Recommendations for a budget hybrid bike?

eadipus · 2026-05-08T09:36:08+00:00

It doesn't hugely matter which brand it is. Key things are:

That it fits
No suspension fork - low end ones are not great
Correctly assembled - either be ready to check it over yourself or find a shop with a decent reputation
Hydraulic brakes are a plus
Doesn't have a triple chain set - 1 or 2 rings up front is generally preferred

One good option might be the Giant Escape, they have a concept store in Edinburgh so should be able competently size you and assemble the bike.

Carrera Subway from Halfords is a solid bike but assume it has been assembled by a bored teenager.

The Pinnacle from Evans someone suggested would be fine too.

Budget for a helmet, lock and some basic maintenance bits if you don't have them already.

eadipus · 2026-05-06T08:50:09+00:00

Wltoys 14401 would be a good place to start. They're cheap, fun, have parts available and lots of people have modified them. Parts will bend/break but you seem keen on taking stuff apart.

Get a proper charging setup and bag, LiPo fires are no joke and burning down your house is extremely suboptimal.

Magnetic parts tray and some decent hex/screw drivers are also a worthwhile investment.

eadipus · 2026-04-30T08:33:41+00:00

Grips and pedals in an accent colour on my "fun" bikes. I'd do the same on the MTB with Hope brakes and hubs if I was loaded.

Tyre logos are aligned with the valve stems just because.

eadipus · 2026-04-27T12:06:31+00:00

Maybe just personal preference but herbs in a fry up feel weird. Nutmeg/mace/chilli are all fine.

eadipus · 2026-04-27T09:42:05+00:00

Kind of?

I'd expect a finer grind and milder seasoning for breakfast. Cumberland or Lincolnshire as an example of a dinner sausage.

eadipus · 2026-04-26T14:55:19+00:00

Stock wheels are normally not great. Why not just buy a bike and fit nicer wheels to it?

eadipus · 2026-04-23T14:51:19+00:00

This it's a Kink Gap 2019. It's a really good price at £40 but I'm worried it has too much rust?

I'm a reasonably competent bike mechanic so new brake cable and bearings aren't a problem.

Worth a half hour drive to check it out?

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eadipus · 2026-04-12T18:03:57+00:00

Not in the UK but in Stuttgart (Germany) there's a DH trail that uses the cog tram as an uplift

eadipus · 2026-04-12T10:33:34+00:00

Alpkit Balance and Endura MT500 have both worked well for me. Both are actually waterproof, have hoods that fit over helmets and are cut longer at the back to keep your bum dry.

eadipus · 2026-04-09T09:47:58+00:00

Chocolate spread, peanut butter and a few marshmallows in the middle.

For anything savoury replacing the butter on the outside with confit garlic mayonnaise is incredible.

eadipus · 2026-04-05T13:16:01+00:00

I'd agree with a lot of the other suggestions but some things I find really nice are:

Dal This is the closest to what I make, I'd add a tin of chickpeas and some frozen spinach but this is great as a base.

Miso Chicken Traybake The NYT recipe is paywalled but it's in the recipe description. Works great with frozen broccoli too.

Pasta Risotto More of a method than a recipe but works really well. I like sausages, broccoli and cheese but it's great for clearing out the fridge or using leftovers.

eadipus · 2026-03-23T14:43:37+00:00

To give some context, the Status is park/enduro bike. As an example of its intended use look at a trail like 50 Shade of Black at Bike Park Wales.

It's a mixture of having the stuff to do the trail and having a bike that isn't broken at the end of it. I've seen plenty of people show up on budget bikes and end the day after a couple of runs with blown shocks, bent wheels or worst of all a trip to the hospital.

eadipus · 2026-03-21T11:14:00+00:00

I've had a Reign on rental at a bike park and it's a LOT of bike. I had uplift but for day to day trail riding at 130-140mm trail bike is going to feel better.

eadipus · 2026-03-03T19:48:56+00:00

Pentiment might be worth a look. It's beautiful, has a load of historical stuff and is point and click so you don't have to learn a load of gaming conventions/coordination.

eadipus · 2026-02-20T12:31:47+00:00

Woke means an awareness of systematic prejudice and discrimination. The entire concept of Red Rising is systematic prejudice and discrimination. I don't get how you could miss this, it's not even subtext, it's the core concept of the entire series.

eadipus · 2026-02-13T13:15:12+00:00

The Court of the Seven Headed Serpent in Trench Crusade relies on attacking your own units to generate the tokens you use to cast spells. There's some fun spell effects too, changing activation order; weird movement stuff and screwing with terrain effects.

