Bivvy (bivy, bivi) bags come in numerous flavours. You can have something fully waterproof or nearly waterproof. Something with a fully enclosed hood or would a simple drawcord suit better? How about arm holes? Midge netting perhaps? Different material top and bottom maybe? … choices, choices. Once you’ve decided to embrace the ‘way of the […]
Staying warm is easy … staying warm while carrying as little as possible isn’t quite so simple! The Thermartex blanket is a new product that will hopefully help in the endless quest for warmth without weight or bulk. The first thing to remember is that the blanket is designed for sleeping under, one thing it’s […]
Preventing cold hands while riding is actually pretty easy to achieve … but preventing your hands getting cold once you’ve stopped can sometimes prove trickier. You could carry round a pair of woolly gloves knitted by your gran, chances are they’ll keep your hands reasonably warm but they do have limitations. Firstly they’re not windproof, […]
So here we are … 5 weeks, a little head scratching and gallons of tea have gone into turning a 40-something year old Raleigh 20 Shopper into a slightly shinier 40-something year old Raleigh 20 Shopper! The first post about this project was entitled ‘An exercise in pointless’ and I’m sure for many, that may […]
There’s certain bits of kit that you really want to keep dry. Soggy money, damp cameras and moist phones won’t usually serve you very well. The faithful nylon dry bag is 1 solution to keeping your bits dry but for some items, even a tiny 1 litre dry bag’s a lot bigger that you actually […]
Seeing as it seemingly hasn’t stopped raining for the past week I retreated to the workshop for a bit more project ‘Proper Shopper’. There was still a couple of jobs to finish on the frame, the first of which was re-tapping the bottom bracket shell to 24tpi from the standard 26tpi. Trust me when I […]
If you’ve done the WRT before then you can skip this post, you already know what’s involved, what to expect and how strangely satisfying it is to roll into the finish, eat cake, drink tea and tell anyone prepared to listen about your adventures. If you haven’t had the pleasure … then maybe it’s about […]
Those who ride with 3, 4 or more inch front tyres have until now(ish) had very little choice if you wanted some kind of mudguard … Mucky Nutz are hopefully going to change all that. I imagine that most of you reading this will have already heard of / seen / used Mucky Nutz fenders, […]
Adding a pot cosy to your gear is a great way to save fuel, simplify cooking and protect your precious titanium. Designs can be very simple or more complex but none are rocket science, so even the mechanically inept should be able to produce something that functions okay. The first thing to do is source […]
Finding safe drinking water isn’t usually that hard but there are times when the only water you can find is a little ‘suspect’. Taking a gamble in these situations can is a bit like playing Russian Roulette with the contents of your stomach and believe me … when you make a bad call you will […]