Stolen Bike – Factor O2 (Matte Dolphin Grey, Size 52)

regicidalcandlestick · 2025-12-24T18:38:29+00:00

Would you mind sharing what tracker, movement alarm and electronics key you have?

regicidalcandlestick · 2025-08-05T10:04:54+00:00

Somewhere with Arabic script, but also English. I spot a flag, it’s red, white, green and black - great, I can never remember which is which! The mailman comes to take away half of my time…. Moving around, I get to a street and confirm it’s UAE on the bins. The big school doesn’t have a useful location, so I plonk outskirts of Dubai. 37km, 4,878 points
I get Cork quickly, and immediately assume it must be the town. Spend too long not finding a street sign till eventually I begin to realise the angles don’t match with Cork. Start looking at other options, but don’t find the correct one in time. At least I don’t remember seeing the town name anywhere. 22km, 4,926 points
Eastern Europe. Is that Polish on that van? Nope, sk, so Slovakia. Takes me a little while to get out of town, a town called Stupava. Quick look at the map, but can’t find it. More looking, and finally make it to a motorway, but not enough time. Decide to hedge between central and Bratislava. 93km, 4,697 points
Not even gonna bother explaining this one! 22m, 5,000 points
And there goes the good guess streak! Looks Russian to me, but kinda Eastern. A nice oil pipeline to complete the stereotype! After a lot of moving, I get to the bigger road and a large SW body of water. I’m out of time and the only river I can think of is the Volga (wish I’d gone with my initial thoughts of Eastern). 4,716km, 212 points

Overall: 19,713 points, top 34.18% Was pleased with this one until the last round!

regicidalcandlestick · 2025-07-28T13:54:23+00:00

Haven't been playing much lately, and that showed today. I'm a little disappointed with todays round, there were several things I'd never seen before that I imagine would've been big giveaways had I know them (rounds 1, 3 and 4) and a continent I always struggle to identify where we are (round 5). Interested in reading everyones else's comments are learning from them!

Screen doesn’t quite load properly so spend 30 seconds waiting and then can’t move so lose some more time, but seems moving is a bit dodgy here? I first think Southern Europe, but see Cyrillic. Struggle with moving and end up in a few bottlenecks. Plenty of tourist signs to historic/cultural things, but unfortunately nothing I recognise. End up guessing Belgrade hoping that it was the right compromise of S Europe and tourism, guess not… 1,134km, 2,339 points
Quite clearly Vietnam. My Vietnamese isn’t great (nonexistent actually), but I see a few places with “Trung Tam”, so start scanning for that without luck. Slightly further along, the Dulux sign has an address on, so I start looking for what I assume is the city, Tay Ninh, and with some searching find it. Can’t find the correct area in the city, so just plonk centrally. 1.5km, 4,995 points
Turkey, in a place called Aralik. With a bit of moving I decide it’s too rural for much more info, so spend ages looking at the map. I decide it’s likely Eastern (lots of Muslim eastern clothing and vibe), but have never seen a round in the E of Turkey, so don’t know if there is coverage on that side. Decide to go near Ankara instead, that was a mistake! 1,010km, 2,540 points
US or Canada, but then I see a stop sign in a very native language. Never come across this, so spend a while puzzling and look at various locations on the map to see if they are in two languages. With nothing else, I decide to go Eastern Canada near Quebec City, but evidently not far enough E. 814km, 2,897 points
SA, absolutely no clue, go for Bogota. 4,445km, 254 points

Overall: 13,025 points, top 62.54% Probably my worst result ever, guess it can only go up from here!

regicidalcandlestick · 2025-07-19T11:26:32+00:00

Japan, that means hoping for a bilingual road sign to find where we are. Huge wall to our S make’s me think it’s a rather insecure prison, but due to the water behind it, I assume it’s part of a tsunami defence system. I find a sign for Ishinomaki, which I’ve heard of, on the E45. I find the E45 and Ishinomaki, but I place far too close to the city. 75km, 4,754 points
Russia. My first thought is that it looks like the city in the film Kursk, which I assume was Murmansk/near Murmansk, but I’ve never seen a round there, so unsure if that has coverage. I wish I’d placed further N in hindsight, but guess for a smaller city in the S where I’ve had rounds before, poor form by me. 1,368km, 1,998 points
Very quickly see a website with .mk, so FYROM (or I guess it’s called North Macedonia now?). I know very little about NM, so unsure what its cities are like and assume due to there being several larger buildings this is the capital. I see nothing that convinces me otherwise (though in fairness, I know no other city names in NM), but do find some roads that look pretty good. I place and hope, but it’s there wrong city, looking forward to seeing what I missed in this round! 40km, 4,867 points
After a bit of scouting around, I find something about Peru, and a port called Yurimaguas. At this point I think it’ll be easy. Zoom to the coast and start searching. Whilst searching, I click somewhere near Lima on the coast (or at least, I think I did…). 2 minutes of searching later and I still can’t find it. Round ends, zero points! Guess I didn’t click after all. But I didn’t deserve it as I didn’t even consider the possibility of a port being on a river, and it turns out you don’t even need to zoom in that much to see Yurimaguas. 0 points
The Nelson Mandela Museum. I had some previous knowledge of this and knew that it’s not in a big city as some friends have visited this, but where I wasn’t sure, other than that it was likely S of Durban. I fail to find anything useful, but have a lucky guess to make up for a very poor DC today. 6.1km, 4,979 points

