Cupid Stunt

A few shots from yesterday along the canal

Bomb squad called to A&E when man came into hospital with WWII explosive stuck in his rectum He claimed that he fell on it https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/bomb-squad-rushed-ae-after-22354925?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

Damn it storm Arwen This bloody storm has knocked my garden waste bin over, God only knows what would have happened if it had something in it I had to walk all the way out there to set it upright Better not be another one next year

Ahhh the beauty of satnav as I used to say to you before then, it doesn't stop you venturing it does the opposite allowing you to follow your nose until you're totally lost then switch it on and get back easily You'll have to go back there now

Have you ridden the A-319 North west of you yet Pete? Looks like a stunning road and scenery

Well having said in another thread that drones are useless for spying as the cameras are ultra wide angle and even people fairly close are unrecognisable Well, not if it's me building one LOL, back in 2015 I decided to play around with some tech (as I do) and put a 10 x zoom camera onto a purpose built (by me) multirotor (drone) so if I could get stable video without too much shake I also tried a 30 x zoom camera but it was too shaky when zoomed in

In my garden now

A few from the garden this morning No edits or crops, all straight out of camera

There's no need for paranoia regarding drones, they have such wide angle views that you can't recognise a person even from 20ft away, people using them aren't interested in spying on people or invading privacy, drones are useless for that, they just want nice scenery and dramatic views

Not that many as a percentage of population but it will become more popular in a year or two when the new regulations fully kick in, manufacturers will be producing sub 250 gram drones by the ton as there are no restrictions or requirements for registration other than not flying in no go zones like airports, near buildings, built up areas and even near people is allowed but the machines have to be certified as under 250 grams flying weight, at the moment there is exemption for sub 250 gram even without certification but that will expire in about a year, right now there are no certified drones but there are some uncertified sub 250 gram, however when the rules fully kick in all those uncertified drones will become redundant so not many people are going to invest in them now

Yes Bob, I've practiced all my life

That NC750S is a work of art, lovely looking machine

Just all the paranoia around drone use and the media scare mongering, if the CAA have managed to come out with sensible regulations then people should follow but local authorities are always ten years behind the times It's ridiculous, apparently at the park you have to write to them, on the day you're going to fly the drone (if you ever go permission which is very unlikely) they will cone off the entire area with warning signs, it's crazy when you think that hundreds of dogs per week are let loose in the park, far more likely someone will suffer a dog bite than a 250 gram drone hitting them and the consequences more serious too Like I said though, nobody owns the airspace above their land so as long as I'm not stood on their land I can fly over making sure that I maintain line of sight and that I am well above the height of the tallest building/structure

Yep, certainly was today, warmer than normal but all else typical

Fed up with sitting around the house I got off my arse and decided to go for a ride I headed for Craig y Nos castle and country park as I wanted to get an aerial shot of the castle, a bit drizzly on the way but very mild and no wind at all, up the Upper Tawe Valley (A4067) to the castle, parked up, set up the drone, launched it just to hear a "jobs worth twat" shout "Oi, you can't fly drones here", muppet, damned thing weighs 250 grams it's not like the old days with giant octocopters carrying full size DSLR's, anyway I had to oblige and fuck off, but grabbed a shot of the pond first So anyway, no point in arguing with civil servants, I'll just go back and get my pics from an adjacent field, people don't have the right to the air space above their property, otherwise you could ban British Airways Off and up over the mountain on the A4067 past Crai Reservoir, I can see the clouds are low on the top of the mountains to the west, I hadn't factored in that I'd be riding through there later DOH! Down the other side and through Defynnog and into Sennybridge for a stop at the garage and cafe There were for trail bikes outside, one KTM, an Aprilia Trail (like my old one) and two Royal Enfield Himalayans Went inside, joined the queue to order some brekies and went to sit at a table on my own, the lady behind the counter said "oh I thought you was with those guys next to you, "Nooooo" I said, "they've got 4 dirt bikes all with road tyres on", needless to say they didn't say much to me after that :), especially when one asked "what are you riding?", "my scotter" said I, "but it's seen more dirt trails than those four" Oooh, brekies arrived with a nice pot of tea Filled up with fuel at bloody £1.45 per litre then headed off on the A40 towards Llandovery, had to stop on the way to admire the autumn colours, the pic doesn't do it justice Passed by the West End Cafe and on to the Owl's nest to see who was there, only two bikers, nice old boys on NC750's, didn't stop there as their prices are a rip-off Time to head towards home over the Black Mountain, stunning road all the way (A4069), was often used by Top Gear and other in their programs, however as I started to head up it got very rough very quickly, riding through the cloud and winds got up pretty high too, slowed me right down to a crawl in places and couldn't see more than 60ft ahead Headed off from the car park higher into the cloud and as it levelled out I spotted two other nutters in the cloud with me Dropping down the other side towards home and it was boring towns the rest of the way after this:

