Old Skool Cycle Tourist

[Redvee]

My usual morning theing is to have a coffee at one of the big chains in Bristol and as I'm sat outside there's a gent of more mature years than myself with hs bike leant against the wall of the cafe. We get chatting and he's riding round the coast of Britain wild camping as he goes on a £35 charity shop bought bike. So far he's done the East coast, along the bottom and now going up the West coast and Wales and his navigation device is a road atlas. Today's journey was from Bristol and into South Wales and he'd planned on getting into Wales by going up and around the Severn at Gloucester but with sharing of local knowledge he saved himself 50 miles by heading out of Bristol on the A4/A403 and crossing the river using the old Severn Bridge.

[pwa]

I love the idea of being completely "off grid" with regard to the internet, phones, GPS and all that stuff, at least for a couple of weeks. I suppose it is a bit like going naked, something I've not tried but which I imagine would be unsettling at first but then liberating.

[jimlews]

I've used GPO on any number of occasions, but never GPS.

The beauty of a road atlas or O/S maps is that one has a panoramic overview of the territory to be covered and the option of going off at a tangent to explore.

Possibly just my 'old git' propensities, but I dislike the notion of being lead by the nose by some amorphous electronic entity.

Doing without even a map is where real exploration adventures begin...

[tatanab]

Not all people who travel "off grid" are the older generations, like me. I don't need GPS routes to follow or constant phone/internet etc, but I have been humbled a few times by young people I have met when on tour. A chap in his early twenties riding down through France to a destination in Spain - his only map a single sheet showing major cities, he was navigating by compass and said "as long as I am heading south I am happy". On another occasion, near the border between France and Germany, I met group of college age lads going to a music festival in Croatia - no route plan, just a destination and a date to arrive.

[pwa]

There must be a lot of people these days for whom two weeks without any screen to look at would be an adventure in itself. Real "getting away from it" stuff.

[Oldjohnw]

This old g*t plots a route on his online OS map, prints it off and goes away without electronics part from his emergency £7 unseat phone. I also take a compass.

Like others, I prefer a paper map where I can see the surrounding area, get context to where I am and plan diversions. It is so much more than just getting from A to B.

But each to their own.

[Marcus Aurelius]

I always pack an OS map and compass, but they’re just there in case the Garmin and phone decide to crap themselves these days.

[Morzedec]

Bonjour, another 'Old Gent' here (a mere 73).

I now live 95% of the time in France, where I have no car, landline nor mobile, television, washing machine, central heating, nor much else either. What I do have is an acre of fruit trees and veg beds (produce which I swap for wood), plus three bikes and two trailers. My Pavone dates from '74, My Raleigh from '78, and my Holdsworth from '80: by the end of last year one trailer had 50,000km under its single wheel, but if I go out 'wooding' has not enough capacity so I've a new one which rides 'in-line' tandem' behind the first one.

Am I happy? dead right I am, but not as happy as I'll be on Tuesday when I set off back to France again: five and a half days to ride from Roscoff until I reach home (600km), wild camping along the way.

I have a near-neighbour in France (anyone living less than 5km away is a neighbour) who is 88 years young, and he rides out - weather permitting - every day.

Ah, the open road, and at this time of the year - the smell of manure in the fields.

Happy days,

[mercalia]

you seem to have an internet connection though?

[Mike Sales]

I rode from Otley to Chamonix, in France I navigated with the red Michelin sheet which shows the whole of the country. I drew a line from Boulogne to Geneva and followed this, managing to mostly keep to routes departementale.

[Jamesh]

Much prefer maps to phone navigation.
Sense of achievement too when you turn a fold / page or pass through a village / town!
Only if I'm really stuck will I use Google maps.

Cheers James

[Oldjohnw]

I have the entry level Garman E10 which I use when walking in the hills if I need exact location. Otherwise, good old OS maps.

[PaulaT]

I've done plenty of tours in the "old days" (pre-Google and pre-Smartphone) using just basic maps. The only electronics I take out cycling are my basic 7-function cycle computer (battery lasts a year or more) and the bike's lights. I'll use computers for route planning ahead of time but when out riding I'll be using paper maps.

[Bmblbzzz]

I would have sent the OP's old gent up to the Severn Bridge via Tockington and Olveston, but it does depend where you're starting from. Doesn't it always?

As for GPS v maps, both! I love paper maps, as others have said they give a sense of a whole area and show many possibilities. But GPS is convenient because it is in effect a map of a huge area stored without the bulk of the equivalent number of printed maps. Plan route looking at paper map, plot on favourite mapping app, eg RWGPS or cycle.travel, upload route to GPS device and follow the line. No need to follow it slavishly, detour and you can easily return by zooming out. Or abandon completely. Occasionally I'll also print out a route from cycle.travel as a pdf; quite attractive though not as much as an OS map, agreed. I never use turn-by-turn or allow the Garmin to plot its own route. And sometimes I just follow my nose, diverting down whatever lane or track looks interesting.

[irc]

B onjour, another 'Old Gent' here (a mere 73).

I now live 95% of the time in France, where I have no car, landline nor mobile, television, washing machine, central heating, nor much else either. What I do have is an acre of fruit trees and veg beds (produce which I swap for wood), plus three bikes and two trailers. My Pavone dates from '74, My Raleigh from '78, and my Holdsworth from '80: by the end of last year one trailer had 50,000km under its single wheel, but if I go out 'wooding' has not enough capacity so I've a new one which rides 'in-line' tandem' behind the first one.

Am I happy? dead right I am, but not as happy as I'll be on Tuesday when I set off back to France again: five and a half days to ride from Roscoff until I reach home (600km), wild camping along the way.

I have a near-neighbour in France (anyone living less than 5km away is a neighbour) who is 88 years young, and he rides out - weather permitting - every day.

Ah, the open road, and at this time of the year - the smell of manure in the fields.

Happy days,

Leo??
Glad to see you're still on the road. Recognised you very Happy Days sign off.
Regards
Iain c