Microadventuring, mini tours etc

Wild country tents are good.
I've owned terra nova and been super happy. Picked up a wild country hoolie2 and seems good for the money.

Thanks for the tips, bit too pricey!

Went with the banshee and got a trangia set

What mini tour have you done recently ...

(can't imagine you had much use for a tent!)

Etc!

@M_A_X I got my hoolie2 for £100 I think. But fair enough.

Right, wild camping.

I fancy the idea of taking off into (for instance) Wales, or East into the North Wessex Downs, riding for the day and just pitching camp wherever I end up. Am I right in thinking that although technically not allowed if I pick remote places away from roads, don't leave litter or light fires and keep quiet and generally exercise common sense I should be ok? I like the idea of not planning routes around campsites and the like.

That's worked for me so far.

dont camp near cows. dont close the gates if theyre open. dont argue with the landowner. ;)

great thread, i'm cycling up to shambala festival at the end of august. think i'm doing and easy two days, buckingham on the first day and then early start and all the way up on the second day ready to party. festival offers secure lockup and discount massages for people that have cycled! does anyone know of a good campsite or maybe even a good spot to free camp round buckingham way?

There's recommended stopping spots on the official routes:

http://www.shambalafestival.org/cycle-to-shambala/

These used to be led rides, were great fun and for me life changing.

An awesome festival, enjoy.

Am considering a first mini tour from london to edinburgh and back (with a few days recovering in Edinburgh), using the LEL audax route. Staying in BnBs along the way. Looks like around 85 miles a day. Only have a road bike and want to go as light as poss so thought I'd try an apidura saddle bag plus maybe a frame bag or handlebar bag to distribute weight. What do people think?

http://www.lfgss.com/conversations/194843/?offset=1675#comment12441502

Church

First London to Edinburgh is not a mini tour, if you want to cycle back as well - it definitely is not a mini. So at 85 miles per day thats 4 days each way!

There are other touring threads which might be better places to post about your planned tour. Do you already have a rack and panniers? If so just use those. If your bike can't take a rack then look at the frame bag and saddle bag combo by all means. I want an Apidura saddle bag myself, but I am intending to use it on my trails bike, where being lighter make more of a difference and I am not away for more than a few days. (Probably some 300km+ Audax rides too, once I grow a pair and commit to doing one.)

Panniers are hard to beat when you need to carry a decent load over a bigger period of time!

yep Apidura saddle bag and an alpkit handlebar dry bag and you're off. you could prob even get away with just the Apidura if you get the big one as you're staying in b&bs so assume also not carrying food..

Headed out for a 4 day-trip in Denmark, with my good friend who had never ridden anything else but heavy city-bikes up until now

Most rewarding part of this trip was too see how he slowly converted into, what may become, a fully devoted bike enthusiast.

Anyway, packing was simple. We bought a couple of straps from the local outdoors shop, and strapped everything we had to our bikes; Tent, Sleepingbag (Big mistake, it was way too hot) and a sleeping pad. Everything fairly lightweight and compact. I would have preferred it differently, say more pannier/rack-ish style of packing, but to my surprise this actually worked miraculously well (Yes i was skeptical)

We packed the morning we left. Simple

After my pal had laughed of my matching Rapha-stuff he then threw on his Jordan Jersey and headed out into the wild. Lovely trip, and the weather was crazy good!

looka like a sweet trip!

#rep

Went on my first solo overnight trip last week (not quite a mini-tour but still) to the south downs. I left too late in the day on the first day (I had a 4 hour opening shift at work, means I wake up at 5am, so had to take a nap before leaving) which meant doing less miles than planned, partly due to tiredness, also due to the route being planned on lots of country lanes which didn't feel safe at night on my own.
Just so happened I chose the night of the big storm to do the trip, so my first solo wild camping experience (in a bivvy) was ridiculously wet. The ride into Brighton and then back to London was soaking, the climbs were hard fully loaded anyway, but the fact I was basically riding up a stream at a lot of points made them a bit ridiculous.
Was still a lot of fun, and it was partly to test my kit for riding London-Glasgow starting this Sunday, and it all performed pretty well. I was just surprised how slow I was riding full loaded considering this is the bike I ride all the time and generally go quite a bit quicker unloaded.

Didn't take any photos day one due to limited time, but here are a few from day 2.

Where I slept after packing up camp. All of the earlier pics came out terribly due to darkness. It's pissing it down but you can't really tell.

self congratulatory chocolate after climbing Devil's Dyke.

had second breakfast hiding in a bush at the top of Ditchling Beacon. It was pissing it down again. Last of the photos due to how much more intense the storm got after this.

Strava: Day 1 Day 2

Looks like a couple of tough days riding there... Hilly wet and long. Good work!

Did you have a rough idea of where you wanted to camp or did you just pull up at the first stand of trees that looked appealing?

I had selected a place to camp around 180km into my original route. At some point due to not wanting to ride lanes in the dark and being tired I decided to just try and find somewhere instead of pushing to go where I'd planned. Looked for somewhere that looked wooded on the garmin and just headed towards there, turned out to be a pretty good spot, didn't have to stray too far off the road but was still pretty secluded.

Is that a Carradice bar bag?
How do you find it?
I want a bar bag but i'm undecided between the Carradice Super C or Jasons Rando bar bag.
I have a set of Carradice Super C panniers, the same as yours, so I should probably get that.

Yeah it's the Super C bar bag. I really like it. Holds all the stuff I want it to and the rigid body is nice, and yeah matchy matchy with luggage is a bit good. I regularly carry more than I probably should in there and it's always fine.
Jason's is as in the BigxTop ones right? Only seen one in person briefly but they are very nice, and considering the quality of his other stuff that I've spent more time with I trust the bar bags to be pretty good. Carradice are a bit cheaper (since they come with the klickfix attachment and the BigxTop ones don't), and still handmade in the UK so it's a hard call!

I'm thinking matchy matchy. It's the only way to make the call.
Nice one.

I took the last few days off from family & work life for a quick trip, starting with an easy crossing of the Franche-Comté department to Luxeuil les Bains, then some up and overs through the south west of Les Vosges to La Bresse, up further to La Route des Crête and through to Munster, back down into Alsace and north all the way to Strasbourg.