Cycling UK Forum

Andy, my wife and I use a Spacepacker 1 (without the Plus) but I'm familiar with the Plus (my pa has one) and agree with you about it: cracking tent but not greatest for tall folk.

The Kaitum 3 we've just bought is to give us a bit more luxury, but it does weigh more.

A self supporting tent can make a useful difference, but not actually that often. I've got the Spacepacker pitched on Scandinavian paddling trips on what amounted to sheets of rock with only a passing acquaintance with soil, and while they did convince me a freestanding design is nice for paddling trips, outside of that I've never actually had any real bother getting the single hoop pitched. Freestanding does mean more weight, all else being equal.

Pete.

Planning isn't complicated, you just need a rough idea of where you're going and to have at least as much mapping as you need to get to a local map seller if you change your mind.

I would start on something smaller, say a long weekend down into Surrey and/or Sussex. You can stay at YHA hostels or get started with camping and just see how you take to cycling for a few days with a load and with nobody else along. Also lets you get happy with panniers etc., then after a shakedown cruise like that you can start looking at Scotland.

Pete.

Stella, I'd suggest you do it yourself. Don't worry about stamina, just take your time and choose a route with bail-out options along the way. There's no need to hurry on a tour unless you need to hook up with public transport so if you only go 20 miles in a day, so what? And if you're not with a group you're not forced to go at someone else's pace (or feel bad about slowing down other folks to yours).

The first big tour I did with my wife (details at http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/tourdunord.htm had very little planning beyond a start point and initial direction. We just meandered up NCN1 from Aberdeen with the odd loop out here and there, decided to keep on 1 after Inverness, stopped when we were getting tired, and had a great time. Want a day off? Take a day off? Feeling fit and want to carry on past the plan? Nothing stopping you.

There are advantages to organised tours, but many of them (hire of bikes, organisation of food and lodging and interconnecting transport where you don't speak the language) don't really apply in the UK.

Our East coast route in the tour mentioned was largely midge-free, and there's no shortage of bonny scenery.

HTH, Pete.

pete75 wrote:

Gunner wrote:Dobo

Just looked and they have Terra Nova Quasar reduced down to 250 quid. It's about the best 2 man tent available.......

For some values of "best"...

It's certainly tough, but being designed for exposed mountain tops in full winter conditions you're over-buying strength you're very, very unlikely to need for cycle touring and that adds to the weight and bulk.

It pitches inner first, which I've never really liked that much. It's not actually the problem putting it up in rain, but the way you can only have the tent pitched with the inner in place. Say it's chucking it down and you need to do some work on the bike... in a Hilleberg you'd take down part of the inner and give yourself a large garage to work in with no worries about oil and grease and water getting inside the inner, but in a Quasar you either get wet doing it outside or have remarkable difficulty keeping the inner clean and dry.

The porches on a Quasar are a bit on the small side, if we're kind to them. There's not really enough room to safely cook under cover without retreating in to the inner, again with all the contamination and spill issues that arise.

Terra Nova coat the inside of the fly with PU rather than silicon elastomer so they can tape the seams. While taped seams sound good, both the taping and the PU coating actually weaken the fabric by heat aging, and since a waterproof seam with tape is perfectly possible (as TN themselves manage on the Superlite version of the same tent!) it strikes me as a very questionable decision.

The Quasar is a popular tent and it is a good one, but even on its home ground of winter mountain summits I wouldn't say it's the best, and for cycle touring you can really do considerably better in many ways.

Pete.

Last time I had a nasty prang was just before I'd given up on helmets so I was wearing one. And I did hit my head... but taking it on the chin, the helmet did me no good whatsoever...

Not long after that I abandoned them, after almost a decade spent wearing one on every trip. No regrets. But I felt really exposed at first, really in danger. Time has come to show me that was just psychological. I didn't used to be sacred before I had one, and once I got used to it again I wasn't scared any more. It demonstrated to me that my primary safety was about how I rode, not what I wore. The literature tells me that if it goes wrong I'm not actually worse off, and I've read quite a lot of it in considerable detail.

Pete.

