La Flamme Rouge **off topic discussion**

Connolly leaves the Galway count centre as ballot boxes opened. 🤩 a Cycling Presidency ahead, as folk will see this as norm as in NL, DK. She's doing more to solve traffic issues with photo-ops alone!

It's mostly very good. I haven't bought their winter gear in a while now (I tend towards Galibier these days), but I've got some Decathlon gear with many years service in it going strong. My last winter jacket from them was actually too warm - the rare day I'd have needed it tends to be type of day when the kettle gets put on again. I did buy one of the top of the range Van Rysel helmets recently, and it's excellent.

I'm sold. Thanks folks, will take a punt on a few bits and report back.

I read what can be taken at this stage as a period piece over the weekend, "Breaking The Chain" by Willy Voet. For context for those not aware, Voet was the guy nabbed n the French/Belgian border in 1998 on the way to the ferry to come over here for the Grand Depart with the contents of a rather large pharmacy in his boot, which set the scene for an awful lot of what transpired over the next 15 years.

It's a mixed bag, the bits where he's talking about being caught and locked up are quite self pitying, and there's definitely a whiff of revenge about it. The impression you get is that there's no "fair cop" rather than being sorry for being caught (sample: "the pictures of a weeping Virenque coming out of the cafe after holding hos last press conference pierced my heart, made me feel like a thief who had seen the light. Because of me, the hip hopes of the best cycling team in the world (Festina - who the rest of the book paints as rotten to the core) had been reduced to dust" ) - can somebody pass the sick bucket?

More interesting are the bits dealing with the mechanisms of doping through the 80's and the rotten core of the 90's. He picks and chooses where he names names - small fry get named and shamed but high profile riders (more likely to lawyer up presumably) are just referred to as "a rider" or similar. While Kelly does get named in the text in a general way as being a member of various teams (Voet I believe was his soigneur for quite a period), he's not directly named with regards to doping. The infamous failed check where the mechanics urine tested positive is though.

Also conspicuous by their absence is the Texan and his merry men. There is a very brief mention of US Postal in passing, but the lawyering up is again possibly a factor here.

It's not one to go out of the way to track down but worth a rainy afternoon (it clocks in about 125 pages) if - as I did - you come across it in the library.

An Italian tea pot, as a Sardinian girl I knew years ago called them..

I managed to rightly boil a cheaper non Bialetti one dry and nearly burned down house.

We were doing a renovation and rented old terraced house for winter. Some cowboy put a single storey kitchen extension which was undescribable cold(I like the cold but this room was the pits). So much so

*Olive oil on shelf went solid

*I never heard the fridge run

*One pot wonder meat dishes were left on stovetop as it was nearly as cold as a fridge.

The upshot was kitchen door was always closed.

One Sunday morning my wife was gone for weekend and I headed off to beach with my son. About and hour or so into beach trip I started wondering did I ever drink the coffee, and then wondered did I ever turn off the gas... I hadn't.

After a rather stressed 10 mins drive I got to house and was met by smoke at front door.

Entered kitchen to find

Coffee boiled off, plastic handle had melted off and was after igniting. It was a slow burn but it was close enough to fire blanket plastic holder to lead to further spread..

It didn't go boom!

Bialetti have started dolling up their new pots, the induction one is nice and my sister has a couple of nicely coloured standard pots

If the PRV doesn't activate then yes if stove is hot enough

Aeropress got taken over by a big crowd in 2021 who bumped up the prices and changed the materials, in typical fashion just killed it through greed.

The induction bialetti’s are great but honestly they’re still a pain in the arse to clean sometimes and having to watch them like a hawk too so they don’t bubble over and go sour isn’t worth the hassle

Is it Bluetooth vs. ANT+? ANT is very low in power consumption. I haven't really noticed it myself, but I think I ended up having to connect to my Edge 530 using BLE rather than Ant with the Garmin HR strap (I was having awful problems trying to connect it initially) so they'd be similar in power consumption. I've had the HR strap (HRM Dual) for over 2 years now and I think I've only had to change the battery once.

Even the wnakers on the side wouldn't drink that.

https://rpmsupplies.com/product/i-p-a-isopropyl-alchohol/

Seems to be a few places online