Bivvy a Month 2021

[JimmyG]

Right, that’s November’s BAM ticked off early. On Wednesday afternoon I started off in the village of Dirleton in East Lothian and followed the John Muir Way to North Berwick. From there a mixture of tarmac and dirt trails took me to my destination of Tyninghame Woods where I arrived about 40 minutes before darkness fell.

John Muir Way at Yellowcraigs by Jimmy G, on Flickr

The weather was quite pleasant, mostly sunny but chilly when the sun decided to hide behind the clouds. The brisk tailwind that gave me a welcome push towards my destination was nice, though.

Seacliff Harbour with Bass Rock behind by Jimmy G, on Flickr

Untitled by Jimmy G, on Flickr

This trip was marked by a couple of firsts – an inaugural outing for the Aricxi shaped tarp, purchased from Joe’s Shop months ago but never used in anger until now. The verdict? A good piece of kit. Packs down small, easy to set up and gives good coverage.

Untitled by Jimmy G, on Flickr

Untitled by Jimmy G, on Flickr

The second first (eh?) concerns my recently purchased Montane down trousers. Another thumbs up here and, combined with my down jacket and Exped down boots, I was warm as toast despite the temperature dropping markedly after sunset.

Throat Punch! by Jimmy G, on Flickr

Never being one to rush to pack up and hit the trail on a BAM, I had a leisurely breakfast followed by a mooch around the woods and nearby shoreline on foot. Once I’d had enough I headed back to the mother ship via a different route, using hedges and woodland to dodge the headwind where possible.

Tyninghame Beach by Jimmy G, on Flickr

Untitled by Jimmy G, on Flickr

That’s 11 down, one to go. Hopefully No 12 will be at the Scottish Winter Bivvy meet but I may be able to fit it in sooner.

[ledburner]

Right, that’s November’s BAM ticked off early. On Wednesday afternoon I started off in the village of Dirleton in East Lothian and followed the John Muir Way to North Berwick. From there a mixture of tarmac and dirt trails took me to my destination of Tyninghame Woods where I arrived about 40 minutes before darkness fell.

John Muir Way at Yellowcraigs by Jimmy G, on Flickr

The weather was quite pleasant, mostly sunny but chilly when the sun decided to hide behind the clouds. The brisk tailwind that gave me a welcome push towards my destination was nice, though.

Seacliff Harbour with Bass Rock behind by Jimmy G, on Flickr

Untitled by Jimmy G, on Flickr

This trip was marked by a couple of firsts – an inaugural outing for the Aricxi shaped tarp, purchased from Joe’s Shop months ago but never used in anger until now. The verdict? A good piece of kit. Packs down small, easy to set up and gives good coverage.

Untitled by Jimmy G, on Flickr

Untitled by Jimmy G, on Flickr

The second first (eh?) concerns my recently purchased Montane down trousers. Another thumbs up here and, combined with my down jacket and Exped down boots, I was warm as toast despite the temperature dropping markedly after sunset.

Throat Punch! by Jimmy G, on Flickr

Never being one to rush to pack up and hit the trail on a BAM, I had a leisurely breakfast followed by a mooch around the woods and nearby shoreline on foot. Once I’d had enough I headed back to the mother ship via a different route, using hedges and woodland to dodge the headwind where possible.

Tyninghame Beach by Jimmy G, on Flickr

Untitled by Jimmy G, on Flickr

That’s 11 down, one to go. Hopefully No 12 will be at the Scottish Winter Bivvy meet but I may be able to fit it in sooner.

[Charliecres]

Ethical question. I had a 15-minute nap on the BB200 last weekend (and multiple micro-naps while riding!). Have I completed my November BAM? Discuss …

[frogatthefarriers]

Ethical question. I had a 15-minute nap on the BB200 last weekend (and multiple micro-naps while riding!). Have I completed my November BAM? Discuss …

Question: Why would you want it to? It robs you of a chance for a “proper” November BaM.

[fatbikephil]

I'd count it as a provisional but try and do a proper one at some point with tarps, beer, and slugs.
Reg??!!

