Cycling UK Forum

Here is a picture of our tent on a recent tandem camping tour of Oxfordshire. Tandem is in the background

I was left in charge of 9 year old daughter last weekend and we spent a rather wet weekend touring Oxfordshire on trains and the tandem. Not the longest of tours but our first tour together. The route roughly followed the Cotswold Line cycle route http://www.cotswoldcycling.com/clcr.shtml from Kingham to Oxford with a detour via Blenheim Palace and a camp site.

Day one - Cycle from home to Evesham station to catch the train. 1st Problem, despite booking a tandem on the train with the call centre the guard was convinced that it wouldn't fit as the dedicated bike carriage was off the platform due to the short platform length. After a little discussion we were allowed to put the bike in the vestibule at the end of the buffet car. this meant anyone wanting the services from the buffet car had to hurdle the bike. At Kingham it was raining, and after about an hour of wet cycling we had reached Chadlington and our first cafe stop. Hot chocolate and cakes warmed us up, we waited a while for the rain to stop and then pedaled to Charlbury for Lunch. After lunch came the hilly part to Blenheim palace and following a look round the house and play park we enjoyed more cakes and drinks, the sun even came out for a short period! Only a short pedal to the Green Hill campsitehttp://www.greenhill-leisure-park.co.uk/ for our overnight stay. We managed to pitch the tent just in time for the rain to start again. Luckily it stopped in time for us to walk to the pub for tea.

Day two - A ten mile cycle into Oxford followed by a look round the Natural History museum, it was great to see all the dinosaur skeletons and to find out that one of them had been discovered very close to our last nights campsite. After lunch we cycled to the railway station, and long platforms meant we had no difficulty putting the bike in the correct bike coach. The helpful staff even loaded my daughter and luggage onto the train whilst I sorted out the bike. 30 minutes later we were at Honeybourne and pedalling the last 5 miles home.

Overall we cycled 50 miles carrying full camping equipment, in just over 5 hours at a leisurly 9.9 miles per hour. Not bad considering the longest we have ever pedaled is 27 miles. We both enjoyed our little adventure dispite the bad weather and are talking about planning the next one.

I have posted questions on this site before about touring with Children, and read many of the touring threads posted by other users. All posts have proved useful and I thank all the contributers for the advice that helped me in the planning of this tour.

Vorpal wrote:Try a tandem experience day... They can offer all sorts of advice & you work these things out. If they can't, it might not be possible. If they can, it will be very rewarding.

p.s. I have nothing to do with them, but a clubmate highly recommends them.

We first started with the tandem by going on a tandem experience day. We spent a good hour getting on and off the tandem, and stopping and starting. All the time we had someone next to us ready to catch us. Mrs B doesn't use toe clips on her own bike because she doesn't like them, but does use them on the back of the tandem. The morning spent at the tandem experience really helped us get used to the tandem and get used to each other riding it.

Hope you get the pedal problem sorted.

NUKe wrote:guys thanks for the info the helios looks good Rick even if a little out of my price range. Mr Benton what do you use? measured the kids inside legs smallest one is 19 inch. I figure that with crank shortners would mean a 14 inch frame at maximum I reckon.

We have a landescape tandem. the distance from the stoker saddle to the bottom bracket is 42 cm and the crank shorteners shorten the cranks to about 10cm so I estimate the min inside leg of the stoker will be 52cm which is about 20 inches (ish)

We purchased a tandem that fits either and an adult or a child on the back. We have 2 saddles and seat posts which I swap depending if Mrs B or Daughter is on the back, I also fit crank shorteners if it is Daughter.

It works for us

I have one of these bought from my lBS http://raleigh.co.uk/PRODUCTTYPE/ProductRange/Product/Default.aspx?pc=2&pt=117&pg=6305

very bright from the rear but the light emitted to the sides could be better.

Have you tried Alan Kimber's place at http://www.fortwilliamholiday.co.uk/
I have stayed there whilst winter mountaineering. Only problem is the accomodation is at the top of a hill.

He has a great drying room.

thanks for all the replies. I did assemble it with all the index markers in line, and they were behind the crank arm. Based on the replies I will call that correct

Hi,
At the weekend I was doing some routine fiddling with the stable of bikes and noticed the inner chainring on the tandem was slightly warped, so i took it apart bent the ring back into shape and then went to reassemble, it was then I noticed the chainrings all seemed to have a index marker on, as can be seen at the bottome of this ring in the image borrowed from sjs.

I guessed that index markers on the 3 chainrings should all line up. Does anyone know if my assumption was correct?
thanks

I use two of these smart lights http://spacycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m2b0s39p764
the clamps and shims they came with mean they fit nicely to the vertical stays on pannier rack, and they are very bright as well. I have had mine now for about 2 years so hopefully they still come with the same fittings now.

