I keep getting asked about mapping and navigation tools I use on both my phone and computer. None are a total substitute for a map and compass and knowing how to navigate but they certainly make life easier sometimes!
Mapping
** Star Pick**: Maverick
OS mapping with offline cache, GPS, compass, route planning, GPX upload and download. If you have an Android phone and like being outdoors... GET IT.
Where's The Path
This is my go-to route planning tool. Side by side maps for which you can select different map bases like OS 50k, OSM, Google Earth etc. Route planning, elevation, GPX import and export. Really good.
Bing Maps
Freely available OS maps down to 25k. Limited exporting and no route planning but a good starting point for a browse.
Mapometer
Good for road cycle route planning.
Google Maps
Now that some of the 3D Google Earth functionality has been integrated into Google Maps it makes for a great experience. Look at any high rise city in 3D mode and it's like flying over it like a bird. Fantastic.
Grid Reference
For Android. Gives you a grid reference. and a compass reading. Simple and effective!
Make Panorama
Good for answering the question "what hills can you see from the top of Rum Doodle". See also this site.
Weather aside
https://www.windytv.com - global weather and forecasting, wind speed, temperature, cloud base, wave height, ocean currents with an intuitive interface. Fascinating and you can lose hours to watching typhoons rolling around the Pacific.
Showing posts with label Gear Geek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gear Geek. Show all posts
Friday, 3 March 2017
Review: Alpkit Tau Rear Bike Light
I got fed up of swapping my Cateye TL-LD1100 between bikes as I only had one bracket. For the price of a new seatpost bracket it wasn't much more to buy another new light. I'd seen the Alpkit Tau rear lights available so thought I'd give one a go.
Tau Rear Light (image from Alpkit website)
Construction and Mounting
The light unit seems very well put together. No creaking or flexing when pressure is applied. You certainly feel like it could be dropped from a great height and survive.
It's smaller width is good, as the large width is my only complaint about my Cateye light; sometimes my thigh nudges it or presses the button depending on where it's mounted on my seatpost. The Tau has no such problems, tucking in nicely underneath the saddle. It is very unobtrusive.
The soft rubber back is grippy, reducing the risk of the light bouncing around meaning a lighter elastic band weight can be used. The rubber bands go on easily enough with their big pull tags. The quality of the rubber will be the determining factor in how long this light lasts I think. I'm tempted to take a needle file to the points on the side clips that the rubber band engages with to prevent any sharp edges from fretting the rubber bands.
Charging is achieved via a Micro USB port hidden behind a rubber flap. This seems to engage OK and would be held in place and partly shielded by the bike frame or seatpost it is mounted to so I'm not too concerned about water ingress. I'd take it off the bike if I was washing it but I'd do that for any of my lights.
As the owner of a Koala seat pack, I would have preferred a method of mounting the Tau to a webbing strap, maybe a clip or some slots in the body of the light, to enable easy mounting to bike packing luggage. The small elastic band doesn't seem to hold the light steadily on a strap and I worry a bit about it falling off.is a bit small for it. More thought required, perhaps there is a way and I just haven't come across it yet. In the meantime I'll keep the Tau mounted to my seat stay, even though the angle isn't perfect.
Weight
I think its a good job it is so light given that the length of the charging cable supplied means that it invariably dangles in mid air from whatever charging port you are using on your PC or adaptor. However, Micro USB adaptors are now the standard for charging phones so everyone is bound to have a lead already plugged into a charger lying spare.
Light Output and Modes
Performance of the Chip On Board (COB) LED module is good with very little observable change in brightness over a 90ยบ arc. One complaint I have with some rear lights is the focusing of the beam with a lens results in a high peak brightness but out of angle it isn't so good. The Tau overcomes this well. The spread of light is such that I can easily check that the light is still on just with a brief glance down at where it is mounted. No more holding my hand in front of the light to see the reflected glow! I think this would be an excellent light for urban commutes with traffic coming from all angles being able to see you.
