The DaveyChain

Pentax.  This may ring a bell with some people - it was a huge camera brand.  It's a brand which I'm still fiercely loyal to ever since I got my first Pentax in about 1985.  That was a P30 with a 35-70mm zoom upon which I added a Sigma 70-210mm telephoto, a 50mm f2 fixed and a flash gun.  When it went faulty after a LOT of use, Chester Camera Centre (no longer trading) loaned me a lovely Pentax ME Super during the repair.  They'd come to (easily) learn I was a Pentax fan and even asked the Pentax rep to give me a Pentax t-shirt, waaay to big for me initially, which I proudly wore for about 10years.  Maybe longer.  Surprised I don't still have it actually (surprising no-one I used to work with).   My first SLR camera, the amazing Pentax P30 In about 1991 I then added a completely manual (and even then considered retro despite being made til 1997) Pentax K1000, no automatic modes at all. With this & my P30, I continued taking photos & slides (remember

November, November, darker by each day. An occasional brightening but usually grey. Lanes of slick mud try to mucky my feet. My mudguarded bike manages to beat. Wet are the roads, damp leaves worth a mention. Thank goodness for overshoes, an amazing invention. Always go out with gilet in pocket. The weather may turn, may sure that you've got it.  My old Ridley frame with Campag groupset. As indestructible a bike as you may get. Commuting to work in early daylight. Returning back home fully at night. A day off midweek, a chance to ride free. Rediscover the lanes through villages twee. Riding in November, autumn at best.  It's something of, the ultimate quest. Cold mornings, cold winds, cold rain from above. Sunsets & sunrises, what's not to love? And now it's December and I haven't been arsed to ride for the last 3 days cos it's been super rainy, I couldn't get out of bed, I'm tired, etc. I'll have to do some December riding to be able to write so

Both David Hasselhoff & Ever Ready promoted something called "(K)Night Rider" in the 80s.  One was a TV series around a super advanced self-driving car called KITT (with what could loosely be described as LEDs on the bonnet), the Hoff playing "Michael" aided by KITT in tackling crime and generally re-acting the same plot episode after episode.  In fact, KITT's noises and looks are akin to a Tesla now I guess, albeit the Tesla's self-driving technology is way behind a now 40yrs old KITT... KITT was also around a million years ahead of the other "Night Rider", Ever Ready's lighting sets which presumably enjoyed a free & unexpected publicity boost because of the naming.  Those LEDs on KITT's bonnet actually looked like they were visible, which was already a step up on the rear light of the unbelievably incredibly popular Ever Ready lights. The design brief of the Ever Ready lights must have been this: We are a battery maker. Let's

Open up any cycling magazine or cycling website over the past few years and it'll feature gravel riding.  Photos of gravel roads undulating through forests before leading to a gravel hairpin before a stretch of gravel especially open to expansive skies, before taking a small gravel off-shoot to a lake previously untouched by human breath, let alone a gravel tyre.  This lake, not on maps nor even seen by any of the 2787 active satellites above Earth this very second, will provide the perfect backdrop to boil a whistling kettle and stroke your beard whilst watching rare birds circle above some unicorns frolicking in the water (I googled the number of satellites, obviously). These writers did not approach me or the expanding band of UK cyclists about our realities of going off-road, and as it's autumn, off-road when the days are short and the tracks never dry.  If they had, it would be this... Ride along a road, a normal road.  Internally remark to yourself about how 'draggy&#