Trips in Winter

Interested in hearing people's suggestions for routes, gear and other bits and bobs for when the weather is a bit more challenging. I'm likely to have some time off around December / January and presuming lockdown eases, I might be interested in venturing out but for something a bit more adventurous than a day trip.

Routes: particularly interested in hearing road/gravel type routes that don't turn into a quagmire
Gear other than a warmer sleeping bag and more clothes, any tips particularly when you've got properly dunked
Strategies My approach when touring normally is to ride till I'm too tired to continue, find a camping site, eat and then sleep but this approach doesn't work quite so well when it gets dark at 4pm

Invest in good lights, hotels/B&B's and waterproof socks. As soon as you start camping out it gets expensive and wet.

I was thinking about winter camping that other day.

Biggest issue I could see was, what do you do when its dark from 4pm to 8am?!

I like the idea of doing something just the right side of uncomfortable

Heading out would definitely depend on some clear weather and dont particularly fancy wading through flooded paths which would make it hard to get warm.

Love seeing pictures of people touring in winter where theres snow on the ground but figure at least snow is kind of dry

I can 't imagine how difficult it must be in the morning once your gear is wet.
It's already difficult to dry shoes with a heat source.
I'm struggling beetween 0°C to 6°C in the wet,
below O°C is fine.

Yeah fuck camping the in the wet. Fuck that right off!

I was thinking if we get some nice crisp cold weather, chuck the tent and both my sleeping bags on the cargo bike and I think I could deal with the cold but it does seem like I might get hella bored.

Given the likely restrictions on foreign travel, I think I’ll be looking for routes that hop between bunk houses, bothies, pubs or glamping sites; we don’t have consistently crisp, cold days, so it boils down to cold and wet. Very wet... it’s not quite the same, in terms of adventure or challenge, as simply heading out into all weathers. But for me, the fun stops when you simply can not get warm & dry. I’ve bivi’d in the snow (on Mt Blanc, Aneto and others), which is a very different experience to a sodden night on an British hillside...

You’ve got me thinking now... I’ll share any routes that I come up with!

I've done a bit of winter mountain walking & bivying. Usually in Feb when the nights are slightly shorter. I could easily sleep from 7pm to 7am. I loved it. My mate pictured below at 07.30 one morning somewhere in the peak district:

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https://bikepacking.com/plog/goodnight2020/