Brightness is OK on low but on high it is really very bright. The stated 3 hour runtime in this mode would put me off using it unless conditions were bad or traffic particularly heavy. The "pulse flashing" mode is more of a steady throb and doesn't immediately catch the eye. Unlike the 6Hz flashing mode which is really eye catching and is my preference for the road. Especially good considering the quoted 18 hour runtime - that's enough for a couple of weeks of commuting and a long ride.
Charging
It has a micro USB, charges from my phone charger in hardly any time at all (note I haven't timed it). That's it!
Out and About
As mentioned above it is very bright and with a good arc of light and seems to last a long time which will be good as the Li-Ion battery capacity decays with time as they always do. I've recommended the Tau to a couple friends looking for bike lights.
Overall
Brightness, viewing angle and build quality are good.
At £12 including postage I think it represents a very good value rear bike light.
Additional
I bought a couple of the front lights which are excellent as "see me!" lights and have now fitted a front and a rear to all the bikes in the fleet.
Wednesday, 20 July 2016
Sturmey Archer AW3 Gear Hub Strip and Rebuild
I've been having fun rebuilding the internal gear hub on my commuter bike.
Meet "Frank The Tank".
He is called Frank the Tank because he's a Frankenstein of new and second hand bike parts from lots of places and because he's no lightweight ;) I built him up from parts scavenged from five different donor bikes and a few new parts too.
He's based on an old Raleigh steel frame that someone had stripped and powder coated in white for a project before losing interest and selling it on eBay. Unfortunately the elegant white 1" threaded fork that came with it used the old 26TPI thread standard and I couldn't find a replacement headset for it at a reasonable price so a new black fork was chosen. He's been built to be an all weather, low service reliable bike for commuting and shopping.
Part of the reliability / simplicity was to choose an internal gear hub. Three speeds is just enough for the hills around here and fully built rear wheels with Sturmey Archer AW3 gear hubs are available on the internet for quite reasonable prices. Sure the rims are heavy but they've stayed true despite the abuse!
I've used him on my commute to work for a couple of years now in all weathers and, having survived two winters of commuting, it was time for a strip down and clean, including the gear hub. What started as a quick "I'll just regrease the bearings and adjust the cones" turned into a full on strip, clean and re-oil and re-grease of the entire hub with me learning a lot about it on the way!
Sturmey Archer hubs
I've been generally very impressed with the quality of the AW3 hub. Everything is nicely machined and has stood up to 2000 miles of abuse with zero maintenance and hardly any adjustment. The history of Sturmey Archer is well documented on the Sturmey Archer Heritage site with old engineering drawings and adverts. There's even a Dutch picture from 1958 showing how the 3 speed mechanism works.
It is particularly impressive that the predecessor to the Type AW hub that I own was originally designed in 1914. Externally there is very little difference and internally there only appear to be minor changes between the 1914 version and the modern version. Most satisfactory.
There's an amusing anecdote on the continuing production of Sturmey Archer hubs by the Taiwanese firm Sun Race on (all hail) Sheldon Brown's website
Strip, Clean and Rebuild
Any numbers in brackets refer to the component in the exploded diagram / parts list.
Removing the screw in ball ring (13) was the hardest part of the process. This part has a series of inner ramps that the drive assembly (15) pawls engage in. So me standing on the pedals for the last umpteen hundred miles meant it was tighter than Gary Barlow's wallet. It looked like it needed a special tool to remove so I cut out a section of 3mm aluminium plate to fit the dents around the rim. However it was that fast in place that it just chewed up the plate when I attempted to use it to unscrew it.
I had considered using a screwdriver and a hammer to drift it round but thought that was excessive until I did some internet research and found a couple of pages and a video that all recommended doing that very thing. The official instructions say to either use a C-spanner or a hammer and punch! Sure enough it loosened it off nicely, the hardened steel of the ball ring shrugging off any damage from the much softer steel of my largest, cheapest flat bladed screwdriver.
