September was when it all went wrong for me last year, so this time I wasn't going to take any chances, so got my September BAM in right at the start of the month last night.

Left home just after ten, kind of fits in quite nicely with family routines, and I've been meaning to get more used to night riding for a couple of years anyway, and to be honest it wold be hard to pick a better night than last night, with it still being warm, completely dry, and very little wind - also a great clear starry night with the moon nowhere to be seen, beautiful.

Decided to head up to The Gap, inspired really by my recent trip up there with JC, and realizing how much I have really been forgetting/ taking for granted that I have the Brecon Beacons very much right on my doorstep... weird.

Oh, in keeping with my usual "prior preparation is just so boring" style, I had not really unpacked or looked at, let alone fitted, my new acepack I have recently purchased from Stu, so the first twenty minutes or so were spent under the street lamp on the pavement outside my house, trying to work out how it all fits

It was a steady slog up that hill, but I didn't care, I was really just enjoying and quite excited to be out for what felt like my first "proper" BAM mini adventure for a very long time...

Pitch black, so no photos, though I did a bit of filming just on my phone, as suggested on here, will try and see if I can work out how to put that together into a little film - should win some sort of worst ever/ most amateur/ worst cut award....

Found a nice flat spot just above and on the Cribyn side of The Gap, and to be honest, felt quite chuffed with myself to have made it up there in the middle of the night. Slept well in my bivvy bag, lots of star gazing.

First light
IMG_20220902_053736 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

Nice cup of coffee and a croissant ( o yes, I remembered the recent comments suggesting we get a bit more sassy with the BAM food)
IMG_20220902_061759 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

Followed by scrambled eggs (one each from my friend's hens Matilda, Hetty and Kitty) with smoked salmon and a few sprigs of fennel from the garden. There's posh.
IMG_20220902_060329 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

Packed up and left just in time as a couple of walkers approached.

And a nice ride down the hill, got home for 7.30. Really enjoyed that. Bring on the darker months, I'm ready!
IMG_20220902_063258 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

IMG_20220902_063445 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

IMG_20220902_065833 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

IMG_20220902_070302 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

IMG_20220902_071150 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

These pictures are lovely :) I can't wait to play out again!

Escape Goat wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 5:52 pm These pictures are lovely :) I can't wait to play out again!

Thanks Al, what's your next adventure going to be?

Rather up I the air at the minute. I did plan;

*2019 Jennride Route
Calder Divide
Bb200

Along with some random stuff. Just kinda have to wait and see.

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 5:48 pm I remembered the recent comments suggesting we get a bit more sassy with the BAM food.

Bearlegged wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 7:23 pm

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 5:48 pm I remembered the recent comments suggesting we get a bit more sassy with the BAM food.

Kind of what I was thinking...
I'll play the "someone else has aced it so rather than heroically continue in the competition for a worthy lower place, I'll go off in a strop" card. Now where's my packet of couscous and a smoked sausage?

No strops here, just not quite the cordon bleu.



#LiveBivvyAction

Cheese kabanossi?!?!

fatbikephil wrote: ↑Fri Aug 26, 2022 9:39 pm Hmm. Do we want a Bivvy a month video challenge?
Post a vid of your bivvy and the adjudicating panel will award points for, amateurness, swear words not edited out of the final cut, coffee grinding technique, shaky camera shots of trails, philosophical musings about the true essence of 'the bivvy' (TM), slugs. Jeff and Allan aren't allowed to enter as they are too good at it but they can post vids to show us amateurs how it's done.

OK you asked for it, my hastily made first ever attempt at a film, done on my phone....it's actually so bad it makes me giggle...."here's something amazing you can't see"

https://youtu.be/Ih7j3GmPuq8

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:17 pm Cheese kabanossi?!?!

10.6% imperial stout?!?!

