First full day on the Old Chalk Way. A nice bivy near Evershot then a lot of up and down to get to Carne Abbas where I took possibly the worst photo ever of the giant 😀 Then lots more up and down to Blandford Forum before about 20km of easy flat riding before the climb up to Shaftesbury culminating ...

I took two different pairs of gloves on the HT to allow for the pressure points to be in different places. No idea of makes or models

Yeah, on my tod- Cath’s looking after the pooch

Train down to kings X then tube to Westminster then rode to Waterloo and train down to Axminster.

Done about 45km of the route. Decided to commit to a hammock bivy trip! Currently in a wood near Evershot (wherever that is)

Cheery one here, preparing for a nice weekend away in Dorset, and i've engineered it so i'm doing some train-assisted bike riding. So i've got a nice 30 mile ride from Salisbury to Blandford on saturday, off road. Then riding to the Purbecks, and home on the train from Wareham. Weather looks great ...

. If the local water gets low, are the food stops very few and far between? With water levels being low, I'd not trust any 'local water' without a full filter set up—they're a bit manky. You should be ok if you top up everywhere you can water-wise though, and depending on time of day you're never m...

I’m always surprised they don’t do more park and rides to tourist traps They do in the Llanberis Pass, Pen y Pass area. All the old roadside parking spaces that we used to use when climbing have been blocked and you have to park farther down the valley. Way back in the 1970s there were discussions ...

Malham (+ cove and Goredale Scar) in the Dales is a similar honeypot - absolutely rammed on weekends but half a mile away there's hardly anyone. The national park/farmers do open the overflow car park fields that in previous years only got used for the annual show so the parking isn't so bad but the...

Just watched this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHNC0_sRvfw - some interesting points/suggestions but no "I've got the answers, why won't they listen to me?"

I’d forgotten just how horrible the climb to Hayeswater is since they dumped scalpings a couple of years back. That track climb caught me out as well. I was getting psyched for the big push up to The Knott and ended up pushing much of that track - the lower bit anyway. The climb up from Hayeswater ...

I took a gas stove rather than a meths one on the Lakes Loop for this very reason. Even then I sat it away from vegetation - there happened to be a pile of milled timber so had somewhere stable to sit it. I did have the option of the gravel track as well.

While sitting in the garden earlier there were a couple of pairs of Lapwings going through their courtship flights. I think they are the first ones I've seen around here - they used to be really common on the farm.

Bearlegged wrote: ↑Fri May 02, 2025 2:58 pm

loosly assembled

Is having the bolts done up a separate raffle prize?

Nah! It's built-in type 3 fun

The only advice I've heard from those that have done it is... don't! Basically once you are out of the valley floor it's pretty much all hike-a-bike. I don't think I've seen it in any of the MTB loops and given that many of the central Lakes BWs that do feature in those rides are pretty techy it say...

No, not the Alan Goldsmith creation but the route from bikepacking.com - https://bikepacking.com/routes/lakes-loop-overnighter/ . With a short day of work at my brother's I thought I'd take advantage of the long spell of dry weather as everything *should* be dry, but then this is The Lakes. So with ...

Heard the first cuckoo of the year at my brothers yesterday

This is great info, thanks everyone. How bad are the rocks? I've got Ikon 2.35 XC tyres and just wondering if something a bit chunkier might be better/more durable as rolling speed probably isn't so much of an issue. The rocky descents are mostly rubble rather than sharp edged. As I mentioned earli...

I took a couple of minutes over 38hrs on a very windy weekend. Bivvied for about seven hours but I’d need to check on the exact duration. <edit> Looked up my Strava activity - https://www.strava.com/activities/7031478842 , looks like about 9hrs total stopped time out of the 38hrs</edit> I had a coup...

I'd see what species you have flying around locally and then see what is required for those. Chances are you'd be making boxes for tits and finches. Swifts have somewhat specific requirements, I'm sure I've seen someone who makes swift boxes as a hobby/passion. Swallows want a shelf in a shed or sim...

I started/finished at Coniston. The hardest section is Eskdale - Wasdale - Ennerdale - Honister so you get a bit of a warm up (including the 25% climb out of Coniston) before hitting that. There's off-road parking at weekends and bank holidays at the rear of John Ruskin school (on Lake Road) that is...

Ultimately it's money, i.e. investment capital, that rules the roost: "It is more economically efficient and less carbon intensive to build gas units or renewable energy such as wind and solar than it is to build a coal plant.” More coal mines shut and miners lost their jobs during Trump's firs...

Sad to see that Phil, just goes to show that isolated populations are particularly susceptible to events and disturbances. I’ve only ever seen two adders despite the crag/allotment that I get my username from being well known for them. In a similar morbid sighting we saw a beached Sperm Whale this m...

Going with the “suggest what you have rather than what has been requested “ I’ve got Gorilla Cage mounts on the forks. The bags are 5.5L capacity each. No straps to rub which is a big plus on carbon frames

Ooooh! Hope you get it sorted John.

A couple of years ago I was chatting to a couple of surveyors from (I think) either Scottish Water or the Scottish Environment Agency who were assessing the hydrology of the area but I’d assumed that it was for the burn coming from the Corrour direction. There’s likely to be a works access track abo...

fatbikephil wrote: ↑Thu Apr 17, 2025 9:03 pm Cheery Thursday as off tomorrow, not because it's Good Friday but because I'm going to Arran to count Adders

We'll have to wave at you across the water - we are on Bute for the weekend