12 litres of bio-ethanol. I've tried a pop can stove-full. It makes much less smell than standard maths.

And a complete set of rear shock bearings for my full susser.

1/1 Moel Famau Country Park. Starting my 2016 campaign here https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1443/24598575426_f32f937ff8_z.jpg After peddalling largely against the wind it dropped for me to set my hammock up in the woods. No hammock picture this time - they all look the same. I was within earshot of t...

I took a couple of grandsons to Llandegla yesterday. After following them all the way around, on the last little bit I thought I'd have a little blast. Well my pedal caught on the ground resulting in a classic face/ground co-location. They came around the corner to see a wheel spinning and me in a h...

Up above the Panorama, up above Llangollen. https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1713/24030077359_3e0f8f6a97_z.jpg It was very grey, the wind was blowing horizontal wet snow. I'd managed to ride/push up that far. What looks like down hill behind the bike is quite the reverse. It got to be too much like ha...

I almost exclusively sleep in a hammock when bikepacking (see my posts in the Bivvy-a-Month thread). I find it so much more comfortable than ground sleeping. The biggest drawback I think, is the need to find sleeping spots with trees - the right sort of trees, in the right orientation to the wind di...

Spot tracker on its way :-bd Me too. Actually, it came a few days ago. Trying to find out how to sign it up etc was fraught, to say the least. Try searching the web and you get hundreds of reviews/opinions/adverts/guides but no howtos. the manual is woefully unhelpful to a tech-unsavvy like me. The...

I wanna know this too. I've just hit "Buy" on a Spot Gen 3.

In fact I'm feeling doubly-guilty now after buying a couple more bamboo leggings which are quite probably Chinese as well - made in a sweatshop somewhere AND depriving some poor panda of its breakfast. Oh. I came here to cheer myself up so that was a dismal failure! With guilt like that you could b...

12/12 on Grinshill Hill. Yet another picture of my hammock! Yawn! https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5690/23759264751_fc93d97434_z.jpg Nice Views towards Shrewsbury from up here. https://farm1.staticflickr.com/702/23841672515_bd4077204a_z.jpg https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5691/23214882263_a95000fd35_z....

Thanks for the help chaps. I've ordered some pukka marine grease. Time to get the fingernails dirty.

Titanium windshield from China. https://farm1.staticflickr.com/714/22822067073_6ea773ba94_z.jpg There's a little magnet catch to clip the ends together and it came with a little strip of velcro to tie it up and a bag I think I'll have to shorten it a little and make a few more air holes, but for a l...

Last weekend I encountered some deep water. See my post in "Todays Ride". The water was well over the wheel axles. I'm thinking it will have penetrated deep inside and will eat the bearings if left unfettled. Given that MTB bearings will regularly be soaked like this, is it worth finding s...

Storm Desmond 1, Froggy 0 For last weekend I had made plans to bivvy near Porthmadog with my son, who was there on a two-day training course. This would have completed my Bivvy-a-Month campaign. Desmond had other ideas. We had to scratch and spend the night in his house in Holyhead. I'd ridden in fr...

Would love to be joining you, but have gone an organised a local bivvy entitled 'The Twelve Pubs Of Christmas'. A gruelling 40 mile off-road ride & twelve pubs, well it will be gruelling with all that beer on board! Have fun, we will. I confess to organising a similar event a few years ago, alb...

by Bearbonesnorm » Mon Nov 23, 2015 8:39 pm Re valves ... I usually cut the valve out of an old tube and use that. Half inch diameter circle round the actual valve, quick smear of silicone sealant, pop it in the rim, wrap of insulation tape and away you go Haha, I've just come in from doing somethi...

Any non-porous tape should do the job Lu. I've used insulation tape before now without any trouble. Yay, I've got loads of insulation tape and some 3M black gorilla lookalike tape. I've been looking at tubeless valves. They all seem to have different ends where they pass through the rim. Is there a...

Do your rims have a deep trough in the middle or do you simply need to seal the spoke holes? Gorilla and 3M both do clear outdoor repair tape that is about 50mm wide.

The rims (Mulefut) are flat on the bottom. I think I just need to seal the spoke holes.

@johnnystorm,

had a look at the tessa tape. It's only 19mm wide and a quick search could only find 25mm. The rim tape on my wheels is 60mm (I just measured it), so will tessa tape seal ok lengthwise?

Another question.

Do I need real actual genuine gorilla tape or will something from 3M do?

Thanks for the replies. I weighed my spare tube. I was surprised to find it came to 460gm so going tubeless and still carrying a spare won't save that much weight. That's Ok, the point of the exercise is to prevent flat tyres. What about my tyres though? They've had a few thorns in each. If I've got...

......To get punctures, Tralalala lah, la la la LAH! To whit, 4 in a 30 mile ride. Gaaah! I was so glad of my mini floor pump on those fat tyres. Rant Alert! When the contractor comes to cut my field hedges, I follow him up with a petrol blower and send the debris off the road. Why can't the others ...

11/11 Gams Wood, Malpas. Night Time:- https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4860/46830628402_68444c5f08.jpg It was a warm but noisy night. I'd pitched in a hollow so the wind didn't affect me, but the noise it made in the trees above kept waking me up. That, and the owls. Daytime:- https://farm6.staticflic...

I forgot to cancel my alarm last night so it went off at my usual day-shift get-up time of 5 am. I couldn't get back to sleep so 7 o'clock saw me setting out into heavy fog to do my round-the-mountain loop. I've posted this before. This morning, as I climbed up the hills by Llangollen I rose out of ...

11/10 Long Mynd and Newborough Forest, Anglesey. Saturday night in forestry on Long Mynd with ride around the Stiperstones and Devils' Chair on Sunday https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5759/22330608608_442f26e359_z.jpg https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5714/21897109763_ceeb026b8b_z.jpg Then a family hammo...

Mawddach trail and Pont Scethyn. On holiday in Barmouth, leaving my Lady in the town, took a ride up to Pont Scethyn and Llyn Bodlyn and back down to Tal-y-Bont. On the way up. https://farm1.staticflickr.com/574/22387168025_a5b0daaa10_z.jpg Every time I see sunrays coming down like that, I imagine a...