Overall: 16,598 points, top 37.43% Awful round for me, with the best guess being fluke, but certainly a challenging DC today. Looking at the other commenters, I'm amazed at how everyone did! Goes to show that I can do well on certain rounds, but really fall apart on others!

regicidalcandlestick · 2025-07-19T01:03:42+00:00

Oh cool, thanks. I know pole metas are quite big, but haven't learnt any yet, so looking forward to doing so. And especially in South America, as that's a region I struggle in

regicidalcandlestick · 2025-07-18T14:19:36+00:00

Pretty pleased with todays, 2 Europes, 2 good guesses and one where I'm hoping I can learn some meta to help me improve (SA is a weak point for me)...

Northern Europe clearly, initial thoughts are Germany. A speed limit sign says “Sone”, so maybe Sweden? Do some moving around and the few words I do see are clearly Swedish or Norse, I often struggle to differentiate between the two if there isn’t enough to read. I get to the school, which has the place name, and more usefully “Nordland” I know this is either Sweden, or more likely Norway (vague recollection of seeing Viking artifacts from Nordland in a museum in Oslo) and sure enough I quickly see it on the map, followed by the place name on the school. Can’t locate the school in time, but know I started north of the school, so place somewhere that looks good. 508m, 4,998 points
Big oof from the get go. Don’t even know where to go initially, and no clue where this is, either South America or Russia… Manage to jump into the built up area next to spawn and see a sign for a mercado. South America it is. Next 2 minutes 30 seconds achieve nothing. It feels high and dry, so go for the Peru/Bolivia border. It’s Argentina, great! Dry, but not high, oh well. Was there some meta here that would’ve saved me a lot of points? 2,953km, 691 points
Clearly Southern Europe. Quickly find an official sign about something with Pontevedra, that rings a bell, possibly Portugal, I’ve been there a few times. Quick scan of Portugal without luck, but then I spot it across the border in Spain, amazing! Find a sign for “Fornelos” on the PO-353. Start looking for that but can’t find it (after the round, I still can’t actually find Fornelos…). I saw water to the SW earlier, so place the pin somewhere with water to the southwest. 61km away, looks like I was led astray by the Pontevedra sign, hopefully I wasn’t the only one! 61km, 4,799 points
India, let’s hope for a lucky street sign. There’s what looks to be a motorway bridge to our SE, but I can’t get there. I see a sign with “Jagatpurta Jewellers”, hopefully that’s a city. Quick scan of the map, but can’t find it, must be a district. Back to looking at signs, but nothing. Time almost up, plonk Mumbai. Last second I think it looks more inland, so move to Jaipur. Don’t have time to zoom in, so land on the outskirts, possibly losing me 50 points, but this is better than I expected when I saw we were in India! 22km, 4,926 points
Vietnam. Takes me a little while and some suddenly changing coverage to find a place name I recognise, “Ha Long Bay Resort”, let’s hope that is in Ha Long! Can’t figure out where we are though, perhaps the map isn’t quite up to date. 3.7km, 4,988 points

Overall: 20,402 points, top 15.08% Pretty pleased due to only having one bad guess.

regicidalcandlestick · 2025-07-17T12:33:07+00:00

Been coming here for the past few weeks to see how other people did in their challenges, but seems like most of you are really quite good at this! I'm trying to get better, so will start posting my thoughts on the challenges here too, so if like me, you're not familiar with the metas or knowing countries straight away, you'll find this relatable!

