A positive thread

[lankysnapper]

New bicycle, big grins! Boy, I can't think of any thing that makes me happier excepting that which polite discourse excludes!

[groberts]

A pleasant ride yesterday through Surrey countryside close to Rusper on a circular route not taken for a while, in this case in reverse. Doing this you see familiar things from a whole new perspective and even after 20-years things hadn't noticed before = strange but interesting.

For old time sake I stopped at a farm field gate to watch the planes immediately overhead (probably not more than 500ft) on their glide path into Gatwick and found the most fantastic blackberry bushes, with some of the best berries I've ever seen. I thought I'd missed out this year + heatwave damage. Emptied my tools from the bottle-like container into the saddle bag, filled it to the top with berries and made a great blackberry and apple crumble last night - excellent. Henceforth, I will name this the blackberry ride and intend to return in future years.

[pwa]

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4759592 ... 6?hl=en-GB

On Thursday night I finished work late and rode home via this lane in the dark. It was the first truly dark bit of road I have been on for a while. Up front I had an old Hope Vision 1 (4 rechargeable AAAs) on a medium setting, and as main light a B&M Premium thingy (get lost with their complex naming) running off an SP dynamo hub, giving a claimed 80lux, whatever that means. Descending the hill the brightness goes up, just when you need it most, and I was really pleased to find the lane lit from gutter to gutter and beyond, and far enough ahead for me to feel confident to let the bike roll. The road was dry, which always flatters lights, and with a wet road the impression would be less striking, but the kit works.

[Cyril Haearn]

Good news from North Wales
Two more years of delays and misery for drivers on the a55
Then two miserable years of delays caused by construction
Then a few seconds saved when the roundabouts at Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan have gone

The good news is that the construction work has been postponed, so the misery* is just shifted a bit

* Daily Post

[Cyril Haearn]

+ 2019, got a calendar for next year, already entered a few dates

Only problem I expect: Christmas usually comes sooner than expected

[Cyril Haearn]

The blackberries were exterminated by the heat but I have just been to a plum tree in a secret place, picked enough for a couple of days, +20

There is an interweb site where one may publicise locations of fruit trees. Seems a bit perverse, why would one do that? Other people go and take all the fruit

[Cugel]

The blackberries were exterminated by the heat but I have just been to a plum tree in a secret place, picked enough for a couple of days, +20

There is an interweb site where one may publicise locations of fruit trees. Seems a bit perverse, why would one do that? Other people go and take all the fruit

This reminds me of a story in a long-lost book of children's tales I had as a boy. The toys all came alive at night and had adventures - a literary device for picturing various kinds of human character traits and behaviours encased in toy animals, soldiers, locomotives and so forth.

Anyroadup, there was a story about a bear - a somewhat greedy but garrulous fellow - who obtained a lost piece of chocolate which he hid away in the funnel of a wooden locomotive. He was very pleased with this find so couldn't help but tell one or two other toys about it, even allowing them "one lick, no more". Of course his chocolate was soon gone, as the word spread and the licks were taken.

The moral is: what's best: the pleasure of a piece of secret chocolate all your own; or the pleasure of being the famous provider of chocolate licks to all your friends?

For reasons I've never understood, I am the latter. I was born that way or became that way during the "Jesuit period" of my childhood. Sometimes this seems a virtue and sometimes a vice.

But no, I don't know of any other plum trees you could plunder ..... although I could give you a very long list of blackberry thickets heavy with fruit (but I can't be bothered; and you are too far away; and the locals will soon have 'em all anyway).

Cugel

[Cyril Haearn]

The tragedy of the commons

I gladly share fruit, homecooking with friends, but not via the www with strangers, they go by car with ladders and take everything. With a bit of luck it goes rotten on them back home

Going back soon with a grabber to get those higher up, they are mostly unblemished although not sprayed

Have to eat quite a lot of plums for a few weeks

[Cyril Haearn]

A famous motor manufacturer is putting staff on short time, +1
Lucky soandsos, they will have lots of time to go cycling

[gaz]

Rode up into the smoke today. I'd been meaning to do it for a couple of years now but hadn't found the right opportunity.

