Memories are made of this ....

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Bearbonesnorm
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Memories are made of this ....

Post by Bearbonesnorm »

I'm quite fond of telling people that bikepacking is all about making memories - maybe that's what life's about in general? Anyway, I was thinking today about past trips and the memories I still hold onto from them. I'm sure if I thought a little harder then there'd be lots more but here's a few that were floating about near the front of my brain and easy to catch ... please join in.

Pushing bikes across the mountains on a cold snowy night while on the WWB. Every second step seemed to result in falling through a drift up to your knackers. However, the best bit was shortly after pitching up. It was well past midnight when a farmer in a tractor arrived (we really were out in the hills). No one moved, then after a couple of minutes I heard a tent zipper go and Mike greet the farmer with, "Hi, I'm Mike, Mike from Bromsgrove"

Sitting in a pub beer garden after a proper hard day on last years RTTS. Place was packed with classy looking MILFs all doing their absolute best to pretent the unsightly, smelly rabble lay on the grass weren't actually there.

Sitting on a rock and dangling my feet in a stream on the Monks Trod talking to Matt while the fish nibbled my feet.

Leaving a warm pub one Jan night with Wenchie and Chew. It was freezing. As we climbed up into the mountains we were all reduced to SS as gears were frozen. It was a stunningly clear night but the highlight was watching Chew suddenly realise that the standing stones he was balanced on mid-river had a 2" coating of ice.

Sitting on top of some silly high Alpine pass on the TNR with Chew making cheese and crisp butties.
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by pistonbroke »

3 from me.
My first and the second ever WRT, Stu's face when I announced at the start that I was going to ride the whole thing from memory having sealed the map in a plastic bag, then kipping the 2nd night in Claerddu and guiding Chew and others across Monks Trod on a crystal clear morning the day after.
Pissing myself laughing at Scott and AndyB pitching their tents on top of sprinklers on the 1st night of the 1st Spain C2C, everyone should have a 7am enema.
And finally, finding an abandoned pig farm in the middle of nowhere on a 250km training ride locally which was the perfect bivvy spot and finding that I could get 4g reception so watching the sun disappear listening to Dead Ringers on R4 in deepest Spain.
Last edited by pistonbroke on Mon Jul 29, 2019 9:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
middleagedmadness
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by middleagedmadness »

Was also gonna say the rtts but with Mike sat in a bikini in the beer garden on the Sunday ,( & I thought we all looked quite fetching in that posh pub stu ),the push upto the slate mines then traversing round to the actuall top where BDS had a sense of humour failure :lol: ,
Last year's winter Bivi ,being blown across the ice on top of the mynd while mike was on the phone to me telling me how bad it was on top of the mynd and then waking up to a spring like morning on the Sunday to find scattamah and Ben being served tea in a pub beer garden
Plus to many drunken escapes I had with Scott around Shropshire
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by ScotRoutes »

My van breaking down near Tain while I was en route to a bivvy at Sandwood Bay. I cycled out to Tarbet Ness instead and when I was rolling up my tent in the morning I heard some breathing behind me. I looked round to see a small pod of dolphins swimming past about 10 metres away.

My "farewell to Edinburgh" bivvy, overlooking the city on the Pentland Hills watching the haar slide slowly in and out from the sea like waves.

FWIW the reason I have a blog is that I started taking my own trip notes to look back on and folk liked reading them. They are still mostly personal though.
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BigdummySteve
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by BigdummySteve »

That winter bivvy has to rank as one of the best,

Dunkery beacon in October with about 20guy lines holding my hilleburg to the tops was fun.

Deliberately setting out to bivvy in various named storms and watching thunderstorms over lakes.

Accidentally peeing on an in-flight vulture

Deer wandering past my bivvy

My lad enjoying bivving with me

Riding across Spain

ALl rides with the good friends I’ve made on here.