'State Of Mind Edition'. I think I know what mine would be after quaffing that

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:34 pm
OK you asked for it, my hastily made first ever attempt at a film, done on my phone....it's actually so bad it makes me giggle...."here's something amazing you can't see"

https://youtu.be/Ih7j3GmPuq8

Morning V. It's half past five and I've just watched your film!
That's really good It has a certain reality to it - very ' Blair Witch ' to start with, I found myself pulling my sleeping bag up to my chin with fear... but what a lovely spot to wake up and enjoy a gourmet breakfast. Eggcellent!

psling wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 5:43 am

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:34 pm
OK you asked for it, my hastily made first ever attempt at a film, done on my phone....it's actually so bad it makes me giggle...."here's something amazing you can't see"

https://youtu.be/Ih7j3GmPuq8

Morning V. It's half past five and I've just watched your film!
That's really good It has a certain reality to it - very ' Blair Witch ' to start with, I found myself pulling my sleeping bag up to my chin with fear... but what a lovely spot to wake up and enjoy a gourmet breakfast. Eggcellent!

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:17 pm Cheese kabanossi?!?!

Lidl.

psling wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 5:43 am That's really good It has a certain reality to it - very ' Blair Witch ' to start with, I found myself pulling my sleeping bag up to my chin with fear...

Agreed! Very Hitchcockian I thought - I was waiting for The Sheep equivalent of The Birds . Luckily the brave new dawn gave it happy ending!

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:34 pm OK you asked for it, my hastily made first ever attempt at a film, done on my phone....it's actually so bad it makes me giggle...."here's something amazing you can't see"

https://youtu.be/Ih7j3GmPuq8

Yay! I hope you get the bug to film more, it's great to see a moving picture
Looks like a lovely spot V.

Verena wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:34 pm

fatbikephil wrote: ↑Fri Aug 26, 2022 9:39 pm Hmm. Do we want a Bivvy a month video challenge?
Post a vid of your bivvy and the adjudicating panel will award points for, amateurness, swear words not edited out of the final cut, coffee grinding technique, shaky camera shots of trails, philosophical musings about the true essence of 'the bivvy' (TM), slugs. Jeff and Allan aren't allowed to enter as they are too good at it but they can post vids to show us amateurs how it's done.

OK you asked for it, my hastily made first ever attempt at a film, done on my phone....it's actually so bad it makes me giggle...."here's something amazing you can't see"

https://youtu.be/Ih7j3GmPuq8

Excellent, that was exactly what I had in mind!
OK this is now an official addendum to BAM. You've all to do a film between now and December then a panel of expert judges will announce a winner (or not, you can't rely on anything on here) and award a prize (maybe) Verena has set a high bar.
NEXT!

Are you sure that's wise, I mean my static photos are insane enough never mind inflicting a fillum on people. Remember the room-in-the-garden thing, or my ride and bivvy inside the house, for example, they don't bear thinking about as fillums .

Bring it on Reg!

fatbikephil wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 8:58 pm Bring it on Reg!

Yeah, bring it on, there's always a higher level of bonkersness out there somewhere

Thanks everyone for the positive comments, was expecting more pisstake to be honest...

Needless to say my family didn't get it at all...

Not sure I'm ready to give up the day job just yet though....

Just returned from two weeks bike touring with my wife and two kids (actually there were four kids as we were two families all in) along the coast of Brittany, which was beautiful, great fun and quite hilly. Worked out my full bicycle weight, including passenger (aged 4) and rider (aged a bit more) plus trailer and all the gear was 210kg. My poor drivetrain.

Anyway, I managed to sneak out to sleep on the beach one night near the campsite. Didn't have a bivvy bag so just used a roll mat and sleeping bag. Woke up a little damp but still warm. Didn't tell my wife or travelling companions as was meant to be in a tent with my youngest but figured I'd hear him from the beach if he woke up.

Really struggled with keeping devices charges during the trip so no photo again from August. Will try harder this month as will be bivvying nearer to home, probably in the Welsh liquid sunshine judging by the view from my window...

