The (Not So) Great Unanswered Question

webboo

From the A170 take the Hutton Le Hole road up Blakey Ridge down in to Castleton. left down past the station and up Three Howes Rigg. Then left to Commondale, left to Kildare, right to wards Stokesley. Along the A173 for a mile left at roundabout to Great Broughton. Up Clay bank on the B1257 to Helmsley, left on to the A170 for a mile right to Harome then to Wombleton turn right as you enter the village to Nunnington turn left half way up the climb after you gone past Nunnington village hall. At next junction turn left towards Welburn turn right on the A170 towards Kirkbymoorside and you are back at the start.
I did the last bit round Harome and Nunnington to get my 100K in. 63 plus miles with climbs up to 20%, although Blakey ridge never gets steeper than about 10% and has some bits that descend you are climbing for about 10 miles.

Ben6899

Webboo wrote:

Webboo's route...

That's a really nice route, I know those roads quite well. I try to get over to the Vale of York every so often, with the bike, and I used to do a lot of fishing at West Ness, Kirkbymoorside and Marton. And I used to live in Stockton...

Some nice climbing variety as you well know - short, sharp banks and longer, gentle ascents.

rob churchill

Ben6899 wrote:

Not sure about France, but milk is sweetened in the US and Mexico. It's no wonder every third person is overweight.

Afraid it's so much worse than that: https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity

The one third that are overweight does not include another third who are obese. Less than one in three are a healthy weight.

The UK is only a few percentage points behind.

rob churchill

Mr Goo wrote:

New Q. - What is the score with Jazz?

It doesn't have one. That's kind of the point.

webboo

Ben6899 wrote:

Webboo wrote:

Webboo's route...

That's a really nice route, I know those roads quite well. I try to get over to the Vale of York every so often, with the bike, and I used to do a lot of fishing at West Ness, Kirkbymoorside and Marton. And I used to live in Stockton...

Some nice climbing variety as you well know - short, sharp banks and longer, gentle ascents.

I have bought a cassette with 30 sprocket for those short, sharp banks as long gone are the days of riding up Rosedale chimney in 42 x 24.

webboo

Should I get out of the chair and go to bed while I can or should I finish my whisky and not worry if if I'm still in the same place tomorrow.

crispybug2

Driving through the Dartford tunnel yesterday and about a hundred metres into the tunnel I lost the radio signal, at the halfway point of the tunnel the signal reappeared then disappeared and reappeared a hundred metres from the exit of the tunnel.

I've realised that this happens in most tunnels, so why does the signal reappear at the halfway point when the tunnel is at it's deepest point?

pblakeney

Webboo wrote:

Should I get out of the chair and go to bed while I can or should I finish my whisky and not worry if if I'm still in the same place tomorrow.

Have a whisky while you ponder the situation.

webboo

I went to bed after the missus shouted for me to bring her a bag of crisps up to her in bed. We clearly went to the pub too early or left too early.
Why when knocking off old plaster, you find a solid bit and plan to stop there but when you get there it's no longer solid.

BelgianBeerGeek

Webboo wrote:

I went to bed after the missus shouted for me to bring her a bag of crisps up to her in bed. We clearly went to the pub too early or left too early.
Why when knocking off old plaster, you find a solid bit and plan to stop there but when you get there it's no longer solid.

Who's the old plaster you're knocking off?

webboo

She's at least a hundred and seventy seven, so she's a bit inactive these days.

orraloon

Webboo wrote:

I went to bed after the missus shouted for me to bring her a bag of crisps up to her in bed.

Salt 'n' vinegar or cheese 'n' onion? Just assessing the general ambience.

fat daddy

with a beer .. cheese and onion, With a coke .. salt and vinegar

webboo

Ready salted, I saved the Cheese and onion for tonight.

