Blackhound wrote: ↑Sat Jan 02, 2021 11:46 am
Shaf - I am Kev C, thank you Stuart.
I wanted to add that this is year 10 of the challenge, so if you keep putting it off this is your chance -especially when you can kip in your garden for the first two months!
Stu - out of interest how many BAM patches have been claimed? I am interested in the number of different riders rather than one rider claiming for multi years. Not after an exact number as perhaps people have done it but not claimed a badge anyway.
BAM21, Issue 11, just in. Can't believe I've made it this far and only one more to go to have completed the 12 sittings. It's also one of the most unusual one's and I actually managed to bivy within the congestion zone or not very far from it. Satisfaction rating was right up there and I believe I'm now on 4 or 5 consecutive without actually deploying (BB200 as I did carry the tent) or carrying a bivy in case it rained.
The story starts when I got the message on one of the cycle clubs that another edition of the protest for the Uighers would be held outside the China embassy and consulate (in Manchester). I knew I needed to attend but moneys currently a bit, 'overspent' and work was almost coming in the way. Long day Friday, Saturday demo-day off and then Sunday back for another ling day.
The plight of the Uighers being too ciritical to ignore - forced sterilisations, organ harvesting, men being removed from the family homes and a soldier out in his place to live with the wife and children as the compulsory partner, concentration camps and the list goes horrifyingly on - I messaged some of the northerly cyclists who didn't really seem to respond or maybe they never got the memo. Not wanting to be the only one that turned up to the Manchester Chinese consulate on my own and then being raped and tortured by their secret police myself, I decided on London.
How could I get there and back on such a tight budget and between 2 work days that span almost 15 or 18hours depending on which mode of transport I used. Tickets bought and remembering I had my BAM of November to complete, that could be my refuge. Bag packed and slept (almost) on time on Friday night, I was woken by the alarm at 0335ish with a second alarm being the missus telling me I'd set it too early.
Considered her point for a split second and took her word for it. Despite knowing I was putting myself into bother, I reset it for 0350 and then by 0415 I was out the door. 15 minutes behind schedule and a commute bike that was fully laden... Oh deary dear...
Got to work almost in the nick of time and most of the commute had me thinking about how I'd get past my associate manager for storing it in the changing rooms. I had my story all set in my head and he'd be fine with it that I was gonna move it to the bike parking bays ASAP. But the security guard had other plans.
"Not going that way with a bike"... "We've got our orders and it's come from the very top", and so came my first altercation ever with any security or staff at this place. My supervisor was understanding and I got through the shift as well as apologise to the security-guy once I learnt he was just as rude and threatening to all staff and not just me. Work finished and the ticket I'd booked to Peterborough had been extended to Stevenage which would then leave me 35 miles to central London during which I'd complete my bivy and emerge a victor.
Train caught at 2230 and just before Stevenage as I prepared to alight, my body robbed me of all consciousness and I woke up to see some folks waiting with their bikes. Asked how long to Stevenage and realising i'd missed my stop, I was slightly gutted. How does one sleep secretly in a corner of the city that never sleeps. I decided I'd retrace my route to Stevenage and find a suitable spot 10 or 15 miles out.
I headed out and within just a few miles I spotted somewhere that might work. Missus had joked earlier to 'watch out for the foxes' and so when I saw the fox on the cycle path I'd use for sleeping it did take the rats out of my head briefly. I'd spied an area of cyclepath that was in the making. Cordoned off at both ends and a mound of mud blocking me from the view of passengers alighting at the busstop just 40 metres away. I hoped it'd work and surely with it being a weekend in the morning I'd not encounter builders. After jumping the fence without catching my privates I set myself up and took some pics for the report.
That mud could work, right.. and that fence is surely jumpable!
This really doesn't feel a smart move at all but I'm too knackered to go digging further afield.
Is that clouds or it it smog and how is it that there's stars visible just 4 miles from the centre!
A solid 4 hours of snoozing later I woke to this. How pretty are them autumn leaves afterall and Alhamdulillah there's no builders coming and it's 0630. Plenty of time for prayers so i packed away with the plan to make ablution after. But no sooner had I packed away and I spotted a builders flatbed truck-van-thingy. Oh shucks, is yhis gonna be my second altercation with a person of authority and was I gonna be in alot of trouble. In an instant I had the bike flung over and I was navigating the fence with my privates wondering what was going on. Thankfully no damage done and I rode off quickly to a spot round the corner and in/on the park bench.
As I made ablution and made my prayers then tidied up the gear with breakfast, the sun came up. With it, so did the digger which was filling in the mud that had given me cover earlier straight onto my bivy spot. The bivy spot being some sort of industrial plastice mesh and I was thankful that it wasn't a mud digger I'd been woken to. Would've been an interesting experience especially if it was someone rude and horrible...
BAM11 done and I just needed to wait for the demonstration. At the demo I shouted and made as much noise as I could to try and raise the awareness of the atrocities these people suffer. I was gonna finish the report, without this last sentence with 'and they all lived happily ever after'. But it hardly seems appropriate saw one child who looked just the same age as my AbdurRahman and I'm pretty certain he had some Uigher heritage. He looked really proud that there were people put there speaking out and he shouted the slogans (Laa ilaaha Illallah) louder.. Something that the few Uighers left in Turkmenistan dare not do even under their breaths...
and quite a steep path down to it.
Post it to me! paypal ready. 
It was ejected firmly but politely out of the bag.
)
And she is her own mistress, no body owns her... that applies to both, all part of cat & spouse game. 
. Robin doing OK. it flew off later, but weather may ail it harshly.
