Boab wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2024 11:58 am Suddenly remembered, Coffee First, Then the World by Jenny Graham is out on paperback today...

I’ve recently had it arrive from bookshop.org – I preordered it ages ago.

I’m only a little way in, but a well narrated story so far.

Used the pot I’d added heat shrink tubing to today. Didn’t burn my fingers so I guess I’d call it a success so far. I use an MSR Pocket Rocket so don’t have as much of an issue with errant flames melting the tubing.

How do you get the tube onto the handles? Depends on the mug / pot but often they can be compressed just enough so they can be sprung free from the retainers they locate in. I’ve just done this exact thing with the handles on an Alpkit Ti pot. Pulled them out of their ‘sockets’ by hand and pushed s...

23:59 was, without exaggeration, the time I ended up shimmying into my bivvy bag on New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t meant to be this way, but a serious case of procrastination, followed by an even more serious, and nearly fatal, case of dithering led to me cutting things very close. I had originally plann...

Watched this last night. I've seen a couple of your videos before, but it took me a while to put two and two together and work out who you were.

Very enjoyable. I have now subscribed (I thought I was already).

This month's BAM was neither when, or where it was originally planned to be. As it was, I left home after work, in the dark, with the temperature already down to a solid 0ºC. I rode at a much slower pace than normal, to stop me getting too warm from pedaling while simultaneously getting cold from th...

Given my age (32) and my job (web development) I would say I am unusually ‘analogue’. He says, typing this on his phone and wearing a smartwatch. I think peak analogue/manual was intentionally buying a second hand push mower and having to take it apart and sharpen the blade, instead of an electric o...

We're hoping that making next year 'invitational' should provide a degree of control over who rides. I’m curious to see what form this takes as I’ve been planning to enter next year. I support any reasonable attempt to prevent people getting themselves (and potentially others) into trouble when the...

Wasn’t expecting to sit and read all of that. Sounds like a nice trip and well told – I enjoyed reading.

The 'there, technically I rode my bike and slept outside' edition. Enthusiasm to wild camp was at an all time low this month. I’d put it off with various, genuine and imagined, excuses a couple of times already. In the end I went to a new spot, about as close as I could get to my house without being...

gecko76 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 28, 2023 9:12 pm crawled into a hole in the river bank.

I'm not particularly bothered by spiders, or small spaces, but that's a no from me!

The Durston X-mids do look very good but quite ££ once you factor in shipping, customs duties, VAT etc. Yes, I’m very happy with my x-mid so far, but I wouldn’t say it was a ‘beginners’ tent. If you’re buying in the US, the price seems very good value. But as Jack says, once you actually get that t...

Another all tarmac (except for when I got into Bedgebury Forest) BAM this month, last Saturday. 30km-ish each way. I decided not to bother taking cooking stuff with me, to try and get more used to the idea of not necessarily having a hot 'dinner' and instead just finding and eating anything with suf...

samwise wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 9:35 am Alpkit/Sonder Confucius Bar if anyone is interested.

Yes – this might be the solution to my light mounting issue. £25?

Also nice tent, x-mid? Apart from a peg pulling out and the tent collapsing on me at 1am one night, yes. I put that down to exceptionally wet ground, only using the four corner stakes and one ridge guyline, on what turned out to be the opposite side from the unexpected wind. Otherwise, I’m very hap...

I’ve booked a ticket for this year’s event, it’s a 100km+ ‘gravel’ ride in Kent.

Anyone else here planning to go?

A delayed write up for July (done on the 31st,) and August (on the 3rd)... I recently spent 4.5 days cycling around the Bear Bones Bash route at a comfortable pace. Not quite ready for the BB200 format yet, though maybe with a slimmed down kit (no chair!). I wild camped for 1 night (July BAM ✓), cam...

I've got a Hunka XL I'd be happy to part with.

I got the XL and after a few uses decided it was too big for me, so got the normal one.

Also, Tailfin, again, not cheap, but arguably worth it – https://www.tailfin.cc/product/small-packs/downtube-packs/downtube-packs/ And not all of these are downtube packs, but many are – https://bikepacking.com/gear/bikepacking-accessory-bags/ Basically, think of a bikepacking bag brand and they'll ...

I tend to use a mix of Komoot and (digital) OS Maps. Komoot to actually plan the route on, OS to check if the paths actually allow bikes (the underlying data Komoot uses doesn’t appear to differentiate very well between different types of PROWs). Then to plan food stops and shops Komoot has limited ...

Slept in a tent in the garden with my 3 year old last night. Started off just in shorts, on top of my sleeping mat. As the night progressed I put on a long sleeve top, then swapped my shorts for trousers and eventually in the early morning got into a lightweight sleeping bag. Starting off in anythin...

This month's BAM is in the form of King Alfred's Way, riding King Alfed's Way had been booked in for a while and it was only as it was a few days away that it really dawned on me that it would be a pretty big effort. I had planned to do the route over 5 days, but for no particular reason pushed hard...

Recently replaced a very old pair of, I think, Fox something, with a pair of Alpkit Floe shorts – which are much lighter than I was expecting m. I’ve been impressed so far, but then the bar was low.

This thread make all areas of the Uk look like a place to visit, even the south This is one of the main things that discovering the idea of and doing BAM has highlighted for me – I don’t need to wait for ‘big’ trips to Wales, or the Lakes etc to have an ‘adventure’, there’s enough woodlands and fie...

This month's BAM was a little different to previous months. I had an outdoor first aid course booked, so instead of driving down in the morning and back afterwards, I combined it with this month's BAM and rode down after work the night before the course. https://joshransley.com/site/images/blog/may-...