Left to their own devices people cluster, people congest.
Congestion, an absence of flow. Sounds like indigestion, constipation. Just as comfortable I reckon.
Gravity, it takes prisoners.
You have to step outside of it to see it. Some people do see it.
Look for these bright stars, and follow them. They’ll give you the velocity to escape.
It just takes a person to keep the flow moving, someone who sees the congestion.
I love to run with my hun
Feeling free, you and me
Moving from A to B with complete simplicity
Up hill down hill
Make me run
Rain, sun or snow you know I will show
Something to gain, no pain no gain
You used to walk, to shy to run
Never under the light of the sun
Look at you now, all keen and mean
Your soles are clean and you move like steam
Run Hun, don’t think about it
It’s physical, not mental exercise
Run Hun, running is fun
Sleepy sleepy , weepy weepy
Just want some peace,
Tooth for tooth,
Grind, grind, grind
Snoring
You are asleep I am not, what – why not
Are you dreaming, what are you feeling
I wish you well, but oh this ain’t so swell
Getting no sleep, falling in deep, making me weep
Its not your fault but I just need to find some piece
To do my thing and let my thoughts sing
I have so much to do but time is not mine
Don’t mean to whine but I need a sign that its all going to be fine
Grindy McSnorer you are mine.
Whoever said the world isn’t flat had surely just completed a Barebones event. They will also have wanted to add much more.. colourful detail.
So a quick recap – the BB200 is a self-supported 200 km (ish) mountain bike ride through mid-Wales. It is organised by Stuart and Dee of Forest Freeride. The BB300 extends this by an additional 100 km, or to put it another way, an additional 12 hrs riding for me.
I had already completed the BB200 twice, conveniently missing the fabled 2014 edition which had cemented Stuarts reputation as chief tormentor of happy go lucky bikepackers. I put my name down for the 300 back in June when I had every intention to put some miles in, even some upper body work for all the pushing, lifting and thrutching that was inevitably going to be required. This didn’t happen, I want to blame having a kid but that would be unfair, I just got lazy. Come September panic set in and a half hearted attempt on the Peak 200 in perfect weather ended in a bail after just 90 km. Prep done.
The prize for completing the 300 within the 36 hour cut off was an Orange Badge. Ooooh, I really wanted that badge, but I was feeling weak and unprepared for anything apart from sleep deprivation. As long as I could keep going I might be in with a chance.
Slow and steady was to be my strategy, and what better tool for the job than my trusty old singlespeed. I treated it to some brand rubber, cleaned and lubed the chain, fighting weight was around 19 kg including water and the 2 spare inner tubes I felt obliged to carry incase my tubeless set up failed. Pulling into the car park in Llanbrynmair on Friday evening I was glad I had already done my bike pre-faff. Feeling ahead of the game, and with a 7 am start planned, I lay down on my Dozer and listened to the rain drumming down on the van roof.
7.30 am – I felt warm and cosy cocooned in my PipeDream sleeping bag, my Dozer was also doing its job and doing it far too well. Outside the rain was falling, the wind was blowing. Riders were sounding busy, if I didn’t move no-one would know I was here, I could sneak off after lunch… Pffft, I thought you wanted that orange badge? But it’s so cosy, just 5 more minutes… come on do you want it or not? Yes I want it, I want that orange badge alright!! Breakfast was swift and by 7.49 am I appeared out the back of my van like Street Hawk, signed out with Stuart and was rolling slowly down the road.
In comparison to the weather on the tops the weather in the car park had been really quite inviting. Storm Callum had timed its arrival to perfection. It was bearing its teeth, bringing the worst flooding to Wales in 30 years and, over the course of the next 24 hours, we were properly savaged. Those barmy summer days were blown into distant memory.
The first of many bike-a-hike sections took us directly into the full force of the storm. Standing up was a challenge, the bike, once a fun mode of transport was now little more than a rolling crutch. A steep descent turned into a steep waterfall which then passed through a small lake. 8 km done, huh, so this is how it was going to be.
And so it continued until 20 km, where the route kicked right to ford the river. Any other weekend this summer and this may have been little more than a bubbling brook lined with crocodiles basking in the sun hoping for a lucky meal. But the monsoon had hit and it was running in spate, us bikepackers stood confused like buffalo halted in their annual migration.
We had to get across this torrent to continue, but at the same time the obvious suddenly sank in… this was unlikely to be the last river crossing and they were only to get more remote. If I wanted a point to bail this was it. I confess I hadn’t studied the route in much detail, I had avoided any pre event banter on the BB forums – a deliberate and cunning strategy. When you don’t know how bad things might get things can always get better, and you have less reasons to give up. .
