2010-03-13/14 - Carry on Camping

I'm a tad confused as to who is who. Could we have a key? Preferably with a little innuendo, as the ride was called Carry On Camping.

Like so;

Sparky = the one on the cream Thorn and the green jumper with an insatiable appetite for sausage.

Mr.Mental = the cunt on the Creamroller. With big mouth and no brains.

Quit drinking, Mr Mental. It clearly doesn't agree with you old chap. You were good fun on the way down.

You have a cream Thorn! Photos please. Especially if you have photos of the touring setup.

Pair of Ortlieb Classics on the back and a little front canti-mounted rack from our sponsors, where I've jammed anything else that can fit.

I get a fair amount of wobble still, which needs some work. Thankfully that didn't kick in when I hit 42mph on the way to the campsite.

Oh, and if you've ever wondered what happens when you try to ride an Aga over Ditchling Beacon...

I think they're vultures circling overhead.

whoever was voyaging with the Barbeque bike, good effort!, even if slightly mental......

T'was Cheesecake. He took me and Ed on a whistle-stop tour of Brighton, before buggering off on his HHSB and leaving us to get the train.

That BBQ bike should be in the porn thread.

i was and still am dicki on the fixed gazelle

well that was a good if demanding trip.... the bow flyover seemed like mont ventoux to me last night as i approached stratford

left stratford at 8.20 sat morn, over to scott and rosies, there i met sparky
we all rolled over to elephant together and picked up another 8 or so peeps
and then on to tooting for the last few
out of london via some beautiful country lanes
as soon as we had passed over the M25 london seemed but a distant memory
the weather for the whole trip was pretty good, i did feel one drop of rain on my face but that was really it, it got a tad cold when we first arrived at the campsite wind off the sea but once the fires got going and the waffing started the wind seemed to die leaving us with a nice still evening and most of us warmed up again
the whisky the rum the jagermeister the gin kept the cockles warm

respect to skully who seemed to have the contents of jamie olivers kitchen with him in his panniers... marinade, coffee, pans, boilers, ti spork, you name it they seemed to be in his pannier and his singing of folk songs which really gave a pleasant feel to the evening
thanks to dropout ( in charge of business development for the fire ) , mashton ( honarary firemarshall for the weekend ) and edmundro for the waffing without you guys our fire would have been pathetic
well done to cheesecake intl who made a big effort to haul the b-b-q bike to the campsite

once the swearing and the shouting got to much i too retired to my bed and slept very well

next day we lost a few at the campsite
lost a few a mile or two down the road as they were heading to haywards heath for the train and then 9 of us cracked on for london
somehow it seemed all uphill to london and the last two three climbs began to take their toll, some real steep bumpy and twisty uphills and the legs began to burn
once we hit tooting though we seemed to get a fresh lease of life it's always the same getting back to london the dicing with the traffic the closeness to home gave me the equivalent of an epo shot and we raced the last mile or two to elephaant and castle
finally the last section home i was running on empty very tired but pleased to have made it
slumped in chair pint after pint of tea and an early night

i would highly recommend the next trip to others, there really is nothing better than a quick back to nature session, camping out doors and woodsmoke in the eyes

531 awesome trip
many thanks to scott and rosie for the hard work and effort they put in, checking the route booking the campsite, providing a lot of the food

for some reason in that 4th picture the fire actually looks hot
must have been photo shopped !

nice photos
some wig wieners in there.

What a lovely weekend.

My first experience of touring was a real revelation. I can't wait for the next chance to strap a lot of stuff the the bike and head off into the wilderness. I'm definitely planning to ride to a festival this summer.

Absolutely fantastic to get to know people better. Particularly Rosie, Edmundro, Joe, Liz and Matt. Also great to spend time with older faces, and woodcraft folk.

Thanks so much to you all.

Rosie, thanks for all your efforts! They're really, really appreciated. I need to ask: did you end up out of pocket? I would be happy to pay for more people who dropped out. It was their loss.

To the rest of you, thanks a lot for making a really pleasant, stimulating and quite inspiring weekend! I am really glad to get to know better those I already knew, and meet some new people. There was really good riding out there, good commmunication and 'roadcraft' being exhibited. Life on the site could have better managed, but I think we all rubbed along OK, notwithstanding some of the friction mentioned^. As for the group that rode home, that was just fucking EPIC riding, really great, good pacesetting from Paula most of the way as far as I could tell from the back ... (You're damn fast! Even with one chainring bolt!). Great peloton action in those headwinds. Cheers all of you. Tim you did a fantastic ride. Well done. Smooth navigation home Scott!

