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The Spirit Of Adventure
To quote John Lennon's lyrics, from my most favourite Christmas song, "So this is Christmas, and what have you done...?"
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Such a deceptively simple question, yet with such deep meaning. I don't particularly care if you're Christian or not - Christmas originally was a pagan festival that was absorbed into Christianity, and you don't have to be Christian to celebrate Christmas. Equally, if you are Christian, that's also cool with me.
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What I do want you to do this Christmas season is to turn your look outwards. What have you done this year to make the world a tiny bit better? It needn't have been big things - small random acts of kindness count, too. Just remember, any random act of kindness becomes null and void the moment you tell others about it!
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Have you volunteered to clean up that overgrown bit of cycle path? Or maybe you'll postpone your own Christmas Day, so you can help out at a shared meal for homeless people, or for old people?
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This Christmas, give some of your time, and give some of yourself. Especially to complete strangers! Don't believe the media when they try to convince you that them over there are somehow bad, or less worthy. Take a lesson from the soldiers during WW1 (the photo above depicts that, and is from here), who stopped being enemies (even if only for a little while) to meet in between the trenches.
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No matter where you go in the world, all people are the same, and want the same things. We all want to be loved. We all want to be warm and dry, and of course safe. We all want the best for our loved ones. We have SO much more that unites us, compared to manufactured culture wars used to try and drive us apart.
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This Christmas, choose to be brave. This Christmas, choose to be kind. To love and be loved. And to forgive.
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May you have the most wonderful Christmas!
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The Blast From The Past button is quite straightforward: with every edition, I link a random old WillCycle post to it. If you click it, you will see what old WillCycle post it takes you to.
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The button will only ever point at WillCycle.
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The Good News
Portugal recently ran on 100% renewable energy for six days in a row, and during that time consumer bills dropped to almost zero.
A better future is possible, but to get there we have to elect brave and principled new leaders.
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Did You Know...?
Medical abilities during the Copper Age was, at times, astonishingly advanced!
Archaeologists found the remains of a woman in Spain. She lived between 2600 BC and 2200 BC, and twice survived cranial surgery!
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What Did You Miss On WillCycle?
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Kit Review - Micronew 3 x 9 shifters
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Micronew shifters overall rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ My bike has a 3 x 9 drive. It started out with a double chainring, but as it's used as a touring bike, I changed to a triple chainring setup. As it happened, I had two older Shimano Sora shifters for dropped bars that I fitted, and it all worked well. Until it didn't. While …
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24 must-cycle routes for 2024!
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No matter what kind of cyclist you are, you will love these 24 routes! 24 routes in 12 months obviously averages to two routes per month. Your challenge is to go cycle as many of these as you possibly can. There's a free cycling cap as prize to the first person who can prove they cycled all 24 routes during …
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WillCycle Supporter
WillCycle is mostly funded by me, with ad income almost covering the web hosting costs. I get that most of us don't like ads, and browse the Internet with an ad-blocker. However, because WillCycle is so reliant on ad-revenue, I was forced to block people visiting the site with ad-blockers running.
If you really wanted an ad-free experience on WillCycle, you can sign up as a WillCycle Supporter.
WillCycle Supporters can browse the site while running ad-blockers (while logged in).
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Spanner In The Spokes
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The idea behind Spanner In The Spokes is simple: send me your questions about bicycles, cycle touring and camping, and I'll either answer them, or ask others to answer them. Keep sending those questions!
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I'm afraid I still don't have an answer on last editions' question - can you perhaps help?
Here's the question: How do you deal with having to bleed hydraulic brakes by the roadside?
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Random Internet Link
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Ever get bored from the view out of your own window, and wondered what other people's views from their windows are like? Window-Swap is a site that allows you to do just that. Simply refresh the page for a new window each time, randomly picked from around the world.
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And Finally...
I spend considerable amounts of time producing The Spirit Of Adventure, and you receive it for free. Please do me a favour and forward it to someone else who you think will appreciate it?
And if you received this newsletter because someone forwarded it, you can subscribe quickly and easily at www.willcycle.com
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