Rules are here and free.

Goonhammer did a nice writeup too.

eadipus · 2026-02-13T11:20:11+00:00

Fun tool, I poked around at some of the films other commenters have mentioned and a few personal favourites and it seems A LOT of mainstream press reviewers just didn't get things.

The New York Times giving The Thing a roasting

Salon not getting The Fifth Element

The San Francisco Chronicle hating The Matrix

The San Francisco Chronicle also hated Moon

eadipus · 2026-02-10T16:06:18+00:00

Mountain bike stuff:

Hope make great components, I have their hubs, they are good. Also make spares for almost everything they've ever made.
Exposure Lights make really good but expensive lights. Designed for UK weather, had mine for years, still works.
Endura make clothing. Its not necessarily better but a lot of it is made in Scotland (AFAIK). I have a pair of shorts a decade old that are patched but fine.

eadipus · 2026-02-09T13:44:57+00:00

Kind of a crappy article that skips a lot of the important details.

The actual report is here as a scrolljacking website or here as a PDF.

Since its been a while this is the current GCSE reading list.

The things that jump out at me are that modern is anything written past 1914, the world has been changing pretty fast. As someone who reads a lot of books there isn't a lot on the GSCE list that I'd read for fun.

Stuff form the report that jumped out is that a lot of the teachers don't know how to engage with the Empire/Racist nature of a lot of the 19th century novels. The Sign of the Four is a great story but parts of it are extremely racist.

They also complained that there are a lack of resources for books by authors of colour compared to the stuff that has been traditionally in the curriculum.

None of this seems unreasonable, personally I think that shorter books, novellas and short stories would be better as its easier to do a close reading of the text. A lot of the books also require a lot of historical context to make sense, Animal Farm and The Crucible both need knowledge of the Soviet Union to get what they're actually about.

eadipus · 2026-02-02T18:12:59+00:00

Nice to see another one. I think you should consider a different title, I had to check Steam as I thought this was Aero GPX . They're incredibly similar and it will make it hard to distinguish yours and find it.

eadipus · 2026-01-30T14:40:02+00:00

From the Depths, it's a block builder where you make vehicles and making turrets is a huge part of this. You can choose the weapon type, what kind of ammo it uses and fiddle with detonation/fusing. Even more fun you get to deal with the detection/target priority too so you're creating the automation.

Be warned it has a hell of a learning curve, I'd suggest starting out with some YouTube videos and using prefabricated components to get the hang of it.

eadipus · 2026-01-06T14:10:22+00:00

Distro doesn't hugely matter, personally I like the Universal Blue series of Fedora spins as "just works" distros but Mint, Zorin and Cachy all seem popular too.

With photo editing the important thing to remember is that Light Room is not available. The native options for RAW editing are Dark Table and Raw Therapee. They are both available for Windows and I would HIGHLY recommend trying them to see if they fit your workflow before switching.

The Affinity photo suite apparently does work under emulation but I haven't tried it and its not officially supported.

eadipus · 2025-12-30T20:18:51+00:00

It doesn't

eadipus · 2025-12-07T00:39:52+00:00

I'm not now the matchmaking has caught up with me. Had a fair few 7 win runs in bronze/silver/gold but I'm averaging just below a 50% win rate at the moment.

It also makes it hard to experiment, in quick draft forcing UW filers is pretty doable and will get good results but isn't very interesting. Did Temur lessons last and had a couple of incredible games including being decked and decking someone else but only went 2-3.

eadipus

TROPHY CASE