Unfortunately the time between initial disassembly and me managing to get the ball ring off meant that I'd forgotten the order of the parts so far. So I just dumped them all into a big tub full of hot soapy water, gave them a clean and a dry and then tried to figure out which bit went where.
There was precious little oil in the hub and only a small amount of good grease. There was a fair amount of crufty horrible grease on the gear ring assembly and the drive pawls and the grease in the bearings was pretty much non existent. Definitely due a service then!
With a bit of tinkering and a pale ale or two I figured out what went where. I was most impressed with the solid feel of the hub as I rebuilt it and the engineering processes that must have gone in to developing and making it. The axle (27) is a nicely machined part with a slot for the gear selector / axle key (28) and a coaxial hole down one end for the selector chain (32).
The fiddliest part of the build is assembling the gear ring assembly (9) and the associated pawls and pawl springs. The springs are really fine and I've dropped them at least three times and had to go hunting on the floor for them conducting a finger tip search with a flashlight and a magnet.
I'd had a few goes at fitting everything together and eventually figured it out before getting all the parts laid out in order.
The assembly from here is a dry run prior to things being greased and oiled for the final assembly.
Putting it back on the bike
Upon reassembly the freewheel seemed to jam so my first thoughts were that I'd put some pawls in the wrong way round also I couldn't figure out why tightening the cones didn't stop a significant amount of wobble at the rim.
This was when, after looking at the exploded diagram that I figured out that I'd put the dust cap on in between the bearing surfaces rather than covering the drive mechanism. Idiot. I'd also put the non drive side spacer washer (25) on the outside of the lock nut and not the inside (minor error).
Lastly I realised I'd lost the non drive side axle nut so had to order a new one from the eBay store of Hopkinson Cycles in Horbury. More idiocy on my part.
I corrected these issues, had the usual round of faffing around trying to adjust the cone bearings so that they were juuuuuuust right and presto! the wheel was back in and working properly. Nice sharp clicks from the drive and freewheel pawls, smooth changing of the gears, lovely. I'll feed it some oil down the changer hole so it has something to be getting on with and away we go :)
Further Frank-ing About
I also took the time to fit the proper diameter seatpost. I'd been using a 1" seatpost with some shims made from a coke can which meant a real fiddle adjusting saddle position, the very thing that had caused me a bit of knee pain beforehand.
After measuring up I ordered a 27.0mm seatpost (not the conventional 27.2 of modern bikes) from eBay and a nicer brown saddle I'd taken off the tandem, which is much more in keeping with the look of the bike.
I also improved the pannier mounting, removing the crappy looking P-clips and replacing it with a much nicer piece of threaded rod and some nuts between the original rack mount brackets. This moved the mounting point inboard to suit the rack I've got and it tidies up the frame too.
This means that Frank is ready for the next 2000 miles of urban pottering, commuting, shopping and general practicality.
Meet "Frank The Tank".
He is called Frank the Tank because he's a Frankenstein of new and second hand bike parts from lots of places and because he's no lightweight ;) I built him up from parts scavenged from five different donor bikes and a few new parts too.
He's based on an old Raleigh steel frame that someone had stripped and powder coated in white for a project before losing interest and selling it on eBay. Unfortunately the elegant white 1" threaded fork that came with it used the old 26TPI thread standard and I couldn't find a replacement headset for it at a reasonable price so a new black fork was chosen. He's been built to be an all weather, low service reliable bike for commuting and shopping.
Part of the reliability / simplicity was to choose an internal gear hub. Three speeds is just enough for the hills around here and fully built rear wheels with Sturmey Archer AW3 gear hubs are available on the internet for quite reasonable prices. Sure the rims are heavy but they've stayed true despite the abuse!
I've used him on my commute to work for a couple of years now in all weathers and, having survived two winters of commuting, it was time for a strip down and clean, including the gear hub. What started as a quick "I'll just regrease the bearings and adjust the cones" turned into a full on strip, clean and re-oil and re-grease of the entire hub with me learning a lot about it on the way!