Reasons to be cheerful :-bd

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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by fatbikephil »

May 2010 after a crap 10 months, first bike tour in 20 years, South Uist, sunshine, tailwind, no traffic, no rush.
April 2012 on Barra having fat biked down all the beaches of the Uists with Rob and Iona. Was the day after a gale and rain laden sleepless night so we spent it lazing about the beaches on the bikes and then camping in the machair drinking cheap whisky and chewing the fat.
2015 HT group start, day 4. Did 18 hours ending up in Carnmore bothy which despite being a howf felt like palatial mansion eating food and drinking tea sat in a folding chair reflecting that I'd seen off the worst of the route (I was wrong :lol: )
This June sat in the roasting sun at the Kinlochewe cafe after 50 odd miles of highly entertaining riding and a fab bivvy
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JohnClimber
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by JohnClimber »

Iceland with Summittoppler 2 years ago this week

My first of this run of BAM's over 3 years ago on Hilbre Island racing the tide

Last September's pack rafting ride and wild camp on Peel Island on Coniston

And this year's JennRide using the pack raft (again) for chilling out and not following the flock of racers following a line on a GPS screen.

Slowing down and chilling with the pack raft is the future for me, it's great to add another perspective to travelling under your own steam. Ain't no Strava stress on the water.
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by Asposium »

My stand-out moment; there are others.

Day one of Jogle this year, objective for the day is 170km.
Ride has been a pretty much continual onslaught of head wind and rain, punctuated by undulating hills.
The landscape is so barren there’s nowhere to hide from the wind; stopping is not an option, turning back is not option, slowly forward progress is made against the unrelenting weather.
Then, at ~150km an oasis appears on the GPS, and shortly thereafter visible through the rain; it is the crask inn.
With an inner smile I push on, knowing there will be tea, cake, and a fire.
I’m greeted by friendly faces; we exchange stories, dry wet clothes over the fire, eat apple crumble and custard (two portions) and drink a huge pot of tea
Later, with clothes dry, food eaten and tea drank I head back out into the rain and the wind for the extra 30km needed for that day.
Sprits lifted the rain doesn’t seem quite so wet, and the wind quite so windy, there’s even a section of downhill to Lairg

ImageUntitled by Asposium, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by Asposium, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by Asposium, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by Asposium, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by Asposium, on Flickr
Last edited by Asposium on Tue Jul 30, 2019 9:58 am, edited 2 times in total.
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BigdummySteve
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by BigdummySteve »

Asposium wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2019 10:42 pm The landscape is so barren there’s nowhere to hide from the wind; stopping is not an option, turning back is not option, slowly forward progress is made against the unrelenting weather.
Then, at ~150km an oasis appears on the GPS, and shortly thereafter visible through the rain; it is the crask inn.
Similar experience, jogle, driving rain, light fading.
“You’ll not be wanting to pitch that then, Kip in the summer house” I could have kissed the old fella, a large bowl of the best stew and dumplings ever made was then produced :-bd

Another jogle memory, hurtling down penn hill Glastonbury tor appears like a magical island in a sea of golden bathed early morning mist.

Early mtb days, riding wit my mate rich when he suddenly performs a large bunny hop. ‘ knobber’ I think followed by me hitting the train sleeper bridge and performing a huge OTB into the dyke :-bd
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RIP
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by RIP »

peeing on an in-flight vulture has got to be my best memory about someone else's best memory!
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summittoppler
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by summittoppler »

Memories eh? We retain the 'good' ones and the 'bad'.

A comical one that stands out for me is when I went out for a small local tour of the Anglesey/Llyn Peninsula I rocked up at a petrol station in the middle of (what seemed) nowhere. So there's me with my goodies, full on lycra, bike helmet, touring bike with panniers leaning against the window and the young girl behind the counter ask's "Any fuel?"!! :lol:

Finally bagging the cantilever stane (profile pic) on the bike last year. I had been wanting to do this for many years and was so chuffed to get there.

Another has to be (non bike packing now) my first ride up Snowdon 31 years ago. I had just bought my first ATB and my dad was and still is a keen hill walker. So he suggests I go with him on this new bike. Anyways wearing jeans, no helmet I venture up Snowdon via the Rhydd Ddu track and then down the Llanberis! 1988!

And yes the Iceland trip with JC was special.