Bananaman wrote:Its not death by bike acident that scares me, but brain damage by bike accident:

http://www.helmets.org/stats.htm

"the very eminent QC under whose instruction I was privileged to work, tried repeatedly to persuade the equally eminent neurosurgeons acting for either side, and the technical expert, to state that one must be safer wearing a helmet than without. All three refused to so do, stating that they had seen severe brain damage and fatal injury both with and without cycle helmets being worn. In their view, the performance of cycle helmets is much too complex a subject for such a sweeping claim to be made"

That from Brian Walker, the chap who runs Head Protection Evaluations which is the company that tests cycle helmets in the UK.

There remains no good evidence that cycle helmets reduce serious head injuries. Brain injuries are serious head injuries.

It is further the case that plenty of folk get brain injuries from trips and falls, so why not wear a bike helmet when on foot? Being a pedestrian is just as productive of serious head injuries, mile for mile on UK streets, as being a cyclist.

Pete.

Bananaman wrote:
Just because a helmety might help in other situations does not negate ita efficacy when in a bike accident.

But why do you feel there is need for them to be used in case of an accident on a bike, but not elsewhere, when the accidents elsewhere are at [i]least[/ii] as likely (a) to happen and (b) to cause a serious head injury? It's just a simple case of a double standard: if you want to wear one for your own reasons then fine, but unless you're saying folk should wear them for anything else similarly risky you're coming up with different answers to similar risks on no other basis than if you happen to be on a bike, which is ridiculous.

As for cleaiming that a typical accident will involve collisions where a helmet cant possibly help, people make the same argument about wearing safety helmets around heavy lifting equipment or on building sites- 'well if that object which weighs a couple of tonnes and needs heavy lifting equipment falls on me, the helmet isnt going to help.'

The reason why you wear safety helmets in these environments is because people have a habit of leaving loose objects like screwdrivers/bricks sitting in places where they might fall. Its those types of events you are mitigating.

Exactly: in other words building sites are high risk environments for quite a few different sorts of accidents, major and minor. So all you need to do is prove that people are falling off bikes and whacking their heads more than in what are seen as low risk environments not warranting a helmet (say, around the home and on the streets as pedestrians) and you'll have a good case. But you can't really do that...

Why not promote helmets for use on stairs? They get more people killed every year in the UK than bikes, so why not? This is a serious question. If you can make a case for it being worth it on a bike, why can't you make the same case for using stairs?

Pete.

With a similar spec, except a bigger budget, my wife and I now have a Hilleberg Kaitum 3 for cycle touring. It will get its first acid test next month around/across the outer Hebrides, though it's been used already for car and kayak camping with impressive results.
The Kaitum 2 should be perfectly adequate for 2 with genuinely enough space for 2 folk and their kit, but we thought we'd go for serious space plus we intend adopting next year and want room for 3, and the k3 is light enough for 2 to carry at 3 Kg.

Looking at the thread bikepacker referenced, the chap who moaned that you could get lighter and stronger tents than Hillebergs had perhaps missed the point that tent designs are compromises and the trick is to find a design with the compromises in the right places. For what it's worth, i think Hilleberg have an excellent combination of light weight, living space, strength and ease of use and practicality. The only thing really against Hillebergs is the price, which is pretty frightening, but I don't think it's unreasonable: pay more, get more, but it is the case that you've got to the steep part of the curve of law of diminishing returns.
Personally I like two doors/porches so the Nammatj and Nallo, while very popular, don't appeal to me. The Allak would probably make a very good spacious 2 person tourer if like me you want a door/porch each but also prefer a free-standing design.

The Vango tunnel that folk have mentioned looks very good too. I wouldn't trust it to be quite as good/nice as the equivalent Hilleberg, and there aren't as many range options as HB give, but I think it would do what you need fine for considerably less money...

http://www.hilleberg.se/default-e.HTM is the Hilleberg web site, http://www.alpenstock.co.uk/tents.php probably have the best range and prices of Hillebergs in the UK, and my customer experience with them has been entirely positive.

Pete.

byegad wrote:I like my SPD sandals.

But which ones are they? The SD-60 has been "improved" to the SD-65, and it looks to me like they're taken a really good thing and buggered it up completely. They now practically enclose the whole top of the foot which pretty much destroys the point of using them in the first place, giving inferior ventilation and more chance of chafing than the old model.
As soon as I saw the new ones I hunted down a pair of the old ones in my size when i've eventually worn the current ones out.

Pete.

Bananaman wrote:

Some times common sense is a much better guide than stats. Helmets are designed to absorb 12 mph of impact. Thats a significant cushion that anybody involved in an head impact is going to appreciate.