Sturmey Archer hubs
I've been generally very impressed with the quality of the AW3 hub. Everything is nicely machined and has stood up to 2000 miles of abuse with zero maintenance and hardly any adjustment. The history of Sturmey Archer is well documented on the Sturmey Archer Heritage site with old engineering drawings and adverts. There's even a Dutch picture from 1958 showing how the 3 speed mechanism works.
 |
| Advert for the Sturmey Archer / Raleigh 3 speed hub Yorkshire Post, 1903. (C) Sturmey Archer Heritage |
L: 1914-1916 Type A hub
R: 1936-2001 Type AW3 hub
There's an amusing anecdote on the continuing production of Sturmey Archer hubs by the Taiwanese firm Sun Race on (all hail) Sheldon Brown's website
I heard an interesting anecdote from a Sturmey-Archer veteran employee, now with SunRace/Sturmey-Archer:
Back in the day, sometimes a batch of internal parts would be just a bit out of tolerance, maybe a bit too small, or a bit too large, whatever. The production people would take a sample to the engineering department, where a grey-haired engineer would check it out and often say "Well, it is a bit out of spec, but not really enough to cause failure, so let's let it go."
SunRace didn't have those engineers who had grown up with Sturmey-Archer in their blood, so when they found a batch of out-of-spec parts, they would say "That's out of spec! Melt it down, and make new ones, and do it right this time!"
Strip, Clean and Rebuild
Any numbers in brackets refer to the component in the exploded diagram / parts list.
Removing the screw in ball ring (13) was the hardest part of the process. This part has a series of inner ramps that the drive assembly (15) pawls engage in. So me standing on the pedals for the last umpteen hundred miles meant it was tighter than Gary Barlow's wallet. It looked like it needed a special tool to remove so I cut out a section of 3mm aluminium plate to fit the dents around the rim. However it was that fast in place that it just chewed up the plate when I attempted to use it to unscrew it.
I had considered using a screwdriver and a hammer to drift it round but thought that was excessive until I did some internet research and found a couple of pages and a video that all recommended doing that very thing. The official instructions say to either use a C-spanner or a hammer and punch! Sure enough it loosened it off nicely, the hardened steel of the ball ring shrugging off any damage from the much softer steel of my largest, cheapest flat bladed screwdriver.
Unfortunately the time between initial disassembly and me managing to get the ball ring off meant that I'd forgotten the order of the parts so far. So I just dumped them all into a big tub full of hot soapy water, gave them a clean and a dry and then tried to figure out which bit went where.
There was precious little oil in the hub and only a small amount of good grease. There was a fair amount of crufty horrible grease on the gear ring assembly and the drive pawls and the grease in the bearings was pretty much non existent. Definitely due a service then!
 |
| AW3 hub internals, cleaned and disorganised! |
The fiddliest part of the build is assembling the gear ring assembly (9) and the associated pawls and pawl springs. The springs are really fine and I've dropped them at least three times and had to go hunting on the floor for them conducting a finger tip search with a flashlight and a magnet.
I'd had a few goes at fitting everything together and eventually figured it out before getting all the parts laid out in order.
The assembly from here is a dry run prior to things being greased and oiled for the final assembly.
All fine up to this point but this is where I went wrong. The black plastic dust cap is meant to be fitted after the drive mechanism and cone have been screwed on. Otherwise when you tighten the cone it tries to compress the dust cap between the cone and the bearings and the whole thing seizes up. To my credit, I got this far without referring to the manual or the diagrams! Maybe I should have referred to it sooner ;)
The next thing to do was to grease it all up using white lithium grease throughout. Mistake. Error. Redo From Start+++++. Putting grease on the freewheel or drive mechanism pawls just causes them to stick to their carrier and not click back into place - the main function of a pawl. As a result it took about 5 seconds for the freewheel or the drive mechanism to click into place. Cue a re-strip and re-clean, applying nothing but light cycle oil to all of the internal components and grease to all three bearing races. Much better!
