it's too packed to get on and you have a 15 min wait. 

 

Anyhow, its property prices that fuck the London gig. My house would be completely unaffordable within the M25. In one of the nicest parts of Tyne and Wear, it's achievable.  

[ewerk 30409]

The tube ain’t quite as idyllic as you let on.

[strawb 4194]

I lived in Clapham, hated every minute although it was full of Aussies. My job involved driving around building sites all over the city and down to around Kent/Essex etc so that probably didn’t help.

[Alex 34954]

7 hours ago, Renton said:

So what's the issue? I commute to work on the metro. Basically 10 mins walk, 20 mins metro, 10 mins walk. Perfect in theory, those 40 mins there and back walking are my sole weekday exercise. On the metro of course, podcast and reading the Metro newspaper time. Of course, the reality is the metro is permanently fucked making the above impossible and long waits on freezing platforms, and trains more overcrowded than the busiest tubes are the norm. On the tube you wait literally 1 minute for the next one. On the metro, it's too packed to get on and you have a 15 min wait. 

 

Anyhow, its property prices that fuck the London gig. My house would be completely unaffordable within the M25. In one of the nicest parts of Tyne and Wear, it's achievable.  

The tube is far busier than the metro like. Which isn’t a defence of the fairly crap service you get with the metro 

[Meenzer 15467]

11 hours ago, Dr Gloom said:

My quality of life improved immeasurably after I moved to a part of town served by commuter trains rather than tubes. The tube is for London newbies and tourists 

 

Plus places that aren't on the Underground tend to be more affordable* anyway, so it's a double bonus. Though I appreciate this may not apply to the Dulwich neck of the woods.

 

 

 

*less unaffordable

[Dr Gloom 21868]

11 hours ago, ewerk said:

Two million users a day. That’s a lot of newbies and tourists.

One of my first jobs in London meant living in Canary Wharf and working on the Seven Sister Road. Any suggestions on how to do that without using the tube?

That’s exactly the point. You choose to live somewhere where you can commute without taking the tube. Tube in rush hour? Fuck that. 

I did 3 years in Clapham going in and out on the northern line every day. Never again. 

 

[Meenzer 15467]

Just booked for Tenerife in May - the usual villa trip with the Eurovision gang, but we thought we'd try somewhere different for a change. Not that there's a huge difference between Tenerife and the other Canaries, but still. I went to Tenerife with my folks in 1988 and 1990 on cheap and cheerful package deals but know basically nothing about it beyond that & have always had the impression it's the less interesting of the islands, if only because it got the tourist developments first. We're staying in Costa Adeje, which looks nice, but I'm hoping to hire a car and explore a bit.

[Renton 21451]

47 minutes ago, Meenzer said:

Just booked for Tenerife in May - the usual villa trip with the Eurovision gang, but we thought we'd try somewhere different for a change. Not that there's a huge difference between Tenerife and the other Canaries, but still. I went to Tenerife with my folks in 1988 and 1990 on cheap and cheerful package deals but know basically nothing about it beyond that & have always had the impression it's the less interesting of the islands, if only because it got the tourist developments first. We're staying in Costa Adeje, which looks nice, but I'm hoping to hire a car and explore a bit.

 

You're right, all the canaries are much of a muchness. I used to go to tenerife every year in winter because it's a convenient place for winter sun. Probably more to do there than places like lanzorote or fueterventura. Teide is worth a visit.

[Alex 34954]

43 minutes ago, Meenzer said:

Just booked for Tenerife in May - the usual villa trip with the Eurovision gang, but we thought we'd try somewhere different for a change. Not that there's a huge difference between Tenerife and the other Canaries, but still. I went to Tenerife with my folks in 1988 and 1990 on cheap and cheerful package deals but know basically nothing about it beyond that & have always had the impression it's the less interesting of the islands, if only because it got the tourist developments first. We're staying in Costa Adeje, which looks nice, but I'm hoping to hire a car and explore a bit.

Worth an explore for the surface of the moon type landscapes around mount teide and it’s more green in the north. I seem to remember Puerta de la Cruz being nice. It’s got an old fashioned feel to it as it hasn’t been ruined because it’s not on the sunnier south coast.