I scouted up and down the river with Michael from Travers Bikes, we would be riding with each other a bit, but no bridge in sight. Michael waded in to test the water, he was tall but not that tall. I was ready to wave goodbye to him, but he had second thoughts.
Unlike buffalo I didn’t need to follow in the footsteps of great great grandfather buffalo. I had a map and that gave me other options. The decision was made, with another 280 km to go it just wasn’t worth the risk. We pushed on looking for an alternative, safer crossing point.
Michael was riding the 200 and our routes split at 100 km. It had been reassuring to have some support on the river crossings when my wobbly legs struggled to stand up against the current. I found out after the event that he had to bail at 115 km due to a faulty GPS. Really bad luck for him.
12 hours in, not yet half way, progress had felt hard won. Darkness was falling. Now the switch to the night shift is an exciting moment in an endurance ride. You know it is inevitable, you just hope you have done the trickiest stuff before it comes. With 12 hours of darkness ahead it can feel quite intimidating. Everything becomes more difficult, more committing, but for me it is also quite a calm time. You have to be patient, the sun will appear again and that is something to look forward to.
I was accompanied through the night by Murphy the Moose on the bike, an audience of hundreds if not thousands of sheep with eerie glowing red eyes, albino leaping frogs and a solitary badger. I had saved my cheese bagels until midnight – you have to have a carrot to dangle.
While we are on the subject of food, some wiley Boners know that if you pass through (insert unpronounceable name) on the 2nd Saturday of the month with a hungry stomach under a full moon there will be a small pub open just where you need it. It will be packed full of friendly locals with live music, a roaring fire, an authentic menu, real ale, it will be just as if they were expecting you. The rest of us have to carry what we want to eat and hope to find a dry spot under a bush with a clean stream where you might be able to recoup for a couple of hours.
Unfortunately at my speed stopping wasn’t in the game plan, but my spirits were lifted when in the early morning light I rolled into Knighton to find a Coop offering a hot coffee, sandwiches and a small group of other riders.
200 km done, I would have been finished in previous years. I was heading into new territory but I felt like I had paced myself ok even though my legs had hit the wall in the past couple of hours. I didn’t feel exhausted in the aerobic sense but my legs just didn’t have the power to get up the hills.
But it was ok. I had the next 100 km all worked out in my head. I had overheard someone say the last 45 km was all road, so really it just broke down to another 50 km of real riding, and once I was up onto the Kerry Ridgeway it would be pretty much flat anyway… I was virtually home and dry.
I scoffed that Yorkie I had been saving, Original of course, and started spinning. My legs had regenerated themselves, it felt great to ride my bike rather than walk alongside it. Feeling strong as I worked my way up to the Ridgeway my mind accelerated and started to pull away. I was already weaving through the windmill farm and freewheeling down the long descent to the finish.
Before I could get there reality bit back, there was 70 km to go and fatigue had returned. My pace slowed to a snails crawl. When you are on a singlespeed there is nowhere to go except get off and push. Still it wasn’t all doom and gloom, I could see the windmill farm in the distance and there was a patch of blue in the sky.
A few hours later the windmills were still beckoning from a distance. I kept reminding myself that however bad I felt now it was going to be all downhill from the windmill farm, downhill all the way to that coveted little orange disk.
The windmills did come and go, finally, and it was followed by a nice downhill section where I could put on my smily face again, except that it didn’t go on for 45 km. Nope, somehow in my head I had smoothed out that steep 300 m climb out of Llanidloes. My legs didn’t care if it was on smooth tarmac, they just knew it was uphill and I had lied to them. We were no longer friends.
As my GPS clocked up 285 km I could smell the finish line fry up. As 300 km came and went I wondered why I didn’t have a mug of tea in my hand and an orange badge in my pocket. Llanbrynmair still wasn’t showing on my GPS, I zoomed out, then zoomed out again, then scrolled up…
Oh my, 10 km still to cover and the sands of time were all but drained. I still wanted that orange badge, that orange badge had kept me going over 35 hours and I still wanted it. Adrenaline said hello and suddenly my body was working as one. I was back up on the pedals and charging for the finish line.
If anyone had been out for a recreational ride they would have sauntered by me and wondered what all the huffing was about, but there wasn’t and I was charging all the same. Jumping the red lights into Llanbrynmair I felt fast and dangerous. I had given everything but probably missed the cut by 5 to 10 minutes. I couldn’t bring myself to swipe the screen on my GPS and check. I still didn’t want to give it up the little orange badge. Rolling down the steps into the school I expecting a friendly but ultimately sympathetic greeting from Stuart and Dee. Oooh so close, good effort in those conditions, urm we are locking up now, back next year?… but to my amazement I was greeted by fellow BB300’ers.
