My e-bike's charger has just died. Checked the fuse, which is okay and the extent of my skill level Can't really complain as it's been used probably three times a week over the last eight years. I don't suppose we've got an e-bike charger specialist on the forum (you never know!). Gaz Edit: Well would you Adam and Eve it. As it was dead I decided to perform an autopsy (undid four screws and pulled the two casing sides apart). Saw nothing exciting, exploded or burned. Put it back together, not before losing one screw down the kitchen sink, plugged it in, and lo' and behold it came on and charged the battery as per normal 😁 Maybe that fact I'd found a cheaper (E6002) charger online gave it a reality check as to its future and being replaced by a younger model - threats and jealousy having the desired effect?

There is a thing called 'runner's high' which is associated with the release of endorphins (to control pain) and dopamine (which give a feeling of euphoria or enjoyment) and it is known to be addictive to some extent. Over the years I have noticed that exercise has been largely beneficial for most adverse conditions I have experienced at different times. I have associated any improvement with general movement benefits and my self-generated drug cocktail. Well it seems that a few short runs I have undertaken to ease my way into some sort resumption of routine have been beneficial for my recent back issues, and I am grateful for that. To be fair, paracetamol has a similar effect for controlling pain but I really don't like taking any sort of drug where it can be avoided and a drug is usually addressing symptoms rather than cause and I also like my euphoric feeling after a run. I should add this is a discussion of my personal experience and is not to be regarded as medical advice, medical professionals usually know best and should always be consulted for issues, especially when considering adding a relatively grueling exercise regime.

The year started quite well for me with preparation for a loose goal of running 10km in hour or even 12km in 70 minutes around the time of 70th birthday in late January. Then the metaphorical wheels fell off with a small medical intervention, a knee damaging fall while walking my daughter's somewhat excitable and sturdy dog, increased casual paid work combined with a period of intense internal house painting in preparation for the installation of new carpets. Oh, and throw in a bad back, the first in over 25 years and I am going to blame that on the lack of running. So today I laced up for the first time in about eight weeks and did a slow and steady 4 km in abnormally high temps for this time of year. Everything hurts! But it's a start and we will see how it goes from here.

Perfect for when you have visitors without transport and I am guessing in your case where your partner visits for defined periods. Much better than having unused bikes cluttering up the place and requiring some maintenance.

The same with this. Biosphere Bike Project Girvan and in South Ayrshire and a days Electric bike hire is £25. From the Bike Library £30 a month for the Electric and £10 a month only for Push Bikes. PS. The Biosphere thing is much more than just the bikes in Galloway and Southern Ayrshire, dark skies etc. UNESCO

Wow, that sounds reasonable, the poxy Office de Tourisme in my old town rented them for that much for half a day and all their bikes EV or pedal power were in an atrocious condition, completely unroadworthy and dangerous, none of them had a clue and nobody could even adjust brakes, saddle & handlebar height, mend a puncture or adjust derailleurs to stop the chains falling off. I got so fed up with having to rescue my renters when their bikes failed, take them & the bikes back and argue their corner for a refund that I not only strongly recommended that they did not hire a bike but warned them that when they broke down, not if but when not to call me but of course they did.

Bike returned and full refund. Now bike leased @ just £30 a month for 3 months. Bike library.

I got a new Risgeback Di2 e-Bike for my partner, unboxed, handlbars on and front wheel and unrapped. Now i wish i had tried switching it on first. On charge, but can not see why not going on. It was to be a surprise, now it is a PITA! Video shows a center screen like i have on my fat -bike, but this one is a screen on the left bar and an up down on the right. Waiting to here from 'Support'. Not this either.

I've got a Fitbit Versa 3 that I've been using for about 6 months and while it is not as dedicated a sports watch as the Garmins it is proving to be quite good value at the discounted price I paid. The particular plusses for me is that it is light, has a comparatively long battery life in normal non-gps mode (5 days), and because it fits so well on my skinny wrists the heart rate monitor appears to be very accurate and compares favourably with a chest monitor (which I dislike wearing anyway). The focus is mainly on encouragement of activity, which was a little annoying getting notifications when you meet the goals they set for you but I've got used to them now. It does a thing called 'Active minutes' where you are awarded values related to certain heart rates so in my case it seems over a 100bpm is one point per minute and over 130bpm is two points per minute of exercise. The target for the week is 150 Active minutes so about 23 minutes a day so not big objectives to say the least. One active day at home I did an 8km walk with my wife in the morning and then later a 7.5km run along the beach, plus shopping (it counts) added up to 220 Active minutes for the day. One active day at work pushing loaded trolleys, packing and unpacking etc registered 380 Active minutes. I found that very interesting. Good at providing stats for specific nominated activities which are manually selected, stopped and started to activate the gps. Obviously battery consumption then increases . Overall a good unit so far, especially for the price. If I can get 3 years out of it I will be happy but the internet suggests reliability is not necessarily one of its strong points.