I can't offer any specific advice on cycling the C2C as I have never done it. The advice I can give is based on my experience of taking away youth groups camping and leading walking trips into the mountains. hopefully some will be useful.

Teenagers generally have poor equipment compared to adults, so their bikes could be heavy and poorly maintained, they may not have specific cycling clothing / shorts, and in my experience those that claim to have water proof jackets really have shower proof jackets that leak and allow the wearer to become very wet and cold very quickly.

What equipment are you expecting the students to provide, and what is the likely cost of this. Parents will want to know what they are committing to before they sign up. You should include the costs of training weekends / rides if any in these costs. Are you expecting the students to provide their own spares or are you providing group spares, eg inner tubes, tyres, brake cables, brake blocks etc. Make sure you have these.

Unless you do some serious training with them, they are likely to only be able to do 50 - 60% of what you are capable of. So if you can cycle the route in 3 days I would allow at least 4 days perhaps even 5 or 6.

a large group is difficult to manage and are easily split up and it is very easy for the leader to lose touch with either the front or the back of the group. Think about splitting the group into 2 or 3 smaller groups each with a defined leader. You can all meet for lunch / snack stops but between each defined stop each leader is responsible for their group. In the mountains we stick to a max group size of 8, this includes the leader. My preferred group formation is Leader, Assistant, and max 6 participants.

Take an assistant. An adult assistant is the best thing you can have along with you, especially when things start to go wrong. In my experience once things have started to go wrong things can snowball very quickly when you are dealing with a group. An assistant is the best thing ever to stop this happening.

Think about what can go wrong, and what strategies you are going to employ when they do go wrong. Make sure everyone knows about these in advance. For example what are you going to do if someone gets lost? What is the lost person going to do? (unless they are told they could ride round getting more lost, call their mum in tears, catch a bus home etc when what you want them to do is stop or cycle back to point A etc)

Identify risky places, such as steep down hills, busy roads, busy junctions and make sure each leader / subleader knows about them and how you are going to handle them. EG At place X there is a steep decent with a sharp bend at the bottom, the group will stop at the top then the leader will descend first the rest of the group will follow in single file keeping 5m apart. the leader goes down at a suitable speed keeping the group under control and avoiding a tour de france style mulitple pileup at the bend.

Ideas for training rides to keep things interesting: treasure hunts, incident rides with what if scenarios eg cycle to point A fix puncture, cycle to point B manage a crash with fake injuries, cycle to point C adjust a set of brakes etc. If you are camping these could include pitch a tent, light a stove. Awarding teams points can make things competitive and build team spirit.

Have a policy on what behaviour is acceptable and what isn't. If you are taking 18 year olds along there is a good chance they will want to go to the pub. the younger ones may smuggle alcohol along. You may even have to deal with drugs.

What about male and female leaders on the trip. What about CRB clearance.

What about insurance for you and your group. Are you protected against litigation. For example if little Johhny is injured in a crash and his parents call layersdirect.scumbags.com will you be able to defend your self and have the means to pay the compensation. It is sad you have to think about this but unfortunately it is today's society. The college / school you are doing this for should be able to provide guidance.

You need to get parental sign off as they are under 18. You will need health forms for all the students detailing known illnesses and allowed drugs etc.

Get trained in first aid

How are you going to get 15+ students, 2 + leaders, 17 + bikes, luggage to the start and back from the finish? Some organisations have rules that the leader taking the activity must not be the mini bus driver. the logic being if you have just spent 7 hours leading an activity then you are in no fit state to drive a bus load of people back. Get a dedicated driver and you can have a sleep. It makes a lot of sense. You may need a dedicated driver anyway to ferry luggage between hostels and to act as a sweeper for any drop outs.


hope this helps. I am sure you will have a good time, leading groups on this kind of challenge is very rewarding for you and the students. hopefully you will inspire a new generation of cyclist who aren't afraid of an adventure, and who are less dependant on the car.

Good luck.

I have just looked on the dfds.co.uk website and it allowed me to book as a foot passenger for August 9th from Harwich to Esbjerg returning 22nd August. I completed the booking form up until the payment section, so perhaps it was just a glitch when it refused the booking by the OP.

Cost for the return journey was £550 for 1 foot passenger so not really cheap.

Could you use a wet sock wrapped round the bottle? I think the theory goes as the water in the sock evaporates it cools its surroundings ie the bottle and its contents. Never tried it my self though but I have heard it works.

some (most ?) campsites have washing facilities with electric shaver points so you could just take your razor.

I use www.netweather.tv they even have Michael Fish presenting a weekly forecast.
They have about 14 days worth of GFS weather charts similar to the unisys site mentioned above so you can do a spot of your own forecasting.