November 2014 saw a few of us on fat bikes at Newborough with summer like weather had a great chilled out vibe to it which is what its all about :-bd
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BigdummySteve
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by BigdummySteve »

RIP wrote: Tue Jul 30, 2019 7:59 am peeing on an in-flight vulture has got to be my best memory about someone else's best memory!
It wasn't a deliberate act, i was just recreating a missing waterfall and it was unfortunate in its flight path....honest o:-)
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by Charliecres »

Waking up to wild boar facing off either side of me in the Forest of Dene. :shock:

Waking up to a Landrover seemingly driving straight at me at high speed on the Isle of Wight. :shock:

Fish and chips on a sunlit bench among the tourists at Fort Augustus after a few days in the wilds. :-bd

Squeezing the very last drop of lifesaving hot water from the Blair Athol campsite showers just as my shivering brother got into the next cubicle to warm up after a prolonged sleety soaking on the Cairngorms loop. :oops:

Getting off the sleeper train at Corrour to be greeted by 40mph winds, horizontal rain and the prospect of a long day’s riding. Fortunately it turned out to be a tailwind and most of the day’s ride was downhill. :-bd
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by redefined_cycles »

Many many moons ago, before the days that I knew 100 miler and beyond mtb routes existed (although I had read the article by (the other) Chew in SingleTrack about bikepacking and also seen Guy Martin practicing for an epic mtb ride (I assume the TD or summat now that I think bout it) by doing 100 milers one of which was joined by the swindlers - for repeating articles 10 years later pretending they're fresh - at MBR...

Anyway... In as little words as poss. My buddy had needed to join me for some mtbing following most of the colne valley mtb challenge. The rest of us were practicing for the Mary Townley for charity in a few more months or whatnot. So my mate Kris, a roadie by trade - by this time I had never tried a road bike for the fear of getting caught in a drain/gutter side of road - came dressed in his best. He'd just bought this new swanky top which I didnt have a clue what it was all about nor ever heard of it- a Hagloffs which was his secret weapon for the hills and Peaks where exposure is the risk (I'd drilled into him).

From Marsden and across the mountains to Wessenden Head, I ended up ahead of everyone and so got to the top and waited for the rest of the lads. 3 pr 4 of them. Due to waiting a little while I took off my warm gloves just as the hail was about to set in. Just afyer some lovely sunshine. Once regrouped and some of the others obviously suffering a little from the hail we all set off down the road to the cattlegrid and back on the tracks towards (what I now realise must be a bothy). By the time we got to said bothy everyone was trembling and we took shelter in the bothy (I think it still had half a roof but at list it gave protection against the wind/driving hail-weather...

One of the chaps had the ingenious idea of degloving and putting hands down pants and glives next to kidneys or something like that. We all did so, possibly recovered a little and set off. I was a liytle behind and frostbite was starting to kick in and still remember how I was gonna break news that I was gonna have to bail.

However by the time we got to the road and near to civilisation and a shop. It became clear that my Kris with his lovely Hagloffs was becoming hypothermic. Took shelter in shop and lovely lady (who we called auntie cos she was asian/Siekh... [thats what we do :lol: evryones either an auntie or an uncle in asianism] fed him warm tea and we derobed him and added a rambo jersey (black binliner) for him ti warm up.

I never did need to tell them that I was next in line and enjoyed the taxi ride home :smile:

Image
Thats I believe the hut that I talk of. There's 2 halves with one section boarded and locked away with waterboard signs on it... FB=

... Oh, I forgot to mention. Our Kris is/was a copper. But he obviously forgot to use the force :smile:

Learning point from that day. I never ever go into the hills without my proof jacket and some spare or at least one set (if thats all I'm carrying) or waterproof/resist gloves
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by benconnolli »

Good game. Lots of time for this.

The first to come to mind is that cuppa I had in Hathersage. Still young an naiive I had set off from Jack's in February in a Southerly direction hoping to get home to Birmingham. Proper frosty and with a synthetic sleeping bag and foam mat I was doing interval sleeping, I would pedal hard up a hill or as fast as the ice allowed, then quickly jump into my bivi bag to get 40 winks before I next woke up cold. The third and final iteration of this I woke to a magically peaceful Peak District dusted with frost. Lost but not bothered I carried along this path away from Sheffield until this oasis pub came calling.

That hill fort bivi with Jack on the WRT this year. A still evening with the sun setting through the thick old oaks we treated ourselves to steamed puddings kings of our castle.

The anticipation then sheer thrill of putting on every item of clothing we had with us and leaving the refuge in the eye of a storm on the Torino - Nice rally last year. We flew through puddles and whooped with joy as the lightening flexed its muscles on our descent to the promise of a warm BnB.

This overwhelming sense of hope and reassurance that came with sunrise after a bivi out this winter.