My exercise was helping with the cooking (on top of the usual drying up & putting away)...mind you having good simple food & a good beer whilst watching a good programme on T.V. & having the log burner on is a nice way to relax!.....😴......nite..nite!

Well it was pretty much a splash and dash but the Christmas tradition has been maintained for another year despite the adverse weather conditions. The main problem was not the air temperature, although only five degrees warmer than London today, but the howling gale along the beach. My wife had to hold onto my sandals, clothing and towel while I swam to avoid an impromptu beach sprint pursuit. And I actually enjoyed it.

21C air temp is still warm!!.......I do wear a very thin race type triathlon suit...so I can stay in the water longer....I used to swim in just a pair of "budgie smugglers" as you call them, but after 40mins I was having problems keeping warm as expending too much energy shivering whilst swimming!...So got the wetsuit & I usually swim for about 50mins to 1hr 5mins & do 2km to 2.5km...depending on the sea swell.....But as its a very thin suit 12C is about the lowest temp I can stand for long periods of time...

I was referring to the air temperature but actually the sea temperature in the Gulf of St. Vincent is apparently 19.7 which surprises me that it is that high, as we have had a cool start to our summer. Going to be pretty breezy too 🥶 so it will probably feel warmer in the sea although it will be very choppy out there. I'd only swim in a wet suit in your sea temperatures. Actually a wet suit not a bad idea for this Christmas Day and would be a first. A couple of years back, my wife and I did once did snorkel in 12 deg sea temps to tick off a bucket item of swimming with an annual gathering of giant cuttlefish. That was an incredible experience although we shivered for an hour after. If the shark spotter plane indicates there is something close at hand, then to hell with tradition!

"chilly 21C".......thats WARM!!!............ I'm lucky if the sea water gets that warm at the height of summer where I live!!....usually its between 12C & 16C when I'm swimming in the summer!

For the last thirty six Christmas Days I have been in Australia it has been a 'tradition' for me to go for a swim on Christmas Day with all but one on the nearby beach and the exception a couple of hundred km inland in the River Murray. Often conducted in beautiful weather and clear seas but occasionally more challenging when cool and very windy. This year Christmas day is forecast to max out at a chilly 21 deg C and, as it will be my first swim since last February, I predict the distance covered in the water will be relatively rapid and very, very short.

That pretty much mirrors my return to running this year, I was running 4 times a week with a club doing 40-60 kms a week & more than that cycling to and from the club in the summer months, then nothing for 3 years. I had no sooner got back into it with a social running group than I too was hospitalised with a serious illness in April, then subsequently I was troubled with asthma which had been in remission for 3 decades. I did a lot of cycling in the summer and have been running again for the last 2 months, now it is very hard getting up at 7.30 am in a caravan at 5°c to drive in a warmer car to then run for an hour at zero°c. Maybe I should start swimming until the spring, I did it regularly when I was still scuba diving, twice a week training with the club but then moved on to running.

Tonight was possibly the last time swimming this year...hopefully back at early in the new year...pool opening times etc all depending!.. Anyway manged 80-84 lengths (lost 100% accurate count) of a 25m pool in 56ish mins...& two full underwater lengths..(single length at a time & start at the shallow end, no diving in & harder). Foots doing ok ish..breathing is back to how it was pre-covid, when I was last doing loads of swimming...& I'm finding my rhythm much easier...!!!! Still slow compared to when I was doing 100-110 lengths in 60mins back circa 2008, or when I did 200 lengths in 1hr 49mins in 1992 (Swimathon'92, could have been 10mins faster if had not shared a lane with 5 other people).......but I'm older & the body is a bit more FUBAR since then!!....😂

My body certainly needs the swimming...its the only thing that helps with the long lasting (permanent) after effects of the emergency surgery I had 6yrs ago!.... As for posting...I've got so much on...trouble is I'm mainly on the big USA based MK7 Golf forum.....& the owner went AWOL a few years ago...& the place is spam-bot central every day, & the existing Admins don't have the appropriate "rights" to put in place stuff to stop it, so its a constant fire battle...Then in the past 2 months the host servers have been playing up!!....Result:- I'm trying to copy all the stuff I've posted & will some time soon go to a free blogger site & create my own "site" & place up all of my How to guides etc....A few of the other long term members are thinking of doing the same as if the servers crash thats it......all info lost!

