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...It's about bikes... and travels... mostly on bikes!
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Andy's Local Ride
Feeling a little better Andy's having an easy day exploring The Pyrenees. Scenery aplenty while dodging some rain.
Choo Choos And The Yorkie Disaster
Today is mostly steam powered with a little motorcycling to one side. Sharon experiences another personal loss, a terrible tragedy.
Poor Poorly Andy
The sun is shining, the air is warm, the surroundings are lovely. Andy is rather under the weather himself, it's not the best couple of days.
Prologue And A Rough First Day
Prudent as ever Ren accidentally stumbles into a super cheap static caravan north of "Skeg-Vegas". All that remains to be done is getting there. If previous experience of heading east is anything to go by - it might not be that easy.
Frolicking In The Flattish Lands
Title page for a midweek break in Lincolnshire.
Getting To The Static
There's the odd minor hiccup but the first day's ride to Llwyngwri (I have no idea how to say that...) is an easy one. Ren is struggling with parking.
Chillin' In Mid Wales
There's sun in the sky, the roads are good, the surroundings are pleasant, and Ren is having a terribly non-Ren moment. His wallet saw the light of day...
Stuck In The Cols - Painful!
Andy is enjoying all the mountain passes on the French side of The Pyrenees - until he's "Route Barre" from getting back to the campsite. He's got the sniffles too.
An Easy Day Around The Pyrenees
Andy is taking it easy today. Just a casual bimble around The Pyrenees, across mountains and valleys, you know, the sort of easy ride we all do on a lazy day. Ever more delightful images too.
The Excuse This Time Is 2 Deaths
They're off back to Wales. The reasons this time are unusual and some might say quite sad. Fear not, Ren's prudence will make a mockery out of respect.
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Choo Choos And The Yorkie Disaster
Ren - The Ed¹ said :-
I... errr.... errrrmmm... I'll take that as a compliment nab301. As for taking things seriously - the one thing social media and the internet has taught me for the better is to stop taking things personally, and not to take myself seriously as I did when I was a younger man. Golly gee I sure did take myself far too seriously once upon a time.
Bogger... on the other hand... is damnably RUDE!!! Alas yes the state of my bike is absolute confirmation of my unsuitability for the care and keeping of animals.
10/12/2025 20:25:46 UTC
Choo Choos And The Yorkie Disaster
nab301 said :-
Ren , no need to read into any of my comments although any retrievers I see locally seem to be loyal , very friendly,
longish haired and occasionally vey stubborn ! I'm not a pet owner myself for the same reasons as yourself , responsibility and cost .
Nigel
10/12/2025 16:49:46 UTC
Choo Choos And The Yorkie Disaster
Bogger said :-
I take issue with that statement.
The state of your bikes is tantamount to cruelty on a grand scale.
Bogger
10/12/2025 16:27:17 UTC
Choo Choos And The Yorkie Disaster
Ren - The Ed¹ said :-
Why a Golden Retriever nab301? I wonder what that says about me? Alas I am not a pet person, I would never ever wish harm on any of our beautiful planet's critters - as such it's best I don't have pets. I can barely look after myself correctly let alone care for another animal. Anyhow have you seen the cost of vet bills???
I'll stick with bikes. I can leave a bike in a shed for weeks and it's not cruel. If my bike is poorly I can choose as and when and how it's fixed and it's not cruel.
10/12/2025 08:06:42 UTC
Choo Choos And The Yorkie Disaster
nab301 said :-
Bogger , I'm sure Ren would be more of a Golden Retriever animal lover .. although then he'd need a sidecar rather than a handbag to transport it .
Nigel
09/12/2025 14:42:01 UTC
Andy's Local Ride
nab301 said :-
The quiet roads look enticing !
Nigel
09/12/2025 14:38:49 UTC
Andy's Local Ride
Ren - The Ed¹ said :-
He is rather handy with a camera ain't he.
09/12/2025 12:52:24 UTC
Andy's Local Ride
Upt'North ¹ said :-
Nice pictures Andy.
Upt.
09/12/2025 12:08:49 UTC
Choo Choos And The Yorkie Disaster
Ren - The Ed¹ said :-
Well it suckered you in Bogger so my clickbait worked...
08/12/2025 07:58:36 UTC
Choo Choos And The Yorkie Disaster
Bogger said :-
Mwah, the railway children ride again.
I was also beginning to fret that a loved pet dog had gone missing.
Click bait, I think they call it.
Bogger
06/12/2025 05:43:57 UTC
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nab301 said :-
I think the coolant temp versions are filled with inert gas ? any I've used have a sealed tube assy.
Nigel
10/12/2025 16:12:10 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
TBH I don't really need it but would like to get it working. My current (hoho) theory is that white/yellow is earthed and brown is live positive. Then black / yellow is attached to the sender which will give a variable resistance to earth. But no idea really.
Capillary action - I'd be worried about the tube breaking and showering me with boiling coolant.....
