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

A lot of tarps and tents.. no one just going for a straight up bivi bag ??

Moi, £25 from TKs, 300gm.

I’ve only used a tarp in a harbour area in my old job.

Now, I just use a Bivi bag on it’s own.

Tarp went up as a wind shield, it was really quite blustery up on the top.

The smaller, lightweight, non-hooped bivvy bags are miserbale in the rain so the extra 300g of tarp and pegs is worth it ime. It also offers somewhere to cook, get changed etc for when the weather is foul.

I would have died last week in the wilds of Knoydart if i didn’t have my ME dragonfly xt tent. My buddies vango helium tent got blown down twice.
Bivvies and tarp are all good but sometimes you need a tent, or you have to be double hard.

I’ve just fashioned a rear-rack drybag from an old 20 litre Alpkit Gourdon. The top end of the straps tuck into the hydration bladder compartment and the bottom halves clip around the rack to help retain it (along with a bungee strap or two). It can be converted back into a backpack without too much trouble. Hopefully it’ll come in handy for the forthcoming Welsh Ride Thingy 🙂

looking good Slugwash are you mounting panniers on the front too for WRT and are you using a bar bag?

just thinking how much you can get in the gourdon?

Did the first bikepacking trip of the season on Friday.

Last minute overnight stay in the Lammermuirs.

Loads of fun, really easy and quite comfortable. All the kit I have been accumulating worked out really well, happy with it all!

Outside the Spar in Gifford for beer, crisps, and sweeties ( the main 3 Scottish food groups!)

Sun setting, time to camp at the top of Hope resevoir

Last rays of sun on the packed bikes

Best. Campsite. Ever.

Local flora

Above the camp

Rush hour in the Lammermuirs

Fresh water, as much as you want

Best seat in the house!

Visiting the local hippy woodlands on the way back home

Stuff that works:

Bikes – old and new.
Less gears.
Alpkit titanium spoon and drybags
Revelate (Epic Designs) handlebar harness and pocket
Buggybags custom framebag (review coming soon!)
Old man mountain rack
GoLite 3 season quilt
Spare cotton T-shirt and boxers to sleep in.
Using one pan for everything
Readybrek + powdered milk + sugar premix breakfast fuel
Brandy

Nice pics 7hz, looks like you had a good time. Is the Tarp Tent yours and how do you find it?

Looking a bit tooled up on the tent Dept. 😉

How was the Scarp / where did you purchase?

Damn, we don’t have these things in Belgium 🙁 It’s all crowdy over here, just a few miles between villages.

looking good Slugwash are you mounting panniers on the front too for WRT and are you using a bar bag?

just thinking how much you can get in the gourdon?

I’m riding my 456 at the WRT I just happened to have ridden into work on my tourer that day so used it to test my old Gourdon on. (and with hindsight all I’ve actually done is strap a broken backpack to a bike rack and got all excited about it 😉 )

7hz, looks like you guys had a good trip 🙂 I’ve got one of those Coleman tents, they’re great. They’re a bit heavy (2.5kg?) but that didn’t stop us using it on the Original Mountain Marathon.

(and with hindsight all I’ve actually done is strap a broken backpack to a bike rack and got all excited about it )

recycling old kit brilliant 😀

pics above look great I can’t wait for next weekends adventure 😉

7hz that looks great, nice photography too.

Been busy this weekend finishing some more MYOG for the WRT.

Frame bag done. Very rough around the edges and certainly no looker but it seems sturdy enough and the luggage space is ideal. The wierd fabric was up in the loft from an old banner so yet again it has only cost £2.50 for the zip and £3 for the velcro 🙂 Plus about 4 hrs of swearing.

Lynx can meths stove. Far stronger than my previous pop-can versions, burns a little stronger and is stlightly more stable due to bigger footprint. Weighs 22g though but the extra 13g is worth it IMO over the red-bull side burner I normally use.

still s8tannorm – Is the Tarp Tent yours and how do you find it?

Heather Bash – How was the Scarp / where did you purchase?

The Tarptent Scarp 1 http://www.tarptent.com/scarp1.html is my tent, yes. I got it direct from the manufacturer in the states. Forgot to put the tent on the ‘things that work’ list!

I think it really needs tried in winter with lots of snow, or with lots of wind, to truly test it out, but it was fine for the trip.

Was quite a bit of dew in the morning, but only on the outer, inner was bone dry. It had all dried by the time we broke camp. I really like Henry Shires designs, would like to try one of his more minimal 1 man tents as well, but I felt for Scotland a proper inner / outer tent configuration is the safe bet!

Anthony – 7hz that looks great, nice photography too.

Cheers mate, I was using an old Pentax Asahi Super-Takumar 50mm f1.4 on my Panasonic GH1, just getting into the legacy lens manual focus thing, but I am liking how it renders things, although wide open at f1.4 is has a ton of ‘glow’ – you can see that most pronounced on the ‘Last rays of sun on the packed bikes’ pic… it gives everything a fuzzy warm glow, quite good fun, but I may try to baffle it down a little.

Anthony – what does the Lynx can stove look like on the inside? Is it just a cut off can or is it folded in.