“Have I done it” I asked… “Oh my god, with 1 minute to go, unbelievable” was the reply.
I couldn’t believe it, I had that orange badge after all!
The gods looked down on the 10th edition of the Welsh Ride Thing and said “you know what, these guys keep coming back year after year, they ride around in circles for 3 days, through rain and mist, get lost in the woods following trails their hearts are convinced must exist. They wade through streams and get stuck in bogs until they find themselves gravitated towards the sanctuary of a pub – let’s cut them some slack this year and give them some sun.”
And the gods were generous. “I’ve been waiting for this for 10 years” said Taylor – and he should know, he’s been to every single one of them.
It was 3 days of sunblock, deep green valleys and blue skies. During the night the skies were clear, rewarding those with enough energy to climb out of the valleys to spectacular displays of stars above and wondrous cloud inversions below – banishing those who didn’t make it to a damp and misty slumber.
For the uninitiated the WRT is an event firmly established in many bikepackers diaries – it is an opportunity to explore the Welsh countryside and spend a couple of nights out. It is a bit like orienteering in that Stu sends you some grid references. You then spend some time pouring over a map plotting a route between all or just some of them. No dibbers, nothing to do once you get to them, no one is going to care to check. Refreshing huh?!
It all starts with the weigh-in and this is how it works… Taylor takes your bike and hangs it from some scales along with all your kit. I had got mine down to 40lbs and that included the 2 emergency bananas I had stashed in my back pocket. Not bad but not the lightest – this came in at 31lbs – for which the prize was the traditional, and weighty, pork pie! The heaviest bike – someone correct me if I am wrong – weighed in at 170lbs – they will have got a dab on over the weekend.
My planned route was a good mix of terrain over some 200km. With a few long sections of leafy lane to look forward to I was riding the Sonder Camino Ti with 700 x 40c Nano tyres. In retrospect swapping them out for a set of 650b Love Mud Volution wheels with Resolute tyres would have been a more comfortable option. I spotted a couple of other Sonders amongst the mix of hardtails, fat bikes, full-sussers, gravel bikes, someone was even towing a kid (did that count towards his weight?).
The luggage has got a bit more polished over the years and it’s now more common to see a GPS device strapped to riders handlebars rather than a paper map, but as long as you have a bike you can go bikepacking. For us at Alpkit it is a great event to get our kit tested and soak up some feedback in a one on one informal environment. I had a couple of new bits and bobs to put through their paces.
The first was our new Exo-Rail seat mount. It is a looped aluminium rod that is clamped between your seat post providing additional stability to your seat pack. It was bomber, giving so much more confidence handling the bike over rough terrain and roaring down fast descents. The idea came when thinking up ideas for a dropper seat post system – but it was so good we thought why limit it to that. We have reworked the Koala seat pack so it just slides on, so smooth, so easy – something you will appreciate as you rush to get going after a wet bivvy. Owners of the original Koala will be pleased to know we have thought about backwards compatibility. You can still take advantage of the Exo-Rail with the additional attachment clips provided by the Lumpa sleeve.
I also had a new Glider frame bag. This sits alongside our Possum frame bag in the range with a specific shape designed for road and touring bike geometries. Compared to my Possum it felt like it has more useable space. Mine was made out of our new LS07 fabric. Its distinctive mottled grey fabric is both lighter and more durable than VX21 which is used on the majority of bike luggage available.
One thing I would do differently over every other year? Leave those 45Nrth Fasterkatt overboots behind – I didn’t get cold feet but they ended up as damp as every other year – bluurgh!
A big thanks to Stuart and Dee who welcome us all into their home every year. This 10th year is going to be fondly remembered, but hopefully we won’t have to wait another 10 years for more of the same – those hills sure don’t get any less steep.
We had started off well, the snow and ice crunched under our fat tyres. It was better than that feeling you get when you sit chewing gum and popping bubble wrap. Rolling out of the Glenmore forest a winter wonderland opened up in front of us. Beyond lay the Cairngorm Inner Loop as it is known by some; a 90 km circuit that circumnavigates Cairngorm, Ben Macdui and Braeriach.