We do not need 'proper statistical analysis' to reason. There are many other, more reliable ways of doing it.

Fine. Just show me the casualty savings...

The point of helmets is to make life safer, i.e., reduce casualties. So before you go about telling people they should wear helmets (never mind "must"...) you should be able to demonstrate useful casualty savings. I have yet to see that beyond speculative anecdotes, and that's really not good enough.

Beyond that, the "significant cushion anybody involved in an head impact is going to appreciate" applies just as much to other things where people bump their heads. Like trips and falls. Last couple of times I've banged my head resulting in pain I could have done without has been around the house, but despite a selection of helmets available I don't wear one around the house. That rather suggests that "common sense" appears to have different answers to the same question, depending on whether or not a bike is involved. On the other hand, "common sense" also says that that must be wrong...

Pete.

I use the same shoes/sandals on the MTB, 8 Freight and the 'bent tourer. Can't say I've ever found I want anything different for the different bikes. I've set cleat position on different bikes when I've had new shoes, but never noticed incongruities moving to the others.

not saying it can't be an issue, but as with cleat position generally fiddling and fettling will give you the personal, empirical answers better than some formula or what someone else does (ditto saddle height/boom length/seat angle, etc. etc.).

Pete.

the best reason, bar none, I've come across for wearing one is "because I want to". There's nothing to argue with, no rationalisation being done, no problems, no expectations.

Now, if I can just get people at large in the general population to stop judging me as an irresponsible idiot with the blood of children on my hands because I've abandoned my helmet in favour of a trad cycling cap, we'd really be making some progress...

Pete.

patricktaylor wrote:

aesmith wrote:I think these studies are cited to show that helmet legislation, rather than the helmets themselves, is counter productive.

Thanks for the clarification. I see what you mean.

Okay, now go and look at Hewson's 2005 work which looks at the UK where there has been no legislation. That work (2 papers) shows that the effect of increasing helmet
wearing through voluntary choice appears to have had no effect on serious head injuries on the roads for cyclists. So you can't write that off as being about legislation.

That's perhaps because many people, through evolution and natural selection, possess the survival gene that says "body, if any of your parts become exposed to the risk of impact, cover them with something."

Yet nobody much outside of sporting circles seemed to think it needed doing before the cycle helmet came along as a solution to a non-problem. Look back 30 years, when the roads were actually more dangerous to cycle on, and there was no great outcry about the terrible swathe of head injuries cutting down cyclists, and no great exodus from cycling on the basis that you couldn't get a decent helmet. Look in NL today and outside of sporting circles pretty much nobody bothers though the risk of an impact is still there. Do you feel that perhaps the Dutch are evolutionary dead ends? Or perhaps you overstate the natural need/want for helmets (as opposed to the perceived need/want in a society where they are pushed as "essential" and cycling is made out (wrongly) to be incredibly dangerous)?

Fascinating, and perhaps it does, but that could mean that the cyclist doing the measurements became emboldened when wearing one and rode further out in the road. It could mean a lot of things, none of which relate to real safety.

Look harder at the work and I think you'll find that sort of thing was accounted for (riding further out was one of the things independently assessed, and thus controlled, IIRC). You can't just make assumptions about what's going on, you have to look harder at it and find out.

Equally, a study that shows no reduction in the rate of head injuries to cyclists in populations where they are made compulsory doesn't prove that helmets don't reduce head injuries in cycling accidents.

inna "Jerry Maguire" stylee...

Show me the casualty savings!

These things have been under scrutiny for over 20 years. Despite that nobody has come up with convincing evidence that they actually do anything to prevent serious (note the quite specific use of "serious" as a qualifier) head injuries. If you know otherwise then please cite, as I'd like to look into it for the possible interest of my health.

I don't want people to abandon them if they prefer to wear them, I just want people to make an informed choice but in the UK the basis of the information is currently misinformation, and that needs to change. Maybe go and ride around Amsterdam for a day, where you'll have plenty of chances at impacts and collisions (probably more than you usually have) and you'll feel very much the odd one out if you choose to wear a helmet. But I think you'll still survive okay if you take it off.

Pete.

patricktaylor wrote:I've enjoyed it too. There are so many threads on the subject it's hard to know in which one to comment. Until I joined these forums I was unaware that the helmet debate even existed.