It’s a twin wall, made from the ‘Twist’ Lynx cans that have a shoulder. In essence you cut the can in half, up turn the top half and press it into base. The norrower section under the cap is what creates the wall cavity.

There was a guide on a bushcraft forum that I followed.

The cans can still be scored to cut but as they are a lot thicker it requires a lot more effort. I clamped my blade so I could use two hands to spin the can. I also used a little araldite as the friction fit is only about 8mm deep.

I am planning on doing the coast to coast this summer and will knock up one of those stoves to try.

To keep me focussed until the trip I plan to do a number of smaller trips in the NE. I’ll be posting my exploits over the next few months on a site I have just created – http://www.bikeandbivi.co.uk/ its just a forum at the minute with a basic format, but that will develop. It’s in its infancy at the moment, but I hope that it will build into a useful resource for all.

@unsponsored – I have registered good luck with it, hopefully it will be a resounding success if the interest on this thread shows 😀

Many thanks. I’m just adding loads of kit pics at the moment.

Morning chaps… just got back from the Fargo Demo Bike’s First Night… I really like this bike. I was expecting a lot from a bike that is so damned well thought through, so specific, but I am amazed at how well it rides. Its a great mountainbike, very chuckable and nimble, and even with a load it still flys.

It was no straggler on the Tuesday night ride, hung out at the beach BBQ, and then held a guy line down for me all night. Reminds me of a loyal dog.

The Salsa Anything cages are a very good way to carry your gear. There is around 2kg of extra load on the forks (airbed, terra nova 178g tarp, and a Snugpak Jungle sleeping bag)… it has almost no impact on handling other than wofting the front end needs more input from the rider. There is slight pendulum feeling, where going from a left to a right turn needs more input to flick it back the other way, but its no big deal.

The weight is a bit forward, some weight on the saddle/rear would balance the bike a bit. But I really dont need to carry anything else for one night.

And it carries a bottle of wine 🙂

A Calfornian merlot, served with cheese and crackers on a beach. Sleeping in the woods means you can go extra luxurious on the bivi garnish.

Just looking at the picture of the Fargo again…

I am amazed I managed to ride from Dorset to Moab in an evening.

Bikepacking fans might want to keep an eye out for the next Privateer. Proper bikepacking article ahoy!

To keep me focussed until the trip I plan to do a number of smaller trips in the NE. I’ll be posting my exploits over the next few months on a site I have just created – http://www.bikeandbivi.co.uk/ its just a forum at the minute with a basic format, but that will develop. It’s in its infancy at the moment, but I hope that it will build into a useful resource for all.

Signed up, sounds like a great idea. Good luck with the site.

Give us a heads up when it’s out then Aidan.

To keep me focussed until the trip I plan to do a number of smaller trips in the NE. I’ll be posting my exploits over the next few months on a site I have just created – http://www.bikeandbivi.co.uk/ its just a forum at the minute with a basic format, but that will develop. It’s in its infancy at the moment, but I hope that it will build into a useful resource for all.

Signed up, sounds like a great idea. Good luck with the site.

Thanks, quite a few have signed up already.

Just signed up, too.

Cheers, hopefully will end up with something way better than the US site. Just need as many people as possible to start using it and posting useful/interesting stuff.

Cheers, hopefully will end up with something way better than the US site. Just need as many people as possible to start using it and posting useful/interesting stuff.

Seems to building nicely

signed up…

Anthony – Member

It’s a twin wall, made from the ‘Twist’ Lynx cans that have a shoulder. In essence you cut the can in half, up turn the top half and press it into base. The norrower section under the cap is what creates the wall cavity.

There was a guide on a bushcraft forum that I followed.

The cans can still be scored to cut but as they are a lot thicker it requires a lot more effort. I clamped my blade so I could use two hands to spin the can. I also used a little araldite as the friction fit is only about 8mm deep.

Anthony – how big did you drill the flame jet holes?

I guess that can vary the flame hight?

Great burner btw.

accu – Member
signed up…

Cheers, well over 20 so far

http://www.bikeandbivi.co.uk

Ski, 1.5mm holes spaced roughly 1/2″ appart.

You need to be more carefull with what height you cut the can at to get about 8mm of overlap. Too much and the jets sit too low and throw too far- missing the underside of the mug (bigger mug would help, the one pictured is the vargo/alpkit 700ml size), too little and there isn’t enough interference to keep the two halves from falling appart.

The spray gubbins can be prised off using the can opener on a typical multi tool, the rolled edge can then be cut cleanly off by carefully using a normal side cutting mechanical can opener.

It took 2 attempts to get mine right.

I had a go at making an penny stove several weeks ago – a good, valid excuse for buying and drinking Heineken if nothing else. Got it to work inside but not when camping. May have another go sometime, think my holes were too big.

jet holes need to be closer to the bottom ring.

I’ve never had much luck with penny designs … had much better results with a twin walled set up, more work to make but worth it IMO.

A few more jets may help too. Wind is your enemy when outdoors, a good sheild is essential.

I’d also consider grinding off the outer edge, it may be masking the flame from air to a degree.