10/12/2025 11:19:41 UTC
nab301 said :-
Ian , if all else fails fit a capillary action water temp gauge...
Nigel
09/12/2025 16:46:44 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
That resistance is constant regardless of needle position so another dead end.....
09/12/2025 16:11:13 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
I think it's between the junction between W/Y and brown and the B/Y. What has struck me is that the resistance there may be a potentiometer so I need to check whether it varies with needle deflection. It's so long since I've looked at Wheatstone bridges and the like that I'm a bit uncertain about what I'm looking for.....
I assume that somehow resistances are balanced to give no voltage at the coil when the needle is at an appropriate position for the sender resistance. I'm expecting the (generic) sender to arrive shortly so will measure its resistance at different temperatures (well ambient and boiling at least).
If all else fails I'll just fill the hole with a clock!
09/12/2025 10:09:55 UTC
Glyn said :-
Where is the coil connected into the wiring diagram Ian? Is it possible to see?
08/12/2025 18:45:29 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
A quick sketched diagram of the guts. There is a coil arrangement inside and the external wires connect as shown below. I suspect that w/yy and brown are positive and negative and that black/yellow goes to the sensor (which has a resistive path to earth varying with temperature). So that is effectively a modified Wheatstone bridge setup. Or that's my theory anyway.
Speedo cable interface solved with a drill and cutting disc in the dremel.
08/12/2025 14:04:32 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
Many thanks Glyn, that makes some sense. I've taken the bezel and glass off as the needle seemed stuck at the top of its range so may just have a look at the guts to see what's going on. I have measured internal resistances (written down in the shed so exact values not available) but they were in the tens of ohms IIRC.
I've ordered a sensor from alibaba but have no idea what the resistance range is - but at 3 quid I'm sure I can do something to make it work.
Now to work out a way of stopping the speedo cable colliding with everything else....
08/12/2025 09:57:11 UTC
Glyn said :-
The only reason I can think of for 3 wires would be;
a positive 12v
a negative 12v
a wire to the sensor.
Possibly, the needle rises until the sensor wire is connected to neg 12v by the resistance of the sensor itself. It might be worth a resistance measurement through the sensor to help determine if this is the case.
I’m back in the UK on Tuesday and , if you’re no further, I’ll take a look through my many wiring diagrams of Japanese bikes. I’ve never found any wires with similar colours in bikes even from the same manufacturer in the past though. I would hazard a first guess as Brown 12v+.. black/yellow 12v- and white/ yellow as the sensor. A 12v filament bulb in series would possibly prevent any internal damage..
07/12/2025 18:29:02 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
A question for Glyn (or anyone else who may have an idea). You may remember we had a discussion about clocks etc for my B'Zuki. I bought a cluster which purported to be from an RF600. Now I'm trying to wire it all up and mostly succeeding but can't for the life of me work out how the temperature gauge is connected. It has 3 wires apart from the face illumination: brown, black/yellow and white / yellow. The only wiring diagrams I can find for the model, which are all pretty illegible, seem to show orange and 2 other indecipherable colours. Any ideas?
I've tried connecting a battery via various resistors to emulate the sender but get varying results, often with the needle continuing to rise - I suspect there must be some interaction between the three but can't work it out and don't want to fry it. To be honest it's not a priority but would be nice to have the gilt on the gingerbread.
07/12/2025 17:07:02 UTC
Latest Chit-Chat
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Ian Soady¹ said :-
I refuse to use the cloud as I don't trust any of the operators and don't want to be dependent on broadband. I have a standalone 5TB hard drive that I make regular - although not as often as I should - backups of both our desktop computers to. All pictures are stored on the desktops. The backup drive is kept away from the house so in the event of complete destruction (or even burglary) I'll still have that. Although I may have other problems....
I accept this means I don't have access to things when I'm not at home but then why should I want to? In any case it's a simple matter to transfer anything I want to a mobile device.
11/12/2025 09:58:11 UTC
Ren - The Ed¹ said :-
I think Henrik is running his own datacentre!!! It's a fair point - because things degrade it might be worth once every few years spending a day shuffling the data around the media you keep at home.
11/12/2025 08:58:24 UTC
Upt'North ¹ said :-
Thank you. This probably confirms my worse fears but also a lot of reassurance. They are jpeg Ed, again I knew that but your contribution has cleared my mind with regards the Windows 7/11 thing.
I will definitely continue to use cloud, DVD, Flash and possibly a seperate hard drive. Il check out the drives and see which way I jump. I won't be buying three! I'm on a pension don't ya know.
Again thanks folks.
Upt.
11/12/2025 08:51:05 UTC
Ren - The Ed¹ said :-
Upt'. There's no such thing as a Windows 7 image (well there is but that's a thing you'd use to restore a PC...) or a Windows 10 or 11 or DVD image. When you saved your image on your Windows 7 PC back in 2010 it would have been saved in a format (a certain way of juggling all the 0s and 1s), most likely "JPG" or "JPEG" (same thing) which is said Jay-Peg. Think of this like an old VHS cassette - you recorded your wedding on a VHS tape back in 1989 using a JVC recorder. 10 years later you can still play your tape on the new Sony VHS machine. The tape will work in any machine as long as it has VHS. Your images will work on any computer as long as it can understand the JPG format.