That's part of the problem. They are widely assumed to be a Good Thing, but when you look at why it's because people say they are or assume they are rather than having real evidence of casualty savings. So the basis on which most people think they are good is hollow. But despite that people are very quick to defend it and anyone pointing out the emperor is perhaps a little threadbare is hounded as irresponsible and idiotic. That prevents most debate and turns things into a slanging match.

I fall into the camp that simply feels safer wearing a helmet, so I wear one (and after all the reading I've adjusted the straps to make it less loose). I am also very skeptical of 'studies', especially statistical ones and ones that are performed in laboratories, that purport to prove something one way or the other. One only has to look at the food/diet industry to see that one study is often contradicted by another.

I used to fall into that camp too, but again the reasoning turned out to be hollow. I was doing something lots of people in the UK think ((apparently wrongly) is very dangerous, and I was doing it using something lots of people in the UK assume (apparently wrongly) makes it much safer. So it's hardly surprising I thought wearing it was a good idea and I was happier with it on than without.
Having read the research in considerable depth and detail I tried cycling without, and initially felt very vulnerable. That's natural, but given the risks are not really that great it isn't actually rational!. Man is usually a rationalising animal, not a rational one, and it's usual to rationalise things to fit ones existing preconceptions. Most folks' preconceptions are that helmets are surely a good thing, certainly used to be mine.

The existing research falls into two broad camps. The case control studies I think you are right to be very skeptical of because the scientific methodology is poor and, more to the point, they do not give reproducible results. Good science is reproducible. The other camp is largely reporting what has happened in the Real World after interventions with helmets, and the answer is... nothing much. There's much less to be suspicious of as it's saying what has happened in the real world, and it shows a consistent result of "nothing much".

Besides, large scale research is, I think, a different matter to research of individual accidents. What supposedly happens within a 'population' is interesting to hear about but often misleading at the individual level. When making the decision as to whether to wear a helmet or not, I take account of my personal circumstances and feelings, not large scale research.

A fair point, and notably one that is made specifically as a problem by people doing the studies (Hewson's 2005 work particularly open in that respect). But unless you really know how you stand as an individual in relation to the practically infinite number of variables affecting safety on the roads (and I suspect none of us really do) then you're probably better off playing the overall odds than making too many assumptions about what sort of accident you're likely to have (if any). If you have one it won't be down to your choice of accident! Until you can clearly identify yourself with a group who have been clearly shown to benefit from helmet use I wouldn't make too many assumptions about how they'll work for you. Especially as it's very difficult to do it objectively without resorting to rationalising things to fit your gut feeling, which whether you like it or not is probably working on a lot of historical misinformation.

Pete.

andwags wrote:By whom has it been shown that it's counter productive.

There is a lot more scientific research suggesting that helmets help than the pseudo science that claims they'll snap your neck or make cars pass you too closely, etc...

Forcing on them on people is counter-productive. How do we know: quite a few folk (study the references available for names, Dorothy Robinson is a good place to start) have studied before and after in places it's been tried, and there has been no improvement in serious head injury rates but there has been a decline in cycling. Since cycling is a health benefit, lower levels of cycling are counter productive.

You should read the "science" showing helmets help (as in the original papers, not just summaries). I have: I'm an NHS Clinical Scientist with a medical research library a few minutes from my desk. Having read they didn't help I thought "what rubbish, I shall go and read first hand the proof that they do", so off I went... and the more I read the more I found it was the studies promising benefits that are the pseudo science. It's simple to show that, because if they really prevented the head injuries they promise there would be a huge downward drop in the rates of serious head injury after mandating helmets practically doubled wearing rates overnight in Oz and NZ, but no such benefit is seen. Another point is that while the studies promising benefits all suggest great improvements, they fail to be in any semblance of agreement about the degree, showing the work is not reproducible and thus is very unlikely to be any good. Decent science is reproducible. All the population level studies show pretty much the same thing. Speaking as a scientist who's read the research I don't think that's coincidence.

What folk like the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation will tell you is not that they are sure why helmets appear to do nothing much for serious head injuries: there is much speculation, and it is indeed only speculation. But the actual effect of no real help, plus decline in cyclists numbers after a law, is what has actually happened everywhere it has been tried and enforced, so we know it happens because that has what has actually happened.

Pete.