Cycling UK Forum

I assume that members of this forum are a bit more switched on than the Beavis & Butthead wild campers/beer swillers and would put a wood burning stove on a large rock, bare ground use a fireproof mat or a combination of these methods.

These stoves do not work with green wood cut from trees, they need dead dry wood, so there is no reason to damage national parks etc. It is a matter of foraging pieces of thin dead wood.

If you use a small wood burning stove, the size a cycle camper would carry you will find there are no embers as the residue is reduced to a fine ash, and nothing would be smouldering for hours never mind days after use.

Hi, I have just bought a Honey Stove + Expansion Kit from backpackinglight.co.uk for use on this years tour in France. The Honey stove works well, but is smokier and uses more wood than I expected (here, dead twigs off a Hawthorn bush, do not use dead wood off the ground it will be damp). The BBQ expansion worked well and 6 sausages fitted onto it. So now I do not have to buy another bottle of Meths until I run out (we are going to use Bikepacking Bags this year to lose weight so the thought of having to buy another litre of meths in case we run out in the middle of nowhere will be a thing of the past) as the wood stove will be used. I bought the Titanium versions which are very expensive, but so light. Having this also means I can use the Honeystove to hold my Trangia burner so can no lose Trangia Triangle burner holder I have been using. Attached is a photo of an omelette being made on it.

The problem is if you are away for a fortnight and the weather changes at 3am and your 600 miles from home where are you going to sleep and how are you going to protect your belongings when the skies open and a gale blows up? Happened to us on a cliff top in northern Spain last year, put serious bends into poles of our Terra Nova Laser large 3, but we still had a nights sleep and were ready to carry on in the morning.

Sounds like a better solution than my Goalzero setup and at a fraction of the price. The secret as you point out with solar is to have a high capacity battery pack which is trickle charged all day long rather than just when your pedaling.

The yellow plastic mallet above is what I carry and have simply cut some of the handle off to reduce it's size as in it's standard form it is quite large. It has always been enough to put tent pegs in at every site we have stayed at, when handle cut down it takes up little room and the weight is negligible. With ti pegs costing so much I would rather drive them straight in rather than batter them with a rock or a shoe.

A dynamo won't charge your equipment either whilst your cooking your evening meal. All I can say is my own system works in the summer in France, if you spend less than around £150 on a solar system it will probably not have the capacity you are going to require. The problem I had with a dynamo system was that it would not charge my old phone as it did not have sufficient output to get the charge cycle started hence going the solar route. The first go at solar which were small plastic boxes with 4 AA batteries inside and a cell on top were useless needing days to charge just 2000mA of cells. Goalzero supply proper solutions IMHO.

I think people are averse to solar as they have been conned by tiny solar phone chargers. The Goalzero7 panel is probably at least 10 times the output of any panel most people have encountered.

In France I use a Goalzero Nomad 7 solar panel charging a 10,000mA lithium pack ideal. Opened out and attached over rear rack when cycling, then more efficiently angled at the sun when campsite reached. This kept a Garmin + Nexus 7 tablet charged on St. Malo to Narbone trip last year. The Goalzero comes with a battery pack holding 4AA batteries, but this is too small, just get a larger pack from Maplins or off the internet.

Hi Heltor, am away from home at moment, but I use a Bike buddy holder for my 1l trangia fuel Bootle, sure someone will be along soon with the actual bottle dimensions. Cheers John

Try Stanford's, Long Acre, London. They should have a website. If you can visit the shop it is a brilliant travellers resource. John

All down to disposable income really, was only trying to help. John

As you are not sure what the take up of people will be, why not charge simply for the camping + say £20pp (we have attended canoeing events where this happens and a few hundred people turn up and simply pay the campsite who in turn lay on a free marquee & bar paid by from a full campsite & bar takings). Cancel the catering, groups who know each other may want to combine for meal making, otherwise we all have cooking kit so expense 1 removed. Not sure what the 1,000's of pounds are needed for, advertising costs - nil (this forum is your best advertising with also say CGOAB) and talks given by volunteers. Then from a start of the first festival you could work out exactly which direction to go in and where money would make improvements. For myself & wife to attend @ £150 + travel from south of England this would knock £250 out of my touring fund so we are now unlikely to attend and I gauge so far more negative than positive publicity has been generated. Maybe if people could see where the budget is going they could suggest or offer ways to reduce it, for example you might want to spend £300 on printed flyers which as a printer I could point you in the direction of the same thing for £65. There are probably people reading this from every occupation imaginable who could source everything you will need (insurance, A/V equipment etc ) and at much lower costs. Regards John

Put your clothes into the tent bag, it will make a good pillow. Just putting clothes under your head as you have found is useless. Cheers John

If you feel you have to lock you bike up, please do not lock your bike with mine under it! I like to get off the ferry promptly and have in the past had to wait for people who have locked their bike up with mine behind it. Cheers John

Having recently advertised for a Nitto S84 seat post in the Wanted section, then having had to buy a new Nitto S84 seat post to move my saddle back I would like to make a couple of observations for others wishing to do the same, and there must be quite a few as nearly 500 people viewed the thread.

The Nitto S84 gives 5mm less set back than an old Easton EC70 seat post which I modified using a small hand grinder.

The S84 with it's 2 bolt clamp system gives far better infinite adjustment, against the stepped adjustment of a single bolt seat post.

The bolt lengths supplied are correct for a Brooks Flyer in a Dawes Sardar frame, it is not necessary to change to 40mm, with the saddle in it's furthest back position the rails would foul the top of the seat post if much more bolt length was required.

So in my case the seat post has not helped move the saddle any further backwards, but the angle adjustment is welcome, and I will feel more confident with a steel post when cycling the Garonne & Midi Canals over the next few weeks. I was concerned about my modified post not taking the strain!

I would like to thank HUBJUB whom I ordered the seat post from in getting it to me the next day.

John