Special 'props' to Andrea for joining us knowing no-one, and contributing well. Thanks for your help on the ride down there, man. 'New' is what makes this forum great, new people, new rides ideas, new routes, new experiences. And to Sparky for travelling from Norwich in order to join. (Velocio, his Thorn is blimmin lovely).

Special Special props to Harvey the Barbecue Avenger, our saviour! That contraption, and you, fucking ROCK. Cheers.

About Piotr, I think he behaved really badly. I had a feeling that he might be a little hard to handle, and said it further up this thread, but some of what went down on saturday surprised me as it was just plain horrible, and spoken in a VERY LOUD VOICE. However I won't be treating Piotr as if I don't know him in future. I do. I'm not ignoring what happened, though. He needs to know that life is good, he is not alone. I'm here to remind him if I need to be.

So what have I learned?
Pitch your tent well away from the fire we're going to gather around.
Try out your bike with the luggage before you set off, in case of wobbles!
Don't let obnoxious people rule the fire, send them away and ask them not to share the fire if they can't be sociable.
Do stop for lunch at the pub
Do invite Cheescake Int'l to your party
Do waft or blow your fire
Do bring ingredients for a marinade
Travel light!

What a great journey. Rosie, thanks again.

You're welcome - and thanks to Scott for coming up with the idea :)

Glad everyone enjoyed it, and cheers for the rack Sparky.
My legs are a bit achy after that ride home. Great ride though.

What a great journey. Rosie & Scott, thanks again.

Fixed.

Dude sounds like a social retard.

great weekend! how lucky were we with the weather?

i echo the above sentiments about meeting new people and getting to know others better. it was a great little community. all i brought with me was a bottle of whisky, something to smoke, lucozade sport and some tracker bars. despite that I ate well throughout the evening and morning. thanks to everyone whose food i ate!

had good laugh round the campfire. i am thankful to say i was largely oblivious to the bad vibes going around.

big up to fred for making down on his own and arriving late at night with a fucked knee and 8 cans of guninness. good timing! i had 2 of those cans! i owe you a large pint next time i see you.

mashton went on a mission to get booze delivered to the campsite at about 19:30. he found a local place called 'booze brothers' who would do it but did not start to deliver until 22:30! unfortunately matt never made it that far through the night...

i have a funny memory of going to meet fred and guide him in to the depths of the campsite with john dropout and matt mashton. that was a giggle. i have a good pic...

special mention to mr bbq bike cheesecake international. legend.

i have a few bonfire pics, to follow.

thanks to (nearly) everyone for making it a great weekend. it was lovely riding with you.

special thanks to scott and rosie for the organisation and making it happen.

thanks to fanny for her fine bacon.

i was seriously considering taking the train back but am really glad i didn't. i had to walk a few hills on the way home but considering that was the first proper ride i have done out of london since late last year and i did it fixed and with a fair bit of luggage, i felt like i had acheived something.

Guys and dolls,

I had really good weekend out with you. It was nice to meet you all. The campsite was lovely: I like the idea of labirynth-like network of paths and pitches with sophisticated names.I think I will go there back in the future. Rosie and Scott - thank you for giving me the opportunity of seeing such a lovely place and spending the weekend out of London. I do appreciate your effort.

My favourite moment was when Skully was singing near the fire. Skulls, I did truly enjoy the gift of entertainment and all your songs. We need to repeat those!

As the ride down was a bit too fast for me, I decided not to slow down you on the way back and we have done the way back to London with Peter in my very slow pace. I do not know how it happened, but we ended up in Surrey Hills and I felt like Andrea: having done more vertical then horizontal miles :) Collapsed on the sofa after coming home.

So, are we doing another? If so, I'll be there.

I reckon with what we learned we can make it a lot more comfortable. I'm certain there are some things that I took that I wouldn't take again, and some things I would pack that I didn't.

yeah, we can plan so we each bring somethign we all need so we have all the important stuff and no duplication...

^good call.
I reckon I could have dropped a kilo from my luggage for the weekend(why would I want a change of clothes??) and replace with more useful stuff to make life more comfy - thermarest chair thingy would have been ace, those benches weren't that comfy as the evening wore on.
It'll be nice in the summer when extra layers aren't needed as well.

Problem with people taking certain things is that if they drop out for whatever reason we would be pretty screwed if they had the coffee. Also, I propose that next time at least one person takes a half decent blowtorch lighter thing.

It also would have been nice if we hadn't generated quite so many bags of rubbish over the course of the evening. Tupperware ftw

Sounds like you should have taken a rubber mallet, a gag and some cable-ties.

^Now that sound like my kind of w/e!

misread, I thought it said rubber ball.

I HAD some cable ties.

Bollocks.

I had some gaffa tape too...

Hindsight, eh?