2 things change. Firstly the size of the files. While still using JPG because modern cameras have many MANY more pixels the files used to be 1 or 2 megabytes, today they can be hundreds of megabytes in size. Your new computer will still show JPG files from 20 years ago but today they may appear small or grainy as there's just not as many pixels (dots) making up the image.
Secondly formats change in popularity. Admittedly the JPG format has been around for AGES - when I started this site back in 2005 JPG was already an established and aging format and I still find most phones and cameras are using JPG. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut... there are already a lot of other formats and one day something else will replace JPG as the standard (much like VHS to DVD then today we're all streaming). This will not render your images obsolete and I would expect in your lifetime and mine we will still be able to find software that still can read the JPG format.
USB does not last FOREVER, nor do DVDs, they all degrade over time but we're talking multiple years here not weeks. If you have a handful of images that are especially important to you I reckon PAPER is the best option! There's plenty of people with colour printers and companies who will (via the net) print out your special image onto glossy paper - heck they'll even frame it for you.
11/12/2025 08:24:07 UTC
Henrik said :-
Back-up is a big challenge, takes work and diciplin, still then there is a risc, also in the cloud. Maybe you remember a few years back a big data and hosting-center in France did burn down. So did their backing. Data, web-sites, and forum-activities was lost an-mass. Once I backed up to DVD, by far the worse media ever, 10 years later most the content had wanished. Flash and SD/SSD wil degrade also. I am not able to say if they are any better than quality HD´s, I have got huge amount af date due to video, and 360 5.7K filming for hours on the go. The solution would be 3 x 16TB HD's and a 2-3 bay HD ducking-station able to mirror/copy hole HD's. Mapping after own criteria. the 3 HD's should be carefully choosen according to expected reliability, but they should be of diffrent production series also, to prevent getting 3 HD's that then turn out to develope same fails over time. They should be at 3 diffrent locations to prevent fire, og to be stolen, etc, etc,.. Every seccond or year year the oldest drive should be replaced with a new to make up for aging and wear, no seperate HD will ever be more than 6 years old. Thats teory, just like Ren I cant manage it fully. The selection and map-structure work being the worse part by far
11/12/2025 08:14:55 UTC
Upt'North ¹ said :-
On a seperate note switched to GoFibre today, from normal copper EE broadband. All good at the moment and £10.00 a month less for 12.5 x more mb's, whatever one of them is.
Upt.
10/12/2025 21:00:59 UTC
Upt'North ¹ said :-
Ed, Nerd, Leader, answer me this please. I know you can.
If I saved an image on a Windows 7 operating system, then subsequently saved it on to a Windows 11 Laptop and then onto another or reformatted DVD from the newer operating system does it always stay a Windows 7 image or does it in some strange IT world become a Windows 11 image.
I've taken on board your previous comments and will transfer onto a 64 GB flash drive and retain the DVD'S whilst reducing the size of the cloud storage by only retaining a smaller amount of images from each file. I suppose retain a flavour on cloud but back all up elsewhere.
All the bike trips are for instance retained on seperate Google pictures album files but only the best images.
Ta me duck.
Upt.
10/12/2025 20:52:31 UTC
Ren - The Ed¹ said :-
It's a perpetual problem Upt', one that I too face. Even as a professional nerd I don't have a definitive answer for you. "They" say data isn't secure until it's in 3 places. I have a copy of my piccies on my laptop, another on a raspeberry Pi set up as a data store with a USB stick for storage, and the Google Drive is my third copy. But it's a right old faff keeping everything synchronised and to be honest I don't manage it.
I'd suggest Online storage and USB sticks for now. I have used IDrive online before now as it's cheap but it's blummin fiddly and weird. Google drive and Microsoft OneDrive are easy to use but they go "Here's a few gig cheap. Filled that? Out next offering will give you more storage than you will ever need... but costs a fortune."
10/12/2025 20:32:31 UTC
Upt'North ¹ said :-
Ed and other edumicated souls....read on.
I would like to draw on the wisdom of you wise people to enquire about the storage of digital images. At present I back up to DVD from the laptop. Images are also stored on the cloud but storage fills up quick.
I also intend to transfer files from the DVD's to a flash drive, I think this will be less clunky when trying to open files. I intend to retain the discs for now.
Windows are saying anything from XP and newer can be read on subsequent Windows operating systems and this seems to be the case.
At present I am running Windows 11.
What is the best way to store a digital image so that it will be accessible into the future?
Will DVD be better than flash, should I pay for more cloud storage, give me your best shots.
Upt.
10/12/2025 18:58:24 UTC
nab301 said :-
Thanks Henrik, it was the stick on a roof one I was asking about!
Nigel
10/12/2025 16:22:57 UTC
Random Link - A Lesson From The Frozen North