Recent content by 2manyoranges

Thanks indeed all for detailed advice about personal preferences - very much appreciated. Great to compare different views. I think I will experiment in good time rather than do the usual 'I have plenty of time before the trip so no need to build it just yet - oh sh't it's next week and I still...

So…..a planned trip to the Jura in May. I have a Karate Monkey frame hanging in the workshop and will build this up for some distance riding. It will be a trip of long days in the saddle on fire roads and tracks rather than the manic downhill and singletrack stuff which I am used to. Bit of a...

Granniegear proves that there are parallel universes which occasionally intersect with ours. In their universe this is a perfrectly reasonable price since a pint of milk there costs 27.86 and England has a successful economy

picking up the environmental stress part.... This is exactly right. There have been difficult seasons in the past - drought in the 80's etc - but the last few years have seen a sustained period of very different rain patterns in Europe...

It has forks! The forks are now getting hens-toothy. frame and forks = light, tough, svelte ride. Lovely.

Blimey that’s grim. Are they like that because of an unusual storm or have they just been designed badly? Good that you found your light though… Hope your aches and pains are easing

Er … cheating … Today’s Ride not one A ride that is Grom led HVS then topped out on the pinnacle.

Ah … see you over on ‘Retro Tractor…’

Crikey that's news to me re beech and some people arguing that it is not native. How very odd. The complex eco system of a beech wood (and its morels and boletus) is an extraordinary thing. It's teeming with species. I agree regarding politicians and ecosystems. But I do work with them and we...

Some very good points. And you are right, huge variation in the strategy of landowners, some very ecologically-driven and evidence-based, and not particularly motivated by subsidies. On my part I manage a mixed new woodland (25 years old) ash, beech, oak with poplar windbreak. Ash Dieback is...

That's all very much on the ball. Cynical tax avoidance plus non-evidence-based post-war desperate planting amounted to wanton destruction. Much of forestry policy is now focussed on undoing the impact of previous policy. Which does raise questions about whether policy is genuinely now right...

I am sure up for that

it ceertainly is. But wouldn't it be nice to have forests where currently there are few (but increasing)?

Background - or skip to the video The Grom is not an eco warrior. He is a scientist. Studying forestry. He was involved in managing woodland since he was ten. He will go into land management policy as well as insist on being out and about amongst trees. I am not an eco warrior. I am a...

Yikes everyone is upping their game in terms of photo quality - what a lovely shot - Los Angeles / Detroit / Bristol Great stuff