Sick as a dog so, show me you Bivi / Bikepacking / Adventure racing gear…..

I’ve got an Ortlieb version of the one above. Fully waterproof and you can fit a surprising amount in it.

Nice one, Kevin. You’re several steps ahead of some TD riders who will be putting on bags for the first time in Banff!

I’m hoping to have my super-light gear well before the Welsh Ride Thing.

Don’t worry about your speed. If you can ride all day, you’ll do great. I felt pretty unfit on the start-line last year and picked up speed along the way.

Slightly different set up to some of the others so far:

Went on a stag do on the Llangollen canal at the weekend. Got there on the train so was loads easier with my Brompton. More people than beds so I bivvied on the back of the barge:

Woke up to these inquisitive critters:

Panniers have got beer and crisps in them :D

Used my cheapo decathlon 2 season bag and decathlon thermarest. Was a bit cold so ended up wearing my jeans, merino socks and hat, and Finisterre Etobioke.

Weather was great, good weekend, and I had a nice ride along the towpath.

I think I might do a bit more bikepacking with a folding bike.

some great pics there Colonel, the ducks must have sensed the crisps :wink:

I think flatfish has a bell to stop that happening to him :lol:

Fair play to ya fella.
i have a bear bell, not a duck belled platypus.(see what i did there).
:wink:

kerching very good sir :wink:

Is this the most ‘tagged’ thread ever?

Boblo – I paid £245 from field & trek. We have one in town but available mail order. Current tent a bit small and in TD want a tent i will look forward to getting in to.
Aidan – thanks again for advice a few months ago. I had achilles problems a few years ago just stepping on a loaded bike to ride all day about 4 days in. Learnt my lesson. Planning steady start and pick it up in Wyoming….

That’s a good price for the Photon. Bargaintastic! I have the Laser Comp and (IIRC) they are the same size/spec, just different weights.

When you can get a ‘proper’ tent under 1kg, I can’t see the point in messing around with tarps… Runs and hides :-)

Boblo, you can run but you can’t hide :wink: … from time to time I do know what you mean though.

Field and Trek have some good prices but you have to keep checking. I got a Force Ten Helium for £100 in store, there was no mention of it on the website though.

Edit – I can’t read

Page 10/11 has a good account of tarps and why some prefer them as opposed to tents. I also have a Laser Photon – never used it. I’ve not yet found an occasion where I’m expecting to camp out in weather bad enough to warrant a tent, though I’m loath to sell it. {edit: it was bought for a Polaris, just before they axed the proper overnight wilderness camp style events :( }

I’ve bivied in very cold and quite wet, but the tarp has still seemed the right choice for being flexible and offering me much more space and convenience for cooking and a greater feeling of being out in the wilderness. I’ve had to learn a fair bit about tarp set-up particularly in worse weather, but it hasn’t put me off using tarps.

Also, my siltarp weighs 306g and my Hunka 340g. Still sufficiently lighter than a photon :D

but what about the midges?

I think what Ian says is very true ^. I find the real benefit of a tarp is the space it offers against a lightweight tent. I believe what lets people down is not taking the time to practice and understand what you can and can’t do with a tarp … it doesn’t just have to be a straight forward ridge or lean to but it’s those set ups that people see in their mind when tarps get mentioned.

@Colonel … great stuff, I’ve a pic somewhere of one of the Rough Stuff Fellowship on a folder high in the Cairngorms – barking mad :D

Midges – Gossamer Gear bug canopy – 85g, or buy a bivi bag with a built in bug net, like a Rab or something.

Yes my Rab bivvy bag has a built in net. It’s also what they term a Crocodile entry. You can zip the midge net up and tie the entry up high (tree, bike etc) so you’ve a couple of feet of head room but still away from the winged teeth.

OK, tarp vs tent mission. August; Glen Affric. Midges so bad you’re inhaling them. Or midwinter, 30mph winds, driving rain/snow. I know the Lasers are not that much bigger than bivvy bags but at least you can sit/eat/wriggle etc which in a bivvy bag is not much fun. And a tarp plus BB must be ~600 – 700g? Does this include miles of string, a machete and inflatable Fatty Mears? Not much in it really.

Tarps… pffffl. :-)

Ianb, you may want to sell that Photon. I may know a gear freak potential interested party if you want to move it on. Email in profile.

Having bivvyied lots and wild camped lots – if you are out in the wilds in bad weather a tent wins hands down every time.

For the record, I agree with you TJ :D

Tent for me if the weathers rubbish…!

Post #1300 (get in)

Bugger missed it again.

My recommendation for a cheap-ish alternative to the Laser is the Terra Nova Argon, don’t think they make them any more but they’re not too bad a price

£90 ish from TN direct

1.1 kg for a 1 man tent you can sit up in. I’ve got the 900 which you can fit 2 in. Packed size is quite small, and you can ditch the poles and hang it from a tree too.

Thinking of getting either the Altura seatpack as per the previous page, does anyone what the volume is?

The Ortlieb equivalent is 2.8l. Which one has the most volume if anyone knows?

Hoping to sort out a bivy in the next week or so to test a superlight setup and see how miserable the experience will be. Setup will a balloon bed, 220g(ish) poncho tarp, silk liner and one of these to act as bivy bag and sleeping bag;

I expect it to be a miserable expierence but wish to see how miserable is unbearable and there’s only one way to find out…

Ray Mears spends something like 250 nights/year sleeping outside (according to a Radio 5 interview a few weeks back). More often than not, he’s sleeping under something he’s put together himself. Plus he spends much of his time in parts of the world more extreme than Wales or Scotland.