80 miles, I can't remember the last time I rode that far. Tired but happy .

[rmurphy195]

An odd one this - maybe ...

When I started work in the 1960's one of my first purchases was a sports bike, nice and shiny and new. Made by Raleigh it was green, with chrome fork ends and nice green mudguards, centre pulls, 10-speed and above all - beautiful (to my eyes) large-flange hubs, which you don't seem to be able to get these days.

I've now done some research and identified it - a Raleigh Record. Described on Sheldon-Brown as "The bottom of Raleigh's drop-bar line". Maybe, but for me it was the tops.

The days, the days ..

Colour scheme is not dissimilar to my current bike (well, nearly). Must have been something sublimal there when I chose it!

Anyone know where I can get large-flange hubs to take a cassette freehub?

And front forks in green with chrome-plated fork tips - disc version?

...

[gaz]

Anyone know where I can get large-flange hubs to take a cassette freehub?

Sun XCD, probably Velo Orange and Grand Bois too.

[Vorpal]

The blackberries were exterminated by the heat but I have just been to a plum tree in a secret place, picked enough for a couple of days, +20

There is an interweb site where one may publicise locations of fruit trees. Seems a bit perverse, why would one do that? Other people go and take all the fruit

Norwegians really like picking things in the forest. And they are very secretive about their favourite locations for picking fruit and mushrooms.

Blueberries are everywere, so they might give advice on where to pick blueberries, but the sectret location of cloud berries, they will defend to the death (I haven't pushed it that far). I gather it's rude to ask.

[pwa]

The blackberries were exterminated by the heat but I have just been to a plum tree in a secret place, picked enough for a couple of days, +20

There is an interweb site where one may publicise locations of fruit trees. Seems a bit perverse, why would one do that? Other people go and take all the fruit

Norwegians really like picking things in the forest. And they are very secretive about their favourite locations for picking fruit and mushrooms.

Blueberries are everywere, so they might give advice on where to pick blueberries, but the sectret location of cloud berries, they will defend to the death (I haven't pushed it that far). I gather it's rude to ask.

When I lived in the North, near Bolton, we used to go onto the moors and pick whimberries, otherwise called bilberries, which look to me to be more or less the same as the things we now see in the shops labelled as "blueberries". It takes ages to pick a meaningful amount though. Nice in a pie.

[Vorpal]

The blackberries were exterminated by the heat but I have just been to a plum tree in a secret place, picked enough for a couple of days, +20

There is an interweb site where one may publicise locations of fruit trees. Seems a bit perverse, why would one do that? Other people go and take all the fruit

Norwegians really like picking things in the forest. And they are very secretive about their favourite locations for picking fruit and mushrooms.

Blueberries are everywere, so they might give advice on where to pick blueberries, but the sectret location of cloud berries, they will defend to the death (I haven't pushed it that far). I gather it's rude to ask.

When I lived in the North, near Bolton, we used to go onto the moors and pick whimberries, otherwise called bilberries, which look to me to be more or less the same as the things we now see in the shops labelled as "blueberries". It takes ages to pick a meaningful amount though. Nice in a pie.

Blueberries and bilberries, and various others similar berries are all related, but not identical. Bilberries and Norwegian blueberries are the same thing, but the ones you buy in shops are varieties of American blueberries, which are a different species. Interestingly, the name bilberry comes from Old Norse, but the Scandinavian languages all use blåbær/bláber (blueberry).

You can, by the way, buy a picker that makes havesting bilberries very easy https://www.raymears.com/Bushcraft_Prod ... ry-Picker/

You do collect some leaves with the berries, so it takes more time to sort them afterwards, but it's much less time overall.

Pie! yum!!