So many blindingly average morsels of food that happened to be in exactly the right place at the right time so tasted extraordinary.
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by PaulB2 »

Cycling had been about commuting and a way to stop the spread of middle age. I fell in love with it when I crested a hill and just stopped at the sight of a sea of green trees beneath me with valleys rippling into the distance
middleagedmadness
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by middleagedmadness »

PaulB2 wrote: Wed Jul 31, 2019 8:26 am Cycling had been about commuting and a way to stop the spread of middle age. I fell in love with it when I crested a hill and just stopped at the sight of a sea of green trees beneath me with valleys rippling into the distance
What f@cking middle aged spread your like a bean pole :lol:
Any how thanks for the idea Paul I'll change my for name to middle-aged spread :-bd
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PaulB2
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by PaulB2 »

middleagedmadness wrote: Wed Jul 31, 2019 9:49 am
PaulB2 wrote: Wed Jul 31, 2019 8:26 am Cycling had been about commuting and a way to stop the spread of middle age. I fell in love with it when I crested a hill and just stopped at the sight of a sea of green trees beneath me with valleys rippling into the distance
What f@cking middle aged spread your like a bean pole :lol:
Any how thanks for the idea Paul I'll change my for name to middle-aged spread :-bd
I was 9 1/2 stone and had a 28 inch waist at 21 so it's all relative :grin:
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by Borderer »

On our C2C Spain trip I accidentally sent us across the Picos Europa mountain range. Had I done my research properly I would never have chosen this as taking a child with laden bikes across mountain passes seems like the height of folly, but it turned out to be one of the most rewarding experiences either of us has ever had on a bike. Seeing the sense of achievement on Joe's face was pretty special.

Here he is on the highest point of the pass - more than 200m higher than the top of Ben Nevis.

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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by middleagedmadness »

^^ that is pretty special :-bd ,my lads trips are no where near like yours but every night out or day trip is full of memories even the stroppy ones :lol: ,he's 15 in Jan and hell bent on joining the RAF engineers so all these memories with him are great as he'll soon be having his own trips without me
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by psling »

I like it when lost memories stored away in the deepest recesses of the mind are evoked by some sort of trigger.
The obvious example of this is music, when a certain tune takes us to another place but more topical to this thread is when a place is revisited and lost memories are triggered from the distant past; a seemingly familiar landmark or view that gets you thinking 'I've been here before...'. Or a conversation that recalls that of-the-moment occasion with friends that you know can never be recreated however much you'd like to.
You can't really ride out specifically to create the best memories but if you are able to make the effort to get out as often as possible and with friends new and old, then the memories will follow as surely as night follows day (and even during mid-summer in the most northern reaches :cool: ).
We go out into the hills to lose ourselves, not to get lost. You are only lost if you need to be somewhere else and if you really need to be somewhere else then you're probably in the wrong place to begin with.
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by Bearbonesnorm »

That's true Peter. I always think of certain people when I'm doing certain jobs. I may not have thought of said person for weeks but as soon as I begin that certain job, memories of that person appear ... I think of sweary Dave when I'm cutting carbon spigots and I have no idea why :???:
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by faustus »

Borderer - that's a nice one! I hope to make similar memories with my boy, but it's a while off as he's only just walking! :grin:

A great memory for me is my preparation for my viva in 2011. My best pal and I stayed in Ty'n y Cornel for a night, and spent the next cold november day riding around that part of the Cambrian mountains. It included the mythical Welsh Bridleway(TM) and front wheel sucking bog trot, along with plenty of typically lovely Welsh riding. But in reality, it was a perfect way to relax my mind from what was the culmination of years of on-off hard work, poverty, and mental stress. The next day went very well and I was in the right frame of mind for it. That ride was just what I needed to prepare, rather than looking at books or re-reading my thesis for the thousandth time. Yes, riding and good friends make good memories.
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by Bearbonesnorm »

Ooh just had a flasback to another - riding to my mums in the Peak District a few years ago just before Christmas. I'd planned to break the ride up with a night out but simply never bothered to stop. It was snowing riding over the Wayfarer and freezing as I headed out of Wales for the flatlands of Cheshire. I stopped at a 24hr Tesco in Congleton about 3am and bought some eclairs ... which I vividly recall stopping to eat sometime around 5am stood high on top of the Maccelsfield road before a long final descent. Oddly, I was now in a ss jersey and gilet - weird.
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Re: Memories are made of this ....

Post by Bearbonesnorm »

A great memory for me is my preparation for my viva in 2011.
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