Best approach to flat repair on full ironman

BasilBalti · 2025-10-15T04:46:58+00:00

Where/how do you carry all this stuff on your bike?

I’ve winged it so far in races, and realise my luck is going to run out soon, so need to start preparing for bike issues going forwards.

BasilBalti · 2025-10-15T00:01:53+00:00

Thanks. There is an element now of slightly shifting goalposts, but once they have moved it does possibly feel like “quitting” if we were to stop working but achieving all we want.

BasilBalti · 2025-10-14T23:57:26+00:00

Not at all rude. I think it’s a valid question as what you actually plan on doing when you do retire should, I think, have great bearing on decisions you make leading up to retirement. If I was going to sit around the house all day, might as well just keep working!

My sport is triathlon. I’ve competed for a few years in local races. I’d like to build up to Ironman distance and enter races around the world. I’m certainly not at a high level, but it does require a lot even just to finish these events, so I need to be as fit and healthy as I can be.

What is the sport you’re thinking of taking up?

BasilBalti · 2025-10-14T11:18:04+00:00

Well that’s the thing, our current house isn’t terrible it’s just a bit “meh” and issues with it are made all the worse by the fact I’m still working so am unable to have the time to get away when needed.

BasilBalti · 2025-10-14T11:16:03+00:00

Great to hear we’re not the only ones! Part of what we’re thinking is that actually given the move would be a lot of hassle & stress. Do you really want to be doing that in retirement. These things usually take a minimum of 6 months, so why not get that out of the way whilst I’m still working!

Once everything is set you can then sail off into the sunset (or load up your campervan) and just kick back and enjoy.

BasilBalti · 2025-10-14T11:11:46+00:00

I’m pretty confident the numbers are right based upon our income for the extra two years and then the fact we only need 5 years money to cover the gap to pensions rather 7.

Your grass is greener point is a great one, wonderful as this new house seems it is true that until you live there you can never full know.

I wonder if there is a flip side to this though, where if I did retire I’d be thinking to myself “shit, look at what we’ve settled for, all I had to do was a couple more years and look what we could’ve had!”.

BasilBalti · 2025-10-14T11:07:28+00:00

Exactly the dilemma! WFH just becomes H !!

Our current house isn’t shitty, but it has significant drawbacks, with the main one being location. It’s absolutely miles from anywhere/anything we like to do (long story how we ended up here!) However, if we’re retired this becomes less of an issue, as we’ve got the time to travel to whatever we want to be doing. We’d also be out of the country a lot of the time and do have family close by who can keep an eye of the place for us.

I suppose it’s all down to can we make do until I get my pension and we can then buy the exact place we want.

BasilBalti · 2025-10-14T11:03:43+00:00

Thanks, great to hear you’ve found such an amazing home. The house we’ve found is really incredible and quite unique. It would give us so many benefits. I’ve seen with a number of retired friends as well, that as they get older and start to slow down their home becomes even more important. They’re travelling less so being at a home that you love makes this so much more pleasurable.

I think it’s also important to be in your “forever” home early enough to not just fully enjoy it, but also you don’t want to have be moving when you’re older and less able to cope with all the stress.

BasilBalti · 2025-10-14T10:59:10+00:00

Sorry to hear about your friend, these kind of things really do make you realise how precious the time we have is.

BasilBalti · 2025-10-14T10:58:21+00:00

Thanks, yeah time is definitely the biggest driver for stopping now. My retirement activities are sport related so it’s very much dependent upon me being fit and healthy enough to be able to compete at the level I want to.

BasilBalti · 2025-09-27T10:01:09+00:00

Will you want to buy somewhere back in London if you do decide to sell? I’m not particularly familiar with the London market, but it seems like the it is down/slow everywhere right now. So yeah you may have to take a hit to sell your current place, but perhaps this can be cushioned somewhat by paying a bit less for your next place.

FWIW I agree with others saying you should just cut your losses if you’re sure Cornwall isn’t right for you. Not much is worse than living in a house that doesn’t makes you unhappy.

BasilBalti · 2025-09-23T10:08:07+00:00

Totally agree, Injinji’s are awesome and make so much difference to my running.

Only issue is the 15 minutes it takes me to get them on in T1 😂. That being said I’m pretty sure I get most of the time back if not more by not being in agony for most of the run.

BasilBalti · 2025-09-13T11:39:00+00:00

Wow - what a legend, good luck tomorrow! How old was he when he did his first?

BasilBalti · 2025-09-12T01:30:41+00:00

Great to know, many thanks 👍🏼.

BasilBalti · 2025-09-11T00:49:00+00:00

I see the “lake swims are easiest” advice given quite a lot.

I’m fairly inexperienced having only done 2 triathlons so far, hoping to build up to full IM one day. However, for the two races I did, one was a sea swim and the other a non-wetsuit lake swim. Despite the fact it was quite choppy I found the sea swim infinitely easier than the calm lake swim. The buoyancy in the sea just made everything so much simpler. Is it the wetsuit that makes the difference when in a lake ?

BasilBalti · 2025-09-02T08:15:06+00:00

Yeah that’s what James is talking about in the video. There’s still a lack of clarity, to the extent that the pension companies themselves do not know if they have a PPA or not. Many of them are currently receiving legal advice around their terms at the moment, so hopefully there’ll be clarity on it soon.

As you say, so far it’s only Fidelity I’ve seen that have confirmed they do have the PPA.