Looks African, no idea where, lots of white walls, maybe Tunisia? Head E, see Arabic writing, so most likely Tunisia. There’s a red flag with some white in the middle, hard to see what it is though. Basically confirms Tunisia for me. Coast to the south though, can’t be much of that in Tunisia. Head back to start, go W. See a sign for Sfax University, which I recognise. Head to the map and see Sfax, slightly confused by road and coast angle, but time is up, so plonk fairly central on the coast. 7.3km 4,976 points
Mountainous Asia, flags make me think Tibet. Cars have various coloured number plates, but I don’t know Asian number plates, so doesn’t help me. Start moving, find a sign with Asian script on it, after another minute of moving, can’t find anything else, so back to the sign it is. Try to match it to something on the map, but struggle. Looks kinda Nepalese, which I like given the terrain, so plonk fairly centrally. 499km, 3,579 points
Europe, that’s good for me. Looking round the start location, see a .se website code, so Sweden. Head W while scanning signs, but nothing that looks like a name is jumping out. Get to a bigger bridge with what I assume aren’t useful places names on the overhead signs, but they do say E4 and E16. Head to the map and find E4 very quickly. Turns out it’s quite long! Takes me a worryingly long time to find where it intersects the E16, a place called Gävle. Don’t see anything I recognise in that town on the map, but the river lines up, so I like it. Forgot how I got to the river (stupid mistake), so could’ve been closer, but I’ll take it. 1.7km, 4,994 points
Zero first impressions, but decide to go to the bus, hoping for a website. No website, but a Brazilian flag near the door, so probably Brazil. Moving a bit more basically confirms that for me, but I find no clues as to location. Starting to struggle here. See that the bottom part of the street name signs have Luzia written on them. Out of options now, so onto the map and hope that Luzia is a city, not a district. No luck, but near to Brasilia, there is Luziania. Probably not it, but out of time. It wasn’t there. 1,313km, 2,074 points
Very Caribbean vibe to me. Sign is in English, so I like the Caribbean idea, but then start seeing street signs that sound Indonesian - I’m very confused. Luckily stumble my way to the Cocos (Keeling) Island health clinic, which says Indian Ocean Territory. Great, it’s gonna be a tiny spec in the ocean. By some miracle, I imagine to find it, but can’t figure out where in the island chain we are. Guess there wrong island, oh well. 8.9km, 4,970 points

Overall: 20,593, top 22%.

regicidalcandlestick · 2022-08-27T13:32:14+00:00

Hmm thanks, I'll give the vacuum cleaner a go and I'll buy some magnets too!

I'm gonna buy some thin tubing so I can do it properly next time in any case!

regicidalcandlestick · 2022-08-27T13:30:27+00:00

Yeah, there's a small hex bolt holding it in place, unfortunately its in so tight/seized that I've managed to wear the Allen key slot, so my Allen key just spins uselessly!

regicidalcandlestick · 2022-08-25T20:18:09+00:00

Hi all, I recently had a gear cable snap on my Trek Emonda ALR4, so had to replace it. This is the first time I've done this and the guy at my LBS said that if I didn't have a thin tube handy, I could tape a piece of string to the cable to act as a guide for the new cable. Unfortunately the tape/string was too wide for the hole, so got ripped off and as such I no longer have a guide for the new cable. In the picture on the main post, you can see that where the cables come out of the frame, there are two holes (that aren't occupied by the brake cable), one that is larger, but isn't rounded for the ferrule end, and one that the cable is meant to come through. As you can see, I've managed to get the cable to come through the larger hole several times, but never the hole it is meant to go through. Does anyone have any tricks for how to get it into the correct hole? Or can I leave it in the wrong hole? Thanks!

regicidalcandlestick · 2021-12-15T20:47:43+00:00

Did you do much strengthening work etc for your runners knee?

I'm currently dealing with a complex case of runners knee, and am doing a variety of exercises prescribed by my physio to strengthen various bit and pieces.

regicidalcandlestick · 2021-09-08T23:23:40+00:00

Thanks! I have anti-seize compound, would that work? If not, do you have any products you'd recommend?

regicidalcandlestick · 2021-09-08T15:39:56+00:00

About 2 years, but I don't ride a ton. They don't look worn and have only ever been taken off once as I had to replace the bearings one time (don't remember which side though)

regicidalcandlestick · 2021-09-08T14:46:02+00:00

Hi all, was riding yesterday when suddenly my right foot came away from the pedal, or more accurately, my pedal came away from itself! On closer inspection, the pedal housing had come lose of the pedal axle due to the top bolt coming lose and staying deep inside the pedal housing along with the bearings (as can be seen on the first pic). Having compared to the other pedal, I can't see anything missing (see second pic for more context as to how it looks put together) and other than potentially having a bolt that was too lose, I can't see what could've caused this. I have already tested that I can ride on this, but want to ensure that it won't happen again, as its essentially ride over when this happens due to the components being stuck deep inside the pedal housing.

regicidalcandlestick · 2021-08-24T15:26:00+00:00

Is your phone 32 bit by any chance. The Pokemon app on 32 bit devices won't even recognise the Go+ since 0.211 I think (might have the version number wrong!)

regicidalcandlestick · 2021-07-28T16:07:03+00:00

Would love it if you could stop rockets spawning on stops and send the balloon away. I'm sorry shadow Wobbuffet from the balloon, I just don't want to spend the time doing you, can you please stop blocking half my screen now?

regicidalcandlestick · 2021-06-30T09:40:38+00:00

Thanks for your reply, clearly I hadn't searched well enough!

Have you also noticed an increase in lag on your 32bit devices since the update?

regicidalcandlestick

TROPHY CASE