My goal was to keep up with Paul and Scott for as long as possible. I didn’t think that would be long… then 20 minutes in Paul’s chain snapped. I was thankful it hadn’t happened to me, the thought of fixing a chain in the cold was unappealing, but I could see the benefit to Paul; coping with this scenario was great preparation for what could happen in February. I left him to it, sucked in the awesomeness of the situation and took some photos. If I had thought about it more I could have gained some ground on them both.
Paul and Scott were here with serious intent, to train for the impending Rovaniemi 150 winter bike race in Finland. As much as I wanted to tag along I didn’t want to turn their training mission into a Sunday soother of a ride.
We made good progress out of Glen Derry towards the Lairig an Laoigh. The paths had seen some traffic, were fairly well compacted and wind swept. We were hopeful that we would be able to ride the path up to the flanks of Bynack More but we soon relinquished such ridiculously positive thoughts.
The snow started to deepen as we approached the top of the first hill. The wind picked up and a lone figure approached us. A guy in snowshoes trudged passed, we didn’t say anything, it was too windy. I started to wonder if anyone had ever been rescued out here in winter on their bikes.
We were following a gpx track, it guided us around the hillside and into a steep descent, this was our point of commitment, not only for the day but also for the weekend. Even if we didn’t follow the exact route it was going to be a long way back. There are no short cuts across the highest plateaux in the uk with a fully loaded bike.
Paul took the first tumble over his bars, I took the second. Scott got by unscathed but our account was balanced later as he fell through a snow bridge into a stream. The wind picked up and the snow blasted across the tundra like hillside whilst the lazy hazy sun shivered behind broken cloud.
The snow pack was hardened by the wind but our attempts to ride the crust were broken, quite literally. The surface was an illusion we would destroy with every fourth step. The reality of the conditions couldn’t be denied and what followed was 10 hours of pushing and lugging, broken only by a brief pause at the frozen Fords of Avon. The refuge was a welcome landmark but it was less than half way along the valley; we needed to push on.
As darkness swept into the valley we hadn’t even clocked up 20 km, it was clear that the full loop via Glenfeshie was going to be unattainable. The ‘bail out’ was going to be the mountain road from Braemar over the Lecht and through Tomintoul. I wasn’t relishing the idea, even though pushing was a chore I felt on equal grounds with Paul and Scott. Back on our bikes they would have a distinct advantage, I knew it was going to be another tiring day.
We resupplied in Braemar and lucked out with the kind folk running a scout camp in the Village Hall. A cheery chat and a hot brew later we were back on the road and hunting down a bivvy spot before the 16 mile climb on Sunday.
As much as I am thankful to the guys from the village hall, I would have to take issue with their assessment that it would be downhill all the way from Tomintoul. The climb out of the Bridge of Brown was a sting in the tail which sapped what little remained of my power reserves. Scott and Paul’s superior strength and fitness showed and the small dips and rises along the final leg through Nethy Bridge were something I endured rather than attacked.
The familiar sight of the Northern Corries was a welcome beacon. I scoffed the last of my Haribos and downed what remained of my ice cold water. A big black pig snorted around for food under the snow, he was fat, like really fat with a wise, weathered, frowny face. I wondered if it would have been easier taking a pig over the Cairngorms, a bit like Hannibal with his elephants.
Considering the small percentage of riding we did on Saturday I now hesitate to call these things snow bikes, but adventure bikes they sure are.
I need another slice of spinach and feta pie
Melting cheese
Don’t want a soggy bottom
Cold outside but its warming up in
Winter snows, dark outside
Half for you half for me
Greggs has nothing for me
Hard to understand, but inherently interesting all the same
I don’t want no Nobel Prize, I just want science
I need to know what’s big what’s small
How it all, falls, together
Unexplained mysteries, mysteries solved
Proofs
Fifes great unexplained mysteries
Boffins coliding, supernovas exploding
Im just observing, testing, propositioning
But that what we know is just a penny in the ocean,
how can we know what we don’t know
The more we look the more we are amazed
Surprised, mystified
Collaboration, imagination, perhaps one day
we will know it all, if only i had a magic ball
Freakin Science, its all around us
Bubbling test tubes,
Reactions,
Carbon, lithium, radium
By best estimates dad started his Munro journey 40 years ago with an ascent of Cairngorm. His companion that day – mum, has gone on to summit some 70 munros herself – that is more than myself or Col.
Dad now has about 20 munros to go – none of them easy ones as when he started he didn’t set out to do the munros. It has kind of evolved, perhaps starting when we got him a Munro book and he started ticking them off. He used to spot trains, so that could explain that.