Last time I rode to North Wales I refused to take any main road, it was pissing down all the way and it took me 6 hours Coming back over the mountains in gale force winds was an interesting experience, bike at 25 degrees tilt (no kidding) and the rain coming up vertically into my helmet, shitting my pants getting thrown all over the road, they're memories and stories to tell later in life, I can't remember the rides where it was all pleasant and nothing interesting happened

I don't understand why someone wouldn't want to do that No such thing as the wrong weather, just the wrong clothing. It's about scenery, adventure and kudos Yes, camping and eating tinned breakfast wears thin pretty quickly but with experience you stop eating that shit, take the proper gear and cook up your own eggs and bacon They're riding through woodlands and terrain that dates back to the ice age, the feeling of being in places like that is unique, calming and inspiring

Didn't see any

They're impractical really, even the auto mix bikes like the CRM, you can't always trust the mix and they use nearly twice as much fuel so you can't have a route that doesn't include nearby fuel stops They are great fun and give max power for minimum weight, my GasGas EC300 was a monster on power, I got it up to nearly 80mph over the rocks on Sarn Helen coming back down towards the gate :), it's capable of higher speeds not not with me on it over rocks , my two CRM's were awesome too and I remember my old RD250LC was quite a beast in it's day

All the best enduro riders started out doing Trials, David Knight, Graham Jarvis and many others MX riders simply cannot handle the gnarly stuff, been out with a few and they always head for the nearest fire road to get them home by mid morning LOL

Yeah it can be very painful at times, mine started at the ripe old age of 48, couldn't believe it, I went to the docs as I thought I might have broken my thumb joint in one of my many daily bike off's, he sent me for an X-Ray and they told me it was osteo arthritis I said "fuck off, I'm only 48", it's just got steadily worse and in more joints ever since But I'm still a fucking 9 year old

Here's one of my earlier flights FPV over Three Cliffs Bay I only went out about 1km here, all that was needed, on an old 1.4m Sky Surfer powered glider with my GoPro strapped on the nose and batteries moved back to balance it At 3:41 3:46 you can see where I'm sat in my little chair on the flat field atop the hill remote flying the plane with my FPV goggles on

He used a powered glider not a helicopter but even so he had to be very skilled in gliding to preserve battery, bear in mind it was 114 miles each way, it took him all day to do it, must have been incredibly boring Although my gear had far greater potential I personally never went further than 2 miles out, as my objective was videography it seemed pointless when I can just drive closer and launch from there

Yes, I still like the looks of all the street scrambler style bikes, it's just that generally they're all show and no go when it comes to trails here, we just don't have any easy off road, it's all steep rocky terrain, and like you I can no longer do it, for me it was early osteo arthritis, it killed my off-road fun 10 years ago now, I'd get half way round a planned route and have to quit and go home due to the pain

I'm a tech innovator and early adopter, I used self made FPV gear on RC aircraft long before the term "drone" was commonly used to describe them, back then they were called multirotors/quadcopter/hexacopter/octocopters, but mostly I fitted kit to RC airplanes and had long range system that could get me up to 40 miles away (others had systems for much further, one guy did a record flight at (as I recall) 114 miles Basically for me it's always been about photography/videography, pretty much anything I did had a camera strapped to it, with the FPV stuff it started with trying to figure out how I could get my GoPro into the air and I bought cheap toy helicopters to see what could lift it and fly with it and it went on from there right up to 3.5m powered gliders and ultra fast racers that could get up to 140mph PS Pete I was also the first person you knew with a sat nav on a bike You hated them until I pointed out that it allowed me to ignore it and just ride wherever I wanted, going up any random turns I decided to investigate but then get me back to where I knew with no hassle as I would always be able to see where I am My original on bike sat nav consisted of a compaq portable computer and a seperate bluetooth GPS unit, the Compaq had to be held in a huge yellow Otterbox case with Ram mounts to hold it on my handlebars I was also the first person I knew of to have a GPS system for off road trails on a dirt bike using the same hardware above and early versions of Memory Map with OS mapping down to 1:25,000 My early helmet cams were basically a camcorder (tape type) with an analogue input into which I plugged a CCTV bullet cam which in turn was strapped to my helmet with velcro, the wires were run down into a "bum bag/fanny pack" this was standard definition of 640 x 480 recording