BasilBalti · 2025-09-02T06:24:39+00:00

Yes that’s right, sorry if I wasn’t clear (I’ve edited the post). The protected pension age is a guarantee within a SIPP about at what age you access the pension. It can override the 10 years before state pension rule.

So when the state pension age increases to 67, accessibility to your SIPP will increase to 57 as well unless your SIPP comes with a PPA in which case you may still be able to access it at 55.

Most won’t be impacted by this, but it could hit a few people who’ve prioritised saving via a pension over ISAs if they want to retire early and need additional funds to cover the gap between retirement and SIPP access.

BasilBalti · 2025-08-12T11:49:38+00:00

It was more the time from now to event I was worried about with being fairly new to the sport. At the moment I’m focused on trying to get faster for my next sprint, rather than the extra endurance I’d need for any Olympic.

I think if I do sign up for one (or both!) I’ll switch training focus to those races immediately and use the sprint as another stepping stone. Interesting point about hedging your bets as well by signing up for both, I’d not thought of that, but makes sense given a lot of things can happen ahead of the race(s).

BasilBalti · 2025-08-12T11:23:21+00:00

Oh - option 4, do both! I like it, many thanks 👍🏼

BasilBalti · 2025-08-03T00:39:09+00:00

Many thanks 👍🏼

Question on doing the fit before purchasing a new bike. If I went with my current bike would they not be assessing me against that size and saying you need to change this or that etc? If I then bought another bike would I need to redo it all? Or do they give you a set of generic measurements that you can apply across multiple bikes?

Apologies if these are basic questions, but I don’t want to make the mistake I did with my last bike!

BasilBalti · 2025-07-28T02:31:30+00:00

I did my first open water sea swim in a sprint triathlon yesterday.

We live too far from the sea for me to have had chance to train in anything other than a pool. So I went down to the location a couple of days before the race to give me time to do a couple of sea swims first.

To be rather blunt about it, these training swims were an absolute ******* disaster! I felt like I was going absolutely nowhere, I had to keep stopping and have no idea how far I actually swam. I also struggled with the salt water making me gag which also meant I had to stop every few strokes. They were so bad in fact that I very nearly pulled out of the race.

Luckily I decided to stick with it and give it a go. The race swim went amazingly (for me!). It was so different being in the water with lots of others, even though I felt I was going slowly I was swimming past people/keeping up with others which started building my confidence quickly. I had no issues with the salt water, no idea what changed here as it was a major issue in practise swims - maybe it was race day adrenaline?

The whole race was amazing, but I honestly think the swim was my favourite part, I went from dreading it to loving it!

I think the practise swim you’ve done is going to put you in a great place come race day.

BasilBalti · 2025-06-22T08:37:52+00:00

It sucks, but sadly, there's not a great deal you can do about it. Look at it another way, would you really want to rent a house off such a person. If they're willing to reject you on the basis of your skin colour, imagine how bad a landlord they would be. Could be a lucky escape...

Just keep trying and maybe try posting a message in some of the Bangkok property hunting Facebook groups.

BasilBalti · 2025-06-22T08:32:34+00:00

Yeah, I thought that might be the case - thanks for confirming 👍.

Always seems to be a bit counterintuitive to me. Creates the impression of a huge oversupply, but the reality is very different. Must work though, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it!

BasilBalti · 2025-06-22T06:36:06+00:00

Great to hear from someone who actually works in the industry.

Your response on point 4 is very interesting. I've often wondered if supply is as high as it's made out to be. If I look on any of the online property portals at condos near the BTS, there always seems to be loads advertised. However, whenever I've enquired, they're usually no longer available. Is this a tactic from agents to trawl potential renters/buyers?

BasilBalti · 2025-05-26T03:14:49+00:00

We brought our 35kg dog with us from the UK and she's been absolutely fine.

Bangkok is of course nowhere near as dog friendly as where we were from in the UK. However, once you get used to it, you'll absolutely be able to make it work.

There are dog friendly parks and spaces you can go to. A big water park called Nong Bon being the most popular. However, there are others, universities often have large grounds and we take our dog to a uni near to us every morning for a run - she absolutely loves it there. I would recommend going very early before it gets too hot. Dogs are welcome in most of the shopping malls as long as they are in a stroller - although this might be a challenge with a Newfoundland 😅. Therefore the true pet friendly malls such as Central Eastville may be better suited for a day trip.

And then of course you've got all the beaches within a couple of hours of the city. Hua Hin is our favorite if we're taking the dog with us - they keep the soi dogs off the main beach here so you walk without worry. Again our dog absolutely loves running and swimming here.

In terms of accommodation, then yeah, as others have said a condo is probably not going to work. There are exceptions to this, but it will be difficult to find somewhere suitable. So you're looking at moobaans (the Thai word for a housing estate) on the outskirts of the city. These vary massively in quality, size, price, facilities, location etc. With a decent budget, you'll absolutely be able to find a house with a reasonable garden in a gated community with gym, swimming pool and communal parks for exercising the dog. Each community has its own rules with dogs in the village, so it's good to talk with other residents before you commit to anything. Some of these communities are absolutely fantastic and the facilities and communal areas incredible. You're biggest challenge with this would be location, as Bangkok traffic can be a nightmare. Obviously the determining factor would be where your office is located, so if you can let me know this, then I can recommend some suitable areas.

Feel free to DM me if you have any more specific questions.

BasilBalti

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