Cycling UK Forum

I rode the Ridgeway a month ago and it was in great condition. Hardly any mud at all. Of course that might not be the case now. I did actually comment to my riding partner at the time how it wouldn't be so fun in the wet.

Except for the part just near overton hill, which is very rutted, the remainder of the track is OK as long as you don't want to really race along it.

And don't listen to those above about illegal sections etc - you just need to combine it with icknield way and you're fine. We ride from Pewsey to Tring without riding on footpath once.

Sita run it in our area (not veolia sorry) and have always been fine with me showing up with a bike trailer. I'm actually a bit shocked to hear that some places do have issues with people arriving on bikes.

This is the same hitch as on a chariot kids trailer. Might be worth looking for a local stockist. Just be aware that all things chariot are usually hideously expensive.

mrjemm wrote:3g use is now restricted- Amazon, Wikipeadia and a couple of other things I think maybe. No email or general surfing unless through wifi.

I just read an article saying that its now been capped at 50mb. No mention of specific websites.

http://gigaom.com/2012/07/24/amazon-lim ... -to-50-mb/

My wife can get through about half a dozen books while on tour so the kindle is a great weight saver over the dead tree versions. I've never had to charge either of ours during a two week tour.

We have the 3g versions which are great if you just want to check your email or a train timetable as the 3g is free worldwide. I still wonder if that costs Amazon a small fortune. I note that none of the subsequent models had the option.

Redvee wrote:

CREPELLO wrote:Why don't you buy the 8mm inserts and just file them out to fit? They're only £4
http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/ortlieb-plas ... prod12402/

If held correctly in a bench vice a 10mm drill will make the job a lot quicker.

I had thought of this, but the problem is that the inserts are a pretty poor fit to start with. They don't sit under the hooks very well and are constantly moving about. Hence the additional flanges on the one I designed.

mrjemm wrote:And in the meantime, you can wrap some insulating or self-amalgamating tape around the rack tubes. That works. Promise.

Yeah I realised that but didn't want the ugly tape left on my bike. I know that sounds precious and my bike certainly isn't an image of beauty, but just a personal taste thing

While I love my Ortleibs, I hate the fact they rattle around on my rack, even when properly seated and locked on. This is because the inserts that you get are made for certain diameter rack tubing. Mine is 10mm and the closest internal diameter of the inserts is 11.2mm (or therebouts). I realise that's not much of a difference, but you do notice it while riding.

These inserts seem a little too complicated to fabricate at home so I thought I'd look into getting one 3D printed. I did the sketch below in sketchup and made a rough calculation of the volume for printing. Given the costs listed here (£2.00 per cubic centimetre), one insert would be about £26 to print(!) A bit out of my range, but if anyone wants the model please let me know and you can have it.

One note is that a better fitting insert like this will only remove the side-to-side movement, but won't do much for the up and down movement, which may actually be the majority of the rattling anyway. Still, was fun drawing this up

JulesDawes wrote:Just to add my set up. When I needed a new front rim, I bought a shimano xt dynamo hub from germany for about 60 quid.- I built this into my new rim. I then found an easy schematic for building a usb charging unit which ofc takes the 6v ac put out by the hub, and converts it to 5v dc. This cost less than 20 quid and works very well. I can charge my phone or any other usb item directly from it- although I am going to buy a small lithium battery pack that could charge my phone 2 or 3 times over, and charge that whilst it charges my device, enabling me to capture any 'spare' juice for using on off days or charging say a kindle or other items occasionally.

Thanks for the info. Do you happen to have a link to the schematic? Some pics of your handy work would be great!

Wile the e-work etc look fine personally I'd like to go down the DIY route as you have in order to make the system *exactly* what I want in terms of physical form factor, connectivity and general electrickery.

The path around the lake is actually not too bad generally. Yes there's plenty of it that coincides with ambling walkers and their children but these are fairly easily avoided. From memory the surface was fine and where it wasn't you could quite easily take the road. There are certainly many places you canyt see the lake as the path tends to run on the non-shore side of private residences and caravan parks most of the time. I didn't think that was so bad as the cycling was generally still quite nice.

While we only did the northern shore I can attest that there's a wealth of campsites, though the quality is nothing to write home about. Overall I would recommend it as long as you're outside the school holidays. Can't really recommend the best places to hangout as we went through on the way to Croatia so just stayed wherever along the lake we ended up at the end of the day and we only spent the one night there.

andrew_s wrote:Let's suppose cycle camping in Scotland...

Charging at a campsite:
1) leaving stuff charging unattended in the toilet block can be prone to pilferage.
2) charging in reception means that you are subject to reception opening times, and if it's a small site where the man comes round and collects the fee there may be no reception.

I might add that at one place we stayed in Interlaken (Camping Seeblick Bönigen) they charged me 1 Fr per battery I charged at reception! I was shocked - certainly as they only told me after I'd already charged two!I've stayed in hundreds of campsites around the world and never once has anyone charged for this before. All the more reason for a self sufficient dynamo set up - to avoid greedy campsite owners (as rare as they are).

Portland wrote:Like a few on here, I question the need for anything more elaborate than a battery charger.

What about those of us who don't wish to carry a separate GPS unit with us? I use my phone quite successfully for navigating while touring and it obviously doesn't accept AA batteries.

Portland wrote:My Etrex20 will I think get about 3 days cycling (of 8 hours each) from a single pair of rechargaeble AAs. I can recharge 4 AAs in an hour in a simple charger - am aware that such fast charging is maybe not favoured by purists/is the ideal way to do it, but how hard is realistically going to be to get some friendly soul to let you plug your charger in for an hour while you have a couple of coffees, drinks, small meal?

While I agree that it's generally not hard to get someone to charge something for you many people, myself included, would like to do so without necessarily relying on that support.

Personally I take a load of spare rechargeable phone batteries with me and use a wall charger as shown below. I would however prefer to have a hub dynamo system and not have to do any external charging at restaurants, campsites etc.

The whole satnav on a bike thing has been done quite a few times before on this forum. My two cents here:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=46919&start=45

Just thought I'd share a small mod I conducted on my handlebar bag. This was borne out of a) my paranoia that I'd left the bar bag open after a rest/photo stop and b) the realisation that I had indeed left the bar bag open after a rest/photo stop one a few occasions. This doesn't solve the problem, but it serves a nice little reminder that you've properly shut the bag. The magnets (rare earth magnets) are not meant to hold the zips closed, but just to click closed for you mental comfort.



Anyone else have any touring-specific hacks they'd like to share?

Barrenfluffit wrote:One of the issues seemed to be that a routing algorithm for cars used very different priorities than for me touring. Actually I don't mind going a mile or two out of the way if it gets me on to an obscure road which follows a railway / river up a valley and on to the plateau. Typically satnavs are used for getting to places in a minimium time subject to constraints. For touring we want to get there in time by the best/nicest route. The difference is hard to mimic; entering constraints helps but its still trying to get it to do something at odds with its normal purpose. In addition the more flexibility it has the more idiosyncratic the route it produced. Yes these turnings saves 100m but its not really worth the candle.

This is a good point. The way I deal with it si threefold 1) plan the route quite precisely to avoid these sorts of situations in the first place. I'm a bit anal about route planning, though I know this is not the same for everyone 2) use 'Bicylce route' in the TomTom planning options. Basically just avoids motorways I think and 3) Use common sense when on the road. If there's a clear alternative cycle route or shortcut for cycles then I would most defintely take that instead of the pre-planned route!