[RIP]

Had to help a mate with a bit of business in Mansfield. We thought we'd take the bikes for a bit of fun afterwards. Mate was going to kip in a hotel so I thought I'd take my gear and see what happened. Not going to get many BaM opportunities between now and Crimbo so got grab them when I can.

We decided to nose around all the "colliery trails" - old railways to the many collieries in the area - which form a large network. There's the "Five Pits", the "Teversal", the "Brierley" and several others, all linked up in a complex web of routes. We'd only just set off when a bloke rolls up on a Hope bike, very very flash indeed. I jested that he might be slightly overbiked, and instead of justifiably telling me to fark off, he did just the opposite and offered to take us round a "highlights" route of the trails.

This ended up being a 30-miler from Mansfield to Shirebrook, Teversal, Westhouses, Skegby, Pleasley and back to Mansfield. At one point we ended up at the old Silverhill Colliery at Teversal (DH Lawrence basing Lady Chatterley's place on that name) and I remembered that my great-grandfather (Nathan Vann, what a great name) managed the pit in the early 1900s, so that was a bit of an emotional moment. Obviously I was aware some of my family came from the area, but it all flooded back. My grandfather used to catch the train at Langley Mill, change at Westhouses, and get off at Teversal to go and chat up my grandmother who lived in Stanton Hill.

Somewhere near Shirebrook and Robin Hood's stamping ground:



Sp0rtsD1rect's gigantic HQ at Shirebrook:



One of the many trails we followed:



A commemorative sculpture on top of Silverhill Colliery's old spoil tip. I'm going to imagine the model was my great-grandfather and nobody can tell me he wasn't (apart from the fact the sculpture figure is wearing 1980's miner's gear ). This is in fact the highest point in Nottinghamshire.



Pleasley colliery:



So we come to the end of our guided tour and say thank you and goodbye to our new friend, who by now knows us so well he offers us beds at his place! My pal jumps at the chance but of course it presents me with a bit of a dilemma. Anyway, the upshot is I ask to kip in his garden (next to the hot tub ) but he won't hear of it and suggests his workshop. I decide that this is still Within The Rules since it's not my workshop and I'm not paying anything. I bed down next to his ridiculous Hope machine, on yer man's campbed - there's nothing about "self-supported" in the BaM rules. In fact I was literally "supported" by the camp bed so there we go. To keep it all legal I insisted on cooking my porridge in his workshop next morning while everyone else was having a slap-up breakfast in his kitchen .

11/11, 11/12, 70/70

[RIP]

I'd count it as a provisional but try and do a proper one at some point with tarps, beer, and slugs.
Reg??!!

Yeah, I dunno whether naps count . I mean where do we draw the line? I spend half my time daydreaming, which is pretty much half asleep really isn't it so I'm probably "bivvying" every day from that point of view. We've obviously done all the discussions about start times and end times, and "end of the month" rollovers, and so on, but not sure we've clarified the length have we?

This is going to need quite an extended bit of research I think (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep etc etc), but for now the recommended eight hours might be a starting point for argument/discussion? ("Researchers have found that sleeping 6–7 hours each night correlates with longevity and cardiac health in humans"...)

[RIP]

"Early in 2015, after a two-year study, the National Sleep Foundation in the US announced newly-revised recommendations as shown in the table below. Hours of sleep required for each age group:

Age and condition Sleep needs
Newborns (0–3 months) 14 to 17 hours
Infants (4–11 months) 12 to 15 hours
Toddlers (1–2 years) 11 to 14 hours
Preschoolers (3–4 years) 10 to 13 hours
School-age children (5–12 years) 9 to 11 hours
Teenagers (13–17 years) 8 to 10 hours
Adults (18–64 years) 7 to 9 hours
Older Adults (65 years and over) 7 to 8 hours"

[Charliecres]

Ethical question. I had a 15-minute nap on the BB200 last weekend (and multiple micro-naps while riding!). Have I completed my November BAM? Discuss …

Question: Why would you want it to? It robs you of a chance for a “proper” November BaM.

Ah, not planning to do so but it made me wonder where people draw the line. Or if it’s even possible to draw the line meaningfully.

