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Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 9:47 pm
by frogatthefarriers
Borderer wrote: Sat Nov 02, 2019 1:14 am Now you have another excuse to go back...
Nah! Don't need an excuse to go back there. No chance of finding the glasses though - didn't know they were gone until I was waiting for the train - no great loss, they were only cheap on readers from a supermarket.

One very good excuse would be to return a few weeks earlier to pick some of the mushrooms that were too far gone. Horse mushrooms, parasol mushrooms, ceps. Mmm!

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 9:54 pm
by ScotRoutes
redefined_cycles wrote: Sat Nov 02, 2019 9:34 pm Just gonna put this out there...

That this is coming up the season where I find bivying the most difficult. Maybe the fsct I dont actually still own a tent might have sumat to do with it. Gonna try my best to get through the few tougher months with my Hunka XL and... wel... heyHo
My tarp & bivvy bag combination gets more use in the winter than my tent. No midges see?

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 10:03 pm
by frogatthefarriers
Borderer wrote: Sat Nov 02, 2019 1:14 am Now you have another excuse to go back...
Nah! Don't need an excuse. There's no chance of finding them anyway. I didn't know they were lost until I was waiting for the train home. They were only cheapo readers from a supermarket anyway.

If I was looking for a good excuse, it would be for the mushrooms that I was too late for. Hundreds of horse mushrooms, parasol mushrooms and ceps that were just too old to pick. (If I'd had the space to put them, or the wherewithal to cook them, that is).

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2019 6:47 pm
by Escape Goat
Checking in, 11/12 Bam before Rich and Toms adventure talk in Hathersage

ImageIMG_20191101_223241 by Escape Goat, on Flickr


ImageIMG_20191102_090225 by Escape Goat, on Flickr

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2019 8:31 pm
by Bearlegged
That looks rather palatial.

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2019 11:32 pm
by Escape Goat
Yeah, butler was a little rude on arrival and limo parking was a little questionable.

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2019 2:18 pm
by JoseMcTavish
Time for my usual belated catch up on bivy reports!

September was squeezed in at the tail end of the month by heading out locally about 10pm and finding myself a nice hammock spot by the river Dee. Leaving late had the advantage of letting the day's constant rain peter out, so I still haven't needed to use the tarp yet this year!

Bought on a whim from the M&S Petrol station
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Took my commuting singlespeed for this one
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Fine for slicks
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Back towards home through the Park estate
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This made it 9/9 for this year, more inane details here:
http://highlanddrifter.com/bam-2019-september

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 12:49 am
by JoseMcTavish
October was done with time to spare for a change, heading out from our home for the week in Nethybridge on a Wednesday night about 10pm and making a beeline for Bynack More. It was a lovely cold clear night, so much so that I turned off my light once I started climbing up from the bridge, as the moon was giving me all the light I needed. Much humphing of the bike eventually saw me at the summit and looking for somewhere out of the wind to set up camp.

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I setlled in to a cosy hollow out of the bulk of it and got in my bag as soon as possible before I chilled. I knew it was going to be a cold one so I'd brought my winter bag which saw me through the night just fine. I poked my head out early in the morning to see if the sunrise was looking any good.

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There was a thin layer of frost on everything, including my bivy bag, but it fell off with a bit of jiggling. I stayed in the bag a while longer, drinking tea and enjoying the view - totally worth the pain in the ass of dragging the bike up there.

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All good things must come to an end however, so I dragged myself out of bed to try and take more photos, but was scuppered by a dead camera battery and an iPhone that had to be periodically dropped into my bibshorts to keep warm enough to use without it auto-shutting down.

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I could only hang around for so long in the cutting wind, so I packed up and got the bike back across the icy rocks and onto the path again, to start gingerly making my down the hill.

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The morning light was beautiful at times.

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Finally, I dropped off the ridge and went back to easy riding on the plateau, with a fun descent down towards Ryvoan and onwards to through Abernethy Forest and home in time to take the kids to the zoo.

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More words here:
http://highlanddrifter.com/bam-2019-october

That leaves me on 10/10 so far this year and 22 in a row - amazing how quickly they build up!

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 8:15 pm
by MuddyPete
Ace photos JMcT: what a great night to be out :-bd

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 10:14 pm
by JoseMcTavish
Thanks - that whole week was pretty good for weather. Nothing beats riding by moonlight!

