Done a few nights out in a bag, inc the last two Welsh Ride Things (pissing wet this year).

Planning on taking my 10 year old daughter for her first overnight mission this weekend, round Lake Brenig and into the Clocaenog forest.

It’s great (if it’s dry)

Tuesday night is bivi night

BBQ, wine, cheese down in a remote Dorset sea cove last night.

And stumbled across another bivist with exactly the same plan.

Think of it this way…..

Most people in the UK, for 365 days a year, sleep in a house under roof in total comfort cosseted from the outside world.

To sleep outside, to see the stars, clouds, moon. To experience the sun going down and coming up, to feel the cold, to be acutely aware of the weather is something very good indeed.

To wake up instinctively because you heard an an animal nearby or because the clear sky and stars you fell asleep under is now dropping water onto your face.

I ride my bike on my time it’s my escape from work and the everyday. I can clear my head, relax, see places buy most importantly I enjoy it. To extend this to biving takes the escape, experience and enjoyment a step further.

To sleep out on some remote Welsh hillside is confirmation that I can cope without my laptop and mobile and that I can stick everything I need on my bike and have a comfortable night in places a lot of people wouldn’t / couldn’t cope with. There’s a bit of primeval engineering still in us all and it’s good to realise and pander to this every once in a while.

In reality I have more things than I need, (although I am a bit of a gear freak / still a man after all) but I am also more stressed. My life is overworked and time poor.

The alarm company on our offices have my mobile so they can ring me 24/7 and I can’t ever switch it off. I have lots and yet I have less.

So as my time is precious and more elusive one of the best ways of liberating myself from this despotism is to go beyond its reach.

This is the attraction of a bivvy bag, to get to the end of a ride, to have nothing to do apart from boil some water, eat some hot food, crawl into a bivvy bag, drink some whisky and sleep.

You can take a tent but it’s only half the joy; if comfort was my primary reason I’d stay in a hotel.

So yes I ‘bivi’ 🙂

:applause:

Very nicely put 😎

Tiger, give up the day job and write for the mag

If any bivvy virgins are looking for a trip you’re more than welcome.

http://bearbonesbikepacking.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=34

And yes Matt, nice without being flowery 😀

Or
http://bearbonesbikepacking.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13

See … there’s lots to go at 😉

I don’t even know what bivi’ing is, looks like just a new word for touring? If so I don’t really have much of an interest in it. Wouldn’t mind doing lejog at some point but apart from that..

I prefer me tent. Weighs a kilo, packs small. Very useful when weather changes and monsoon conditions occur.
The bit I have found jolly exciting recently is “wild camping”.
where and when to pitch, weird noises in the night!

have bivvy’d for years in propper mountaineering situations. I find the whole bike out and bivvy for a night and feel all “bear ghrylls” then ride back home a bit curious really, it’s akin to making a den in the bottom of your garden.

As long as you have fun though, that’s the main thing

Tazzy it’s just like building a den at the bottom of the garden … that’s what’s so good 😀

😆

oh I will be popping some rather special bivvi kit in the classifieds as I’m having a bit of a clear out so if folks want prototype mountain equipment down bags with integral air sleep mats that pack down tiny and weigh naff all keep you eyes out.

One of my spare Bivvi bags will up as well

Managed to do my second bivvy trip with the missus and some friends on the South Downs last weekend…yes, we southerners do Bivvying too 🙂 Tarp, Bivvy bag (Alpkit Hunka), sleeping mat (slim airic) stove and spork all work well, Just need to sort out a lighter more packable sleeping bag for Autumn/Spring.

Nothing really beats getting up in the morning, having a coffee and bacon butty and riding or hiking off some hills to home just as everyone else is riding on to them.

Lots of trips out. Really good way of extending a ride.

http://www.bikeandbivi.co.uk

Kit lists, bike setups, reviews, make your own gear etc.

Love the ‘making a den’ analogy, it’s so true.

Started last year and totally love it. Although Tiger’s description may be little more eloquent.