[Charliecres]

Adults (18–64 years) 7 to 9 hours

By that criterion I reckon I’ve managed about three bivies in my whole life.

[ledburner]

"Early in 2015, after a two-year study, the National Sleep Foundation in the US announced newly-revised recommendations as shown in the table below. Hours of sleep required for each age group:

Age and condition Sleep needs
Newborns (0–3 months) 14 to 17 hours
Infants (4–11 months) 12 to 15 hours
Toddlers (1–2 years) 11 to 14 hours
Preschoolers (3–4 years) 10 to 13 hours
School-age children (5–12 years) 9 to 11 hours
Teenagers (13–17 years) 8 to 10 hours
Adults (18–64 years) 7 to 9 hours
Older Adults (65 years and over) 7 to 8 hours"

No one has told my daughter that,! So by their reckoning, she hasn't had a proper night's sleep in her life .

[Blackhound]

Reg - I live about 20 miles from those trails at Teversal and 25 miles from Northern point of the Five Pits trail. I don't use them loads as getting there is not much fun on a mtb type bike but always fun when I do. I nice base for longer ~100 mile rides via Sherwood Pines. Always finding new little sections.

[RIP]

Aye I remember conversing about our fellow Derby Ram status . 30 years ago I went by train to Chesterfield and covered the Five Pits round Grassmoor, Tibbie, etc. Admittedly not very taxing but stacks of things to look at and explore .

[fatbikephil]

"Early in 2015, after a two-year study, the National Sleep Foundation in the US announced newly-revised recommendations as shown in the table below. Hours of sleep required for each age group:

Age and condition Sleep needs
Newborns (0–3 months) 14 to 17 hours
Infants (4–11 months) 12 to 15 hours
Toddlers (1–2 years) 11 to 14 hours
Preschoolers (3–4 years) 10 to 13 hours
School-age children (5–12 years) 9 to 11 hours
Teenagers (13–17 years) 8 to 10 hours
Adults (18–64 years) 7 to 9 hours
Older Adults (65 years and over) 7 to 8 hours"

Maybe specifying sleep duration isn't a good idea, especially if you think about the number of times you've been in your bivvy but hardly slept. Like Charlie by the above guidance I would have to discount most of my bivvies. Maybe we need a UCI ruling?

Or we need to specify criteria based on the very essence of bivvying and the question we all have to ask ourselves is "did I actually 'bivvy,' or did I just fall off my bike into a ditch and lie comatose for an hour"

Has anyone noticed that Stu never gets involved in these discussions?

[Bearlegged]

Like all sensible people, he's not returning to a firework once it's been lit.

[Charliecres]

I think an honestly answered, self-administered ‘did I bivy?’ test is the closest we’re likely to get to a definitive answer.

Taking the three BB200s where I’ve stopped to rest my eyes, in 2014 I lay asleep in a bivy bag for 3-4 hours and awoke feeling like a new day was dawning. That, to me, is definitely a bivy. In 2019 (I think) I put my down jacket on and leant against a gate. I didn’t set an alarm but I reckon I slept for a couple of hours before setting off again in the early hours before dawn. Not really a bivy but close. This year, a 15-minute nap with an alarm to get me going again. Not a bivy in my book.

[RIP]

Has anyone noticed that Stu never gets involved in these discussions?

Yep, ages ago . As 'Legged says, Stu steers well clear of the threads like this, all populated by nutcases .

In an amazingly rare early termination of a discussion/rambling-load-of-old-bollocks I reckon Charlie's summed it up nicely. The Self Police, as ever.

[Charliecres]

Damn!

[Verena]

My November bivvy was a tale of two halves; yesterday being more of the "character building" type, and today being really quite blissful.