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 1:04 pm
by Borderer
That looks cracking Jose, if bloody cold!

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 4:06 pm
by JoseMcTavish
Cheers, you two would be fine up there - you've got the same bag as me! Possibly a bit colder and wetter at the moment though...

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 12:45 pm
by redefined_cycles
JoseMcTavish wrote: Wed Nov 06, 2019 4:06 pm Cheers, you two would be fine up there - you've got the same bag as me! Possibly a bit colder and wetter at the moment though...
What bags that please??

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 3:39 pm
by Borderer

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 4:28 pm
by RIP
A short wander round the Daventry area with Roobell, Tonto, Pickers and BigDummySteve.

Left Leighton Buzzard in bright sunshine which obviously wasn't right. Luckily the train driver decided not to stop at Long Buckby for reasons known only to himself, so by the time I'd bailed out at Rugby and come back again the weather had sorted itself out and started p1ssing with rain and continued to do so for the rest of the day. My compliments to the other gents for hanging around for 40 minutes.

It's Roo and Tonto's local manor so the rest of us were grateful for their local knowledge and off we went, with Roo having replaced a few dodgy bits of route with slightly more sensible alternatives. Most off-road tracks were very wet and gloopy but passable. Unfortunately almost as soon as we set off my machine felt like riding through treacle - surely it couldn't be THAT gloopy. I almost felt like stopping immediately and bivvying in an adjacent barn full of classic cars - must be some cachet to sleeping under (if not in) a Bentley surely?

Roobell cunningly diverted us to Daventry Leisure Lakes who very kindly effected an emergency repair, consisting of replacing various destroyed pawls and bearings in the rear Hope hub, which has done well to last 12 years to be fair. This was also a welcome excuse to drink coffee and eat cake. Brilliant job LL, so I'd like to record my grateful thanks to Leisure Lakes here. That's DAVENTRY LEISURE LAKES. GET ALL YOUR BIKE STUFF AND REPAIRS THERE. :smile: . Thanks chaps. Also interesting to see purchased e-bikes regularly proceeding out of the shop while we sat there - I don't think ONE non-e-bike left during the same period of time.

The delays (ok MY delays) meant it was almost dark and Roobell made the sensible decision to stop at the canal pub in Braunston for a restorative tincture. Pickers has this impressively uncanny ability whereby within literally two seconds of sitting down on a pub sofa he manages to look like he's been there for years :smile: . It was incredibly difficult to prise ourselves out into the downpour but off we went still trying to follow the original route.

After Shuckburgh I'm afraid I mutinied and demanded another comfy chair. Contrary to my expectations the other lads instantly agreed - "good idea". Strange that. Roobell provided us with another corking licensed establishment run by a nice chap with a giant moustache who possibly out-eccentric'd even us. It was only 5.30pm but we settled for the duration.

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At one point we recruited a wooden spoon as a new member. To be honest it was making more sense than the rest of us.

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Food came and went, although there was a "sticky" moment when we weren't sure if Tonto had actually ordered Spotted Dick or STP. Luckily the SD arrived as expected, along with STP's for BDS, Pickers and myself. A close shave.

Unsurprisingly I suppose we were the last inmates at closing time, and of course we had nowhere to kip. We'd been laying the groundwork gradually and finally I said to mein host, "I reckon you're about to say 'haven't you lot got homes to go to' in time-honoured landlord fashion. To which we would reply 'er no. Any good ideas?''". We were all getting on so well, and he was so over-refreshed that he offered his bar floor! This felt a bit of an imposition to me (& indeed a bit too easy) so I proposed the marquees outside instead - I guess on reflection the other chaps might have remonstrated with me given a minute to digest what I was saying, oops! :oops:

Anyway, out we went and set up, with a marquee each. Still p1ssing with rain but a cosy(?) but chilly night was had.

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Off and away in the morning and we got to see the floods and waterlogged fields. Really, I don't know why I don't just post the same blasted 'flood' photo EVERY month this year because that's pretty much what's happened.

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Roobell toddled off home nearby, Steve ambled off to Banbury down the canal, and Tonto, Pickers and myself split off to home / Long Buckby / Rugby. I wasn't trusting Long Buckby again!