It’s nice to wake up to this some morning’s

yes i bivi used to bivi all the time as a kid and about to set out in two weeks time for my first bike bivi

I spend so many nights bivvying, and so much time cycling in general, that I don’t post half as often as most of the respondees on this thread 🙂

Not been bivvying but am planning an overnighter this weekend with my 1 man tent. Typical, the weather looks like its deteriorating though. Dry bags bought today and gear strapped to the bike, well looking forward to some me time 😉

I use a tent, can’t imaging that bivying in Scotland is much fun, with a choice of either getting eaten alive by midges, or wrapped up in some claustrophobic cocoon of netting and bivibag. In torrential rain.

My tent is lightweight (1.3kg), has room to sit up in, doesn’t seem to get any condensation, is very quick to put up (4 mins), and is versatile, spacious, comfortable, tough… http://www.tarptent.com/scarp1.html

Can see the attraction of bivis, but for me it is all about getting out there, not particularly what gear you use to sleep in / on / under.

I’ve bivied in Scotland, which is rubbish unless you like rain and midges and misery and regret. And Spain. Which is awesome.

Hey Hoojum, LoL that was a great overnighter, remember rocking up there at dusk and jus seeing the line o trees into Friston Forest. Didn’t spot the Danger Steep Drop sign, 30 feet from camp till morning though! LOL just aswell I pissed in your lid that night, I couldda gone over the edge 😉

now that’s a bivvi

Makes more sense this way up

Image1 by TandemJeremy, on Flickr

😀

Another “tent-not-bivi” person here. My adventures tend to be in the Scottish Highlands where staying warm and dry can be a matter of life and death.

I tent and bivi, love both. One of my best bivis was in snarling weather in the hebrides, tent flattened and no way out. Bivi under a tarp kept the 2 of us, plus dog cozy for days.
We would have been in trouble without that tarp

After a few years of bad-boys’ ‘summer holidays’ (boot camps for borderline juvenile delinquents / future borstal fodder), I was able to treat my friends and myself to loads of three day bivvy experiences, usually involving some stolen plastic sheeting, some chopped down heather / bracken for a matress and a few bungees for support (physical, not emotional).

Yes, a tent gets you out there and close to nature, the elements, but nothing beats the buzz of building your own home (or den) and then listening to the rain failing to get in.

A Gelert Solo costs £35 though, weighs less than a length of heavy-duty plastic sheeting these days, and will probably last longer too. Still though, if you haven’t done the bivvy thing already, I can highly recommend it!

I have a few tents a couple of bivis, but for maximum comfort a hammock if definitely the best. Although you are limited to where you can pitch up.

http://www.bikeandbivi.co.uk

Really liking these bivi threads. Good to see a new set of sites emerging as a result. I have been on the bear packing and bike and bivi. The latter seems to be really taking off.

Scottish bivvier here, I use bivvy and a tarp but for longer trips would take the tent.

Cupra – what tent do you use?

Conditions dictate a lot, but I would love to see TJ’s tent that’s doesn’t weight much more than my 300g bivi bag. I suspect he means a bivi and tarp weigh nearly the same as a tent.

My tent is just under a kilo and I shudder to think how much it would cost to get ride of 700g from my bike instead of from my sleeping kit.

It’s all a matter of style and taste. If you go light and simple (e.g. no gears, bivi, stove) then you can save money while still having a bike that rides like a bike. For me, that’s great: I can go out and ride, then sleep where I drop.

Field and Trek seem to be having a small tarp clear out

http://www.fieldandtrek.com/terra-nova-competition-tarp-1-783187

I have just taken one of these tarps and made it into two micro tarps, details here –

http://www.bikeandbivi.co.uk/php/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=205

Alpkit XTra dry bags are in stock today

Tent for me. I have bivvyed and its a been a cold wet and miserable experience. You don’t save significant weight over taking a tent.

Perhaps its because I go into remote corners of Scotland where there is no pub 20 mins away if it rains.

I have an unused bivvy bag to sell if anyone wants it.

So if you’ve bivvied so much Jeremy, why is the bag unused?. And if you had a bivi bag previously, why buy another if it was so sh1t?.

I’m not looking for an arguement, like most people are with you, just curious.

http://www.sportsdirect.com/terra-nova-competition-tarp-1-783187
same tarp, same price as the one unsponsored found.