Tents vs Tarps is a personal preference, and as with most gear choices there are lots of options available. I’m not saying tarps are better than tents in all instances, but don’t dismiss tarps if it’s a bit wet and windy as there are configurations that offer a good deal of protection if you practice them (though I’m not an expert in this field by any means).

Boblo – I’ll think about it. I have my eye on some PHD stuff, so it would fund that I suppose.

edit – Boblo: yes, my tarp inc lines and 10 pegs weighs 306g. My Hunka isn’t the lightest at 340g – if you could be confident of reasonable weather, a Rab Alpine Lite is only 200g, which would save a whole pound over a tent – even a Photon.

PSA – Just spotted this deal on Rab Bivvy Bags on Cotswold Outdoors –

£70 of Alpine and £25 off Storm bivvy bags

Good luck with the thermo-lite Jimmers … I haven’t tried one myself but I imagine if your aim is to be cold and fed up you’ll do right well :wink:

Good luck with the thermo-lite Jimmers

Cheers! I’ve already got a Alpkit Hunka, PD400 sleeping bag and a Wee Airic mat. Which are fairly lightweight and comfy (did the WRT last year and the SDW in winter). I want to measure the relationship between shedding grams versus grimness factor.

EDIT: Plus how much single malt to drain from my flask to keep warm (ignoring advice regarding ingestion of alcohol when mildly hypothermic)

Jimmers be interesting to know how you get on, like you say there’s only one way to find out … will you be taking your PD400 as backup?

No won’t be taking the PD400. The bivy spot will be some woods within 40 minutes ride back to my house. Plus I will take a down jacket to be on the safe side.

I also want to try it on a coldish night with rain to see good (bad) the setup is. Will post my thoughts when the deed is done. The thermolite is meant to be warm down 9 degrees with thin clothing so it will be interesting to see how it fairs. And it isn’t meant to crackle like Blizzard bags.

These seem to be flavour of the month at the moment.
http://www.discountcyclesdirect.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=6693

http://www.cycle-promotions.co.uk/ were selling those last year or the year before at their day sales for a tenner. Might have been a bit smaller though. Got one and never used it as yet.

£10 on the table if you want to sell it on?

IanB – Member

Ray Mears spends something like 250 nights/year sleeping outside (according to a Radio 5 interview a few weeks back). More often than not, he’s sleeping under something he’s put together himself. Plus he spends much of his time in parts of the world more extreme than Wales or Scotland.

I don’t believe a word of that.

I spent 3 weeks in patagonia sleeping under tarps in a bivvy bag during the autumn. One of the most unpleasant experiences in my life. I was damp the whole time – just about got trench willy! Some of the group I was with got hypothermia.

Your sleeping bag gets wet when you try to pack it up, your kit all gets wet and cannot be dried out as you have nowhere dry to store it, a tarp simply does not provide the protection from driving rain and soaking ground

It might be fine on a good day in the UK but for multiple nights or bad weather it is unpleasant verging on dangerous.

Your sleeping bag gets wet when you try to pack it up, your kit all gets wet and cannot be dried out as you have nowhere dry to store it, a tarp simply does not provide the protection from driving rain and soaking ground

This is a limitation to bivying. If you read the Book of the Bivy by Ronald Turnbull he recommends that every other night or say 1 night in three is spent at a YHA or B ‘n’ B to dry kit out. As long as the limitations of bivying (with or without a tarp) are understood it is perfectly safe and much more enjoyable than a tent IMHO.

To be fair, if you spend multiple poor weather nights in a Laser Comp with a down bag, you’re going to be getting wetter as time goes on. That’s the downside of multi day backpacking in our maritime climate.

Wet during the day and unable to dry during the night. I’ve tried the ‘wear it in the sleeping bag till it dries’ approach and after a couple of nights, it’s grim (especially in winter).

These days, if it’s realy pissing down all day/all night, a couple of nights/3 days is my max before a YH/B&B/5* hotel :-)

I bet Fatty Mears spends 250 nights tarping just like Bear spends nights sleeping in camel corpses ;-)

BTW, that Thermalite thing will be plastic bag like. When young and poor, I used to bivvy in one of those silly orange plastic bags. You could count on being cold/soaked/miserable. If it’s anything like my Thermalight bivvy bag, it’ll weigh ~120g. My Goretex BB weighs ~250g. Well duhhhh! (i.e. reach your own conclusion) :-)

@Bigface0_0 – Am going to give it a try and will happily sell-on as nearly new if I don’t get on with it.

IanB – Member

Ray Mears spends something like 250 nights/year sleeping outside (according to a Radio 5 interview a few weeks back). More often than not, he’s sleeping under something he’s put together himself. Plus he spends much of his time in parts of the world more extreme than Wales or Scotland.

I too, do not believe a word of it, I’m pretty sure that man is never more than 5 mins from a pub and a pie. :D

More often than not, he’s sleeping under something he’s put together himself.

Look, I’ve stretched a blanket between two pub chairs and made a den!
I’ll enjoy my pint and bar meal here..

Plus he spends much of his time in parts of the world more extreme than Wales or Scotland.

Yes, wild Etchingham, although it doesn’t look that extreme but if you go in the local with your muddy boots on then there will be hell to pay..

If you look hard enough you can see Ray under a table.

nb. I love Ray really :)

The thermolite has a hole in the bottom and velcro sealable side for ventilation and the inside is meant to reflect bodyheat which a bivy big doesn’t. Not saying it’s better than a bivy bag (probably not) but as I said before there is only one to find out.

Jimers, you’re not planning on using a down bag in it are you?

Ok then, TJs comments have scared me. The potential litigation could be tremendous … next year it’ll be the Welsh B&B Thing :D

No, only on planning on using a silk liner and (synthetic) down jacket (if required). I am expecting moisture to be on the inside in the morning. Will be using a tarp as well so I won’t be breathing into it.