Great to meet Roobell and Tonto - thanks for chaperoning us. I'm very impressed with my new Marmot rain jacket, and also the Dexshell socks - will get some more of those methinks. Even the ludicrous down balaclava was well worth it.

Roll on December and Shropshire!

11/11, 11/12, 46/46

'Reg'

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 5:50 pm
by BigdummySteve
11/12 35 in a row
As per reg’s post above , throughly daft bimble about with good company, a respectable total of two pubs and one cafe visited, unfortunately I let the side down by riding to long buckby thus spoiling the cafe/pub to miles ratio.

Unfortunately I can’t prove I was there as i was replaced by a wooden spoon, insert you own joke.

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2019 12:28 pm
by Zippy
Hello everyone.

So scored on the doors as of 13/11/2019.

We have he following people with a straight run from the start of the year (* denotes Nov bivvy).

BigdummySteve*
Escape Goat*
RIP*
Borderer
Borderer2
ChrisF
darbreeze
ericrobo
frogatthefarriers
gallowayboy
JimmyG
JoseMcTavish
Landslide
metalheart
MuddyPete
paramart
Raggedstone
ScotRoutes
sean_iow
TheBrownDog
TrepidExplorer
whitestone
Wotsits
Zippy

A total of 369 BAM qualifying bivvies reported in the thread so far, broken down as the following:

Jan - 48
Feb - 42
Mar - 43
Apr - 39
May - 37
Jun - 36
Jul - 35
Aug - 31
Sep - 29
Oct - 26
Nov - 3

So that's 24 people still in the running, which is 50% of those eligible from January! (Note this is stats and totals only for BAM from the start of the year, other starting points are valid, just not in my totals :lol: )

:ugeek:

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:42 pm
by Bearbonesnorm
Good work Zip :-bd

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2019 9:37 pm
by crewlie
Well it looks like my BAM is over for this year.
A nice ride out along the coast to a pretty spot with a northerly view and a chance of catching sight of an aurora. Tent went up well. Dinner prepared and eaten. Preparing to settle down at 10pm when the phone rings with an urgent request for help from our daughter. So...tent down, lift arrives, everything thrown in, and back home to pack ready for the first morning ferry to the mainland and a long drive to the Midlands.
No sleep was had, so I don't think it can qualify as a night out...but a far more important thing got done...oh, and I ended up missing the entry to the winter event... :sad:
But sometimes things that seem important, really aren't.

By the way Reg and crew, whilst we were down in Daventry, our friends had just bought couple of bikes (non electric) from Leisure Lakes. The guys there seem to be telling everybody about the group of mad bikepackers that dropped by for a repair, then disappeared off into the rain to sleep somewhere in just a bivvy bag...you are now a part of Daventry folklore :lol:

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 7:57 pm
by RIP
'Famous in Daventry' - we've arrived :lol: . Amazing coincidence there.

Will really miss you on Winter Event, Mark, just get yerself bunged on the reserve list.....

Sorry about BaM (surely though, you had your tent up ready, dined etc, even if you just nodded off for a few seconds....), but yes you're right about priorities...

Um, still 2 weeks to go as well - neighbours garden counts at a pinch... TBD did his village green a few hundred yards away.. I've done a few half a mile from home... shame to stop in Nov!

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:07 pm
by MuddyPete
Yup, superlocal works if necessary. Reg popped round to my place for a beer and ended up kipping in my garden....another time we bivi'd in the woods across the road from my house...and most of my BaMs have been only a mile away.

All is not necessarily lost :-bd .

But it is only cycling, so not really that important :wink:.

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 12:26 am
by crewlie
Unfortunately, it was the October one that I failed on, so unless there’s a time machine handy... :geek:

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:33 am
by RIP
Ah. :sad:

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 8:56 am
by TheBrownDog
I've been doing the maths and it's going to have to be mid-week and uber-local yet again for me this month. Next week in fact. Probably Wednesday night. And it might even be a Brompton experience to save on the washing up. Where the hell did I put my tent?

Re: Bivvy a month 2019

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:54 pm
by gallowayboy
Same boat as you TBD, no weekend time available for November, so a midweek pre work outing will have to do. Think the tent will come out as well - or the old stand bye cave might get another shout!