Pross

Why is it a return train ticket from South Wales to Leeds via Manchester is £100 whilst via Birmingham it is £240? Other than an occasional direct service both require a change, the direct service through Birmingham saves 10 minutes on a 4 hour trip but with changes the trains via Manchester are marginally quicker. It makes no sense especially as the stipulation on the cheaper fair is simply that you go via Shrewsbury so I could change there and get on the other train in Birmingham (although that wouldn't be practical). Shrewsbury's quite nice so not worth paying £140 extra to avoid it surely?

trivial_poursuivant

Pross wrote:

Why is it a return train ticket from South Wales to Leeds via Manchester is £100 whilst via Birmingham it is £240? Other than an occasional direct service both require a change, the direct service through Birmingham saves 10 minutes on a 4 hour trip but with changes the trains via Manchester are marginally quicker. It makes no sense especially as the stipulation on the cheaper fair is simply that you go via Shrewsbury so I could change there and get on the other train in Birmingham (although that wouldn't be practical). Shrewsbury's quite nice so not worth paying £140 extra to avoid it surely?

The fact that a £50 Billion HS2 link is going to do absolutely sfa to change any of this for the better.

briantrumpet

Pross wrote:

Why is it a return train ticket from South Wales to Leeds via Manchester is £100 whilst via Birmingham it is £240? Other than an occasional direct service both require a change, the direct service through Birmingham saves 10 minutes on a 4 hour trip but with changes the trains via Manchester are marginally quicker. It makes no sense especially as the stipulation on the cheaper fair is simply that you go via Shrewsbury so I could change there and get on the other train in Birmingham (although that wouldn't be practical). Shrewsbury's quite nice so not worth paying £140 extra to avoid it surely?

Your mistake here is to assume that there is any logic whatsoever in rail pricing.

Pross

Why do car manufacturers charge so much over the odds for genuine replacement parts? We need a new catalytic converter for my wife's VW Beetle which is 17 years old. The genuine part from VW was nearly £1000, way more than the value of the car and therefore we would have had to get rid of the car and look to buy something else but an after market part with a 2 year warranty was £150 (both prices for the garage to get hold of them - I saw others online cheaper still). I understand that the genuine part may be slightly better quality but how on earth can it be worth 6 times more and who would pay that when there are warrantied, decent quality alternatives easily available?

rick_chasey

Pross wrote:

Why do car manufacturers charge so much over the odds for genuine replacement parts? We need a new catalytic converter for my wife's VW Beetle which is 17 years old. The genuine part from VW was nearly £1000, way more than the value of the car and therefore we would have had to get rid of the car and look to buy something else but an after market part with a 2 year warranty was £150 (both prices for the garage to get hold of them - I saw others online cheaper still). I understand that the genuine part may be slightly better quality but how on earth can it be worth 6 times more and who would pay that when there are warrantied, decent quality alternatives easily available?

'cos most people still pay for it.

keef66

Pross wrote:

Why is it a return train ticket from South Wales to Leeds via Manchester is £100 whilst via Birmingham it is £240? Other than an occasional direct service both require a change, the direct service through Birmingham saves 10 minutes on a 4 hour trip but with changes the trains via Manchester are marginally quicker. It makes no sense especially as the stipulation on the cheaper fair is simply that you go via Shrewsbury so I could change there and get on the other train in Birmingham (although that wouldn't be practical). Shrewsbury's quite nice so not worth paying £140 extra to avoid it surely?

Rhod Gilbert made a similar point about Great Western thinking that a return ticket from Cardiff to London should cost the same as a weeks holiday for a family of 4. And in his anger management journal wrote that it felt as if they'd bent him over the counter, pulled his trousers down, and inserted a baseball bat into his bottom.

Rail fares in this country are generally eye-wateringly high, but utterly inconsistent. It's frequently cheaper to book a series of separate, single journeys than one from A to B or a return, and sometimes cheaper to get a ticket to a more distant destination and get off at an earlier stop. There's certainly no predictable relationship between how far you travel and the cost. Occasionally you can get a real bargain; I remember when our boys were travelling to / from uni in Nottingham and Loughborough they sometimes paid less than a fiver.