I've seen the recent thread about "bikepacking when ill" - have we ever done one on "bikepacking when there is 'stuff' going on at home"? Maybe we should... Anyway, I had a bit of "stuff" going on at the weekend (all thankfully on the mend now), but had yesterday afternoon and this morning already booked off work and was looking forward to a decent bike ride and bivvy, so I thought it would probably be just the job...but I wasn't feeling at my best, physically or mentally.
It was nearly 3 by the time I left home. By the time I was heading up into the hills from Crickhowell it was getting dark.
IMG_20211108_162150 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr
By the time I reached the turnoff proper into the Grwyne Fawr valley, it was about five, and dark.
IMG_20211108_171458 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr
The darkness was messing with my mind, and by six, I felt like I had spent many hours riding around a foreign planet, and I had been battered by every conceivable unpleasant emotion and thought going. I stopped, walked for a bit, and gave myself a good talking to. I did some maths, and in the end made a deal with myself to keep going till sevenish, which would hopefully take me to, or near, the reservoir, and would leave me the option of wimping out of the "up and over" route that had been the plan in the morning, and instead going back the way I came, and still be back for lunchtime to go to work.
I left the tarmac for the higher level bridleway, which felt endless.... seven approached, and there was absolutely no sign of the reservoir, or any even remotely flat ground to sleep on, except the track itself, which I decided was out of the question. After several rounds of "just five more minutes", I came to a lumpy slopey kind of verge next to the track, and decided that would simply have to do. Trying to pitch my pyramid tent onto that was a bit of a disaster , almost too ashamed to show you a picture, but go on then, have a laugh on me
IMG_20211109_051558 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr. It was nice having that space inside to sit for a bit and have some food, before assuming the first of many utterly ridiculous positions to try and nod off in for a bit. At half past nine I got out for the first of several times, to locate and replace a couple of pegs . Turns out I wasn't completely alone: I saw a light not too far away, which in the morning turned out to be a couple of wild campers up on the far side of the dam.
After a loooong night, morning light revealed the absolute classic scenario: IMG_20211109_065809 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr The dam was no more than ten minutes walk away, and about one minute further, there were several passably flat places where my tent could have fitted Or this for a beauty of a bivvy spot (next time....)
IMG_20211109_070815 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr
IMG_20211109_071308 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr
I didn't regret my decision to ride back down the valley, because the autumn colours were beautiful, and the flowing 8 mileish long descent was not just lovely, but explained why I had found it a bit of a slog the night before
IMG_20211109_073908 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr
I made the effort to go up what I thought was the steep hill to Patrishow, thinking I might have coffee there, but somehow I must have taken the wrong turn or missed it, which was a bit of a disappointment, but that didn't last long as I stopped in Crickhowell instead at Bookish cafe, which has the bestest, hugest, caramel slices anywhere I know.
IMG_20211109_091653 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr
I then took a very very leisurely, absolutely beautiful, ride back to Brecon along the canal pretty much all of the way, with a little coffee stop just for the fun of it.
IMG_20211109_095116 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr
IMG_20211109_100734 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr
oh, and I played with some tiny tiny cutlery I had saved from some supermarket food or other - no good for stirring coffee, let alone eating porridge or food from a pouch .

So that's October and November done with my new run, so 2/12.

[Bearlegged]

Looks good that. Hope the stuff is all sorted now.

[fatbikephil]

The old 'find the best bivvy spot in the world one hundred yards after the swamp / anthill / gorsebush / minefield that you actually pitched up on' scenario, seems to be one that persists no matter how good you are at bivvy spot hunting...

[RIP]

Have you kipped in the 'bothy'?

That's the first time I've seen a caramel slice taller than it is wide

[Verena]

The old 'find the best bivvy spot in the world one hundred yards after the swamp / anthill / gorsebush / minefield that you actually pitched up on' scenario, seems to be one that persists no matter how good you are at bivvy spot hunting...

I knew I was in good company there, and simply carrying on a fine tradition

[Verena]

Have you kipped in the 'bothy'?

That's the first time I've seen a caramel slice taller than it is wide

I know - it's basically a sweet brick.

I had hoped to at least check out the bothy from a safe distance...another time. Just found this...not massively appealing, but would be nice to have a look then bivvy on the mountain nearby https://eatsleepwild.com/the-horrible-b ... n-beacons/

[RIP]

Yes I read that a while ago... not exactly encouraging. Looks interesting from the outside though. Maybe that's the best way of encountering it.