He has been on the final push for the last 5 years or so. On his 70th birthday he got the Inn Pinn. But had he planned it the remaining munros probably would not be on his preferred list.
The final push was halted a year ago when he suffered a heart attack. It threw into doubt a lot of things but for him there was no doubt he would be back up in Scotland slogging up a hillside. The first tentative steps was a family trip halfway up Snowdon in February, the second was a full ascent with mum in May, the 3rd was a 3 hour hike with full bivvy sack as I trudged behind with a lightly loaded day sack.
It was with a great deal of trepidation that I set off, I had convinced myself that we might get one munro at best – I was wrong.
I have done a fair bit of hillwalking, but as with anything, if you haven’t done it for a while you get rusty. You forget things like – just how cold can it get on a Scottish mountain in May, what should I carry for emergencies, what is the worst than can happen – and if it does how do I deal with it?
I packed a Hunka bivvy with PD250 – after all a bivvy bag is pretty cold by itself and there was a frost on our first night.
It wasn’t until coming down off Sliach that I realised if I had an accident these items would be as crucial to me as they would for dad. The weight I was carrying served a dual purpose.
The Tuscany Trail is a mountain bike event which follows a 560km route from Massa over the Apennine mountains to Capalbio. It passes through the very quarries where Michelangelo selected the marble he used to carve his David, the beautiful cities of Florence and Sienna and skirts close to the iconic medieval village of San Gimignano. Despite having lived in Italy for a few years it is a region I haven’t really explored in any depth. So what better way than by signing up to the Tuscany Trail and seeing it by bike!
My fitness levels at the start of the year were disappointingly low. My work / play balance was severely unbalanced, but this was a good focus to help me readdress the situation. In addition we had been getting close to developing our own adventure bikes… with the adventure sorted I now needed one of those bikes!
Once the flight was booked I was committed, it was time to get some miles in. I had lost the habit of cycling to work, it’s 50 minutes either way with a hill in between. Not that impressive in the grand scheme of human achievement, but doing that 3 or 4 times a week over 6 months builds up a good base fitness level, especially when you go after some of the Strava segments!
I have a problem with my knees over long distances – they start to hurt. Yes I know that’s not uncommon but I do have to be a little careful. With this in mind I decided to go for the little and often approach rather than trying something close to the full distance. I haven’t got a grand plan for training, no cycling specific routines, but I have got into Training for Alpinism by Steve House. In his book he says overtraining is worst than under training.. a sentiment that I have no problem sticking to. I am never going to expose myself to the risks or objective dangers Steve does, but bikepacking shares many of the fundamentals of Alpinism such as self sufficiency, light weight and the single push.
The clocks changing has helped me squeeze in some training rides and I have managed to shoot up to the Peak District for a couple of hours after work, the Cromford Inclines providing a suitably intense after work workout. I have managed to fit in 2 – 3 rides in a week, 25 – 50 km each with 500 to 1200 metres of ascent. The Tuscany Trail has about 10,000 metres of ascent over its distance so I wanted to make sure I had something in the tank.
Pretty mundane so far, but we do have some prototypes of our new bikes and they are sooo shiny! Getting them built up in time is going to be cutting it fine, but I am hopeful since we have a master mechanic on the case.
One model that is already built up is the 650b all mountain style steed. Col and myself took it down to Cannock Chase for a spin. We were both getting over colds and were in need of some fresh air.
So, the iO is my favourite bike – ever. It is just so much fun to throw around a trail centre or rack up for a multi-day adventure but I had to keep an open mind. I had the first lap on the 650b. The front wheel appeared to extend out far into the horizon, I could see the perspective and I was slightly concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get around some of the sharp hairpins. This proved unfounded, there was obviously some magic in the geometry that I didn’t understand or indeed need to understand. Col was hot on my tail, the Genesis is light and accelerates instantly, whereas the 650b, even with the shocks locked out felt like it had a slight delay. I am all for conserving energy so I was constantly turning the shocks on and off during my lap. Only the most sense deprived idiot would deny that the 650b was a lot more forgiving than the iO and boy it could climb.
Switching from the 650b to the iO on the second lap came as something of a shock. The difference was probably more pronounced for me than it was for Col. At the start I would easily over compensate, and I would sure feel every bump! A bonus was that I would breeze through the forested sections, whereas with the 650b I was constantly slowing down because I thought the wide handlebars would get stuck between the trees.
If I could only have one bike and I had to choose between the two what would I have? Well it would still be the iO, but that’s probably because I like wireframes over full renderings, plain vanilla over double choc cookie dough ice cream, margherita over supreme and grappa over cocktails.