Popped out on Friday evening for a night alone. Normally I’d check in with local bivvy buddies, but this time, I was bivvying FOR SCIENCE! There’s a chap at Sheffield Hallam Uni who’s doing some research into “solitary activities”. For my part, I needed to do some solitary activity, write a little diary about it, and I’ll also need to do a little follow-up interview.*

Minimal kit as I CBA with a stove and the resulting porridge breakfast, and it was warm enough that I didn’t need to take the warmer sleeping bag, despite folk proclaiming it to be “autumn”. I had a few sleeping spots in mind, which meant I left the house with only a vague route in mind. Various decision points were reached, turns were made, and I managed a fairly unfamiliar ride to a fairly familiar area by way of riding trails in the reverse direction to what I’d do normally.
Once up on a local edge, I started looking for somewhere to stop. A couple of possibilities were investigated and discarded, before I found a rock that would double as both a back rest for sitting with a beer, and a windbreak against the Easterly breeze. Accommodation sorted for the night, I set about writing my diary, and lightening my load for the ride home in the morning.


Not too bad a night’s sleep ensued, despite a bit of light drizzle, and in the morning I clambered up a convenient viewpoint…

…to admire the view.

Humph.

Anyway, a nice ride home, and now I can get back to being a social bivvyer.**
More pics here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CiDLoZ7sJKS/

2022 BAM 9/12
2022 total bivvies 10
Current streak (months) 46

*If anyone else is interested in taking part, drop scott.jones@shu.ac.uk a line.
**Chances of managing to align my diary with any of my local buddies, low.

Nice view

For September, I'd wanted to bivvy near Abbots Bromley to see the Horn Dance but events made that impractical so I ended up on Anglesey, hammocking with my son and grandson. Oh well, the horn dance will have to wait until next year. I caught a train on to the island and rode along lanes, stopping to pick and eat blackberries from the hedgerows, to Newborough Forest where I met Mike and his son. (he'd driven in).



We pitched up and fried steaks for tea but in the distance we could hear a PA barking out something unintelligible from the direction of the main car park. This had to be investigated.

As we neared the car park it became obvious that there was an event in progress, with tapes and cones and direction arrows clearly displayed. At the exit from the car park to the forest, runners with dogs (about 20 of them) tethered to their waists had gathered. There were all sorts of dogs, mostly mongrels (are we allowed to call them that?) but all were raring to go - scrabbling at the ground and baying like a pack of fox hounds to get going. The runners were wearing head torches, the dogs had illuminated collars and they were waiting to run a 5K canicross event. At 8:50, they were off - the barking instantly stopped while they got on with the business of running. What fun!

We waited for ten minutes to see the 5K & 10K "Torchlight" races started then mooched around, hoping for a burger or doughnut (or better still, an ice cream) van, but had to settle for a cup of coffee. We'd hardly finished our coffees when the PA announced the first canicross runner was back, so we darted off to the finish line to cheer and ring the cow bells that the organisers had given out (free) to encourage the runners with.

It wasn't long after that the first runner was announced and that more were coming along the beach to the finish, so we went down to give them a bit of moral support. It was quite dark by then and we could see a chain of head torches strung along the beach...


More and more came, the canicross dogs were still keen to go, some of the runners maybe not so much. We cheered them all in, even the tail-end-charlies who are the real heroes of these events - those who've no chance but still do it for the sake of it. Respect to them.

Eventually it was all over so we walked down the beach in bright moonlight to light a fire on the sand and fry gammon steaks and drink a few more beers and some rum. We sat a while looking for satellites and putting the world to rights in moonlight that was so bright it was casting shadows on the sand. Finally, around 1am, we stumbled back to our hammocks in the forest.

Breakfast was sausages fried in lard (this has become a family tradition when camping) rolled in sliced white bread with tomato ketchup - we call 'em sausage roll-ups. It hadn't rained in the night and there was very little dew on the tarps. By the time breakfast was done we could pack away without fear of having to air our stuff when we got home. At the car park, the triathlon-ers had done their swim and left for the cycle ride. The queues at the catering vans were too long for comfort and there were the occasional drops of rain so we called it quits and left for home.

My 7 mile ride to the station was interrupted by frequent stops for more blackberries...



...that were too tempting to pass by. I ate that many, I was expecting to have purple poos like the wild birds drop under their perches at this time of the year. We'd finished earlier than expected meaning I got to the station with an hour to spare - enough time to soak some noodles and make a cup of tea before the train came. While I waited, the rain came: a good thing we hadn't waited longer before starting back.

So that's 9/9 for 2022.

Nice that, Lu. Put a smile on my face.