Glad to hear you're getting back into it as well. Good to see you posting too, hope you're well.

I started to go back earlier this year after a few years off/avoiding due to the pandemic.......then 4 weeks later (end of April) broke 2 bones in my left foot...😬...So a few months off for that, then started to go back, took it easy...& then missed October as sorting the car out...Now back to it again!...

Jesus, has it been that long?! Anyway, returned to swimming since then, then stopped again. Tonight was my first night back, and I've signed up for the monthly pass. I've decided to go on Monday evenings and a Wednesday morning/evening (dependent on working hours). They offer a lot of different time slots, thankfully. Missed the swimming, so it's nice to be getting back in the way of it.

A lull at work has allowed me more time to engage in a more regular running schedule, and I'm trying to address some bad habits I've developed. Before I recently threw a couple of old pairs of running shoes away I noticed how much wear there was on the outer edges compared to previous pairs which had displayed most wear on the ball of the foot. I have got arthritic big toes on each foot (from old injuries) and I was obviously compensating for the pain I can experience during the toe flexing, I think this was causing a misalignment in my gait that was also causing increased knee pains. For the first few runs I had to force myself to run through the toe joint pain of running on balls of my feet but it was worth it as the flexibility of my large toe joints has improved, and the associated pains in the toe joints and the knees has reduced to incidental levels without having to resort to medication. I have regained some of my running speed and it has even had a beneficial effect on just walking. A relief in more ways than one as I was beginning to think I might have cut back or even give up running. Ran along the beach today in wind and drizzle but I had the whole beach to myself for the 5km run. Quite wonderful and amazing on a metropolitan beach that, during the previous weekends hot weather, had tens of thousands of people on it .

A series of 'unfortunate events' has severely affected any training continuity over the last two or three months so it seemed a bit hypocritical to be posting here but an on-line article piqued my interest. Pat Farmer, a former Australian politician, is literally running around Australia in support of an upcoming referendum for a change to the constitution. The stats are quite mind blowing: The 61 year old had covered about 10,000 km (as of the end of August) of the intended 14,000+ km, running between 65 and 80km daily he is going through a pair of shoes every thousand km or so. I'd say he has shoe sponsorship since he has 30 pairs available but thinks that 15 pairs will be used when he finally ends up at Uluru (formerly Ayres Rock) Obviously a man of immense stamina, natural running talent and belief in his cause. Is it wrong I'd like to know more about the shoes he has elected to wear? The referendum date of the 14th October was announced yesterday so by my calculations he may have to increase his daily mileage to 90+ km daily to stand any chance of getting to the finish before the event. Ultramarathon runner Pat Farmer clocking up 14,400 kilometres for Voice to Parliament - ABC News As far as I can see the only similarity between us is that I also find that a pair of running shoes is good for about 1000 km (about 1.5 years) before they are relegated to less arduous duties

Bike fixed Wheel speed sensor on diagnostics was registering 92mph and then 4mph when doing neither. New sensor, diagnostics, chain, cassette, tyres, pads, brake service, rear wheel bearings and labour came to £335 all in. Picking it up in the morning 😎 Gaz EDIT: Just cycled it home and it feels fantastic 👍👍 I'm a very happy cycling bunny! The wheel speed sensor wiring is now external due to the amount of work needed to route it back through the frame, but that's fine. The bike mechanic says he's seen an increase in these type of failures (particularly Bosch), all of which seem linked to long-term use of speed dongles.

Well the last service, which included a chain and cassette and brakes came in at £125 and that was about three years ago. Pair of tyres - £64 or so. Electrical repairs - how long is a piece of string; could be a broken/loose wire, or something more serious. So I really don't know. I reckon on not getting much change out of £400. £500 or more and I'll scrap it. Ironically a Giant Prime E+2 has just come up very locally, which I went to see on Friday. Nice bike with a good history, and a new battery. Went to see it as I needed to know if it'd be big enough for me. I'm 6'4", and the current owner is 6'7" - so it was. Had my Whyte not been at the doc's already, I'd have bought the Giant and moved the Whyte on. Minor hesitation that the Giant has a 300wh battery, and my Whyte's a 418wh - some reviews of the Giant mention range. G