I've used rail in Italy, France, Germany and Benelux and found it much cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable / punctual. The reasonable cost makes it an attractive alternative to driving. In the UK you have a choice of paying a small ransom for a train ticket that in many cases doesn't guarantee you a seat, or of clogging up the roads and everybody's lungs by joining the traffic carnage just to save a few quid.

Pross

Yeah, it's very hit and miss. I used to travel from Severn Tunnel Junction to Bristol Templemeads and the saving on that over driving with the fuel, bridge toll and parking made being crow barred onto the 2 or 3 carriage train worthwhile as it was bareable for a fairly short journey. Newport to Cardiff is very regular and reasonably priced but then others are terrible, especially if you're travelling last minute and in the peak.

Even with the vagaries of the British rail network having a ticket that's 140% more expensive than an already fairly expensive fair to start and finish in the same place and take a very similar amount of time getting there just to use a route avoiding a particular station seems utterly bizarre. Travelling from Bristol or Newport to Birmingham is apparently cheaper if you break the journey at Cheltenham even if staying on the same train!

rick_chasey

I'm absolutely convinced UK Rail fares are deliberately opaque to encourage passengers overpaying.

I'm beginning to think the gov't treats it is a convenience tax.

secretsam

Why do people wear masks when cycling? Are they really that ugly?

tangled_metal

Rick Chasey wrote:

Pross wrote:

Why do car manufacturers charge so much over the odds for genuine replacement parts? We need a new catalytic converter for my wife's VW Beetle which is 17 years old. The genuine part from VW was nearly £1000, way more than the value of the car and therefore we would have had to get rid of the car and look to buy something else but an after market part with a 2 year warranty was £150 (both prices for the garage to get hold of them - I saw others online cheaper still). I understand that the genuine part may be slightly better quality but how on earth can it be worth 6 times more and who would pay that when there are warrantied, decent quality alternatives easily available?

'cos most people still pay for it.

I'll admit something here. OEM exhaust parts are well made. Aftermarket are not. Put simply OEM kit goes through strict processes to control the process to guarantee the quality of the parts. Aftermarket doesn't. In fact if the parts aren't right they'll let it through if it is close enough. Add up a whole string of sub-components / sub-assemblies made with this wide range of tolerance and you get kit that might not last long.

I can not stress enough the differences in attitude between the manufacture of OEM and aftermarket kit. Specifications are loosely adhered to.
Of course that doesn't result in huge price differentials so if you've got quotes for £1000+ and a few hundred pounds then one of them is wrong because the price differential is too high. My bet is the issue being OEM too high not the aftermarket price being too low.

Frank Wilson

I have worked all my life selling parts for a main dealer and I can quite honestly say the problem lies fairly and squarely with the manufacturers.

They sell parts to the dealers with huge margins and then expect the dealer to discount to try and get a sale leaving no margin.

Coupled to this the automatic issue of parts (often into tens of thousands of pounds) you don't want and are never going to sell I wonder why garage owners take on a franchise.

keef66

The odd thing about car parts is that occasionally you can get the OEM item from a dealer at more or less the same price as from a motor factor or online. It always pays to check.

The thing that scares me is the possibility of counterfeit / really badly made stuff finding it's way into the retail chain, especially when buying online.

Mikey23

Erm, how come there are so many unused ipads on sale for £58?

rjsterry

Why do some people hold their phone perched horizontally on their fingertips like a tiny tray when they are making a call?

trivial_poursuivant

rjsterry wrote:

Why do some people hold their phone perched horizontally on their fingertips like a tiny tray when they are making a call?

I blame The Appreciate. Oh and Wiggle.

orraloon

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Why do some people hold their phone perched horizontally on their fingertips like a tiny tray when they are making a call?

I blame The Appreciate. Oh and Wiggle.

I blame predictive text.