Putting it back on the bike
Upon reassembly the freewheel seemed to jam so my first thoughts were that I'd put some pawls in the wrong way round also I couldn't figure out why tightening the cones didn't stop a significant amount of wobble at the rim.
This was when, after looking at the exploded diagram that I figured out that I'd put the dust cap on in between the bearing surfaces rather than covering the drive mechanism. Idiot. I'd also put the non drive side spacer washer (25) on the outside of the lock nut and not the inside (minor error).
Lastly I realised I'd lost the non drive side axle nut so had to order a new one from the eBay store of Hopkinson Cycles in Horbury. More idiocy on my part.
I corrected these issues, had the usual round of faffing around trying to adjust the cone bearings so that they were juuuuuuust right and presto! the wheel was back in and working properly. Nice sharp clicks from the drive and freewheel pawls, smooth changing of the gears, lovely. I'll feed it some oil down the changer hole so it has something to be getting on with and away we go :)
Further Frank-ing About
I also took the time to fit the proper diameter seatpost. I'd been using a 1" seatpost with some shims made from a coke can which meant a real fiddle adjusting saddle position, the very thing that had caused me a bit of knee pain beforehand.
After measuring up I ordered a 27.0mm seatpost (not the conventional 27.2 of modern bikes) from eBay and a nicer brown saddle I'd taken off the tandem, which is much more in keeping with the look of the bike.
I also improved the pannier mounting, removing the crappy looking P-clips and replacing it with a much nicer piece of threaded rod and some nuts between the original rack mount brackets. This moved the mounting point inboard to suit the rack I've got and it tidies up the frame too.
This means that Frank is ready for the next 2000 miles of urban pottering, commuting, shopping and general practicality.
Tuesday, 2 February 2016
Marmot Dark Mountains 2016 - 3rd Place Again for Team Spinach
Partner
None of this would have been half as much fun without the other half of Team Spinach so thank you to Emma for putting up with me. Hopefully you enjoyed it as much as I did. Proper team effort and I'm very glad to have you as a racing buddy.
We felt a lot happier with our navigation skills from last year so our only real preparation was loosening the legs on the KCAC Wed night social fell runs and a quick test of bearing following in the dark on Ilkley Moor. I've been doing some cycling over winter and Emma threatened to break out her Nell McAndrew exercise DVD so we were in "good" shape.
"Which way does the pointy bit go?"
This year the event was based in Mungrisdale village on the east side of the Northern Fells of the Lake District. It's a lovely little village with a nice looking pub, The Mill Inn, next to the beck. Must come back for a second visit.
Get Set...
Kit check was very nearly a short affair as Emma had left her sleeping bag in the car but that was sorted out. Not as exhaustive a kit check this year; last time they wanted to see everything but I'm guessing with the much larger number of competitors this year that they just wanted to see the essentials. We got checked for sleeping bags, emergency bag, tent, torch, gloves and hats.
Busy in the village hall, everyone looks fitter than me aaaaarrrggghh!
We were furnished with some very nice veggie chilli, cheese and pitta by Heather who was doing a sterling job in the kitchen followed by a massive slab of chocolate pudding and custard. Pre-event food fit for kings!
We spent a bit of time looking at the map and trying to guess where we would get sent. Thankfully the steep bit of Bannerdale Crags and the south sides of Blencathra (including Sharp Edge) and Skiddaw were all marked as out of bounds. Of course with the live tracking it would be simple for the organisers to check if anyone had infringed an out of bounds area - only one team was disqualified for this.
Even though we had a couple of hours to kill before the start it went quickly, filled with cups of tea, chatting to folk and packing our bags, getting ready. Emma debated what layers to wear and opted for warm and of course ended up having to de-layer on the first long climb. So it goes: be bold, start off cold!
Go!
CP 1-3
All that map studying meant we dibbed at the start and immediately set off in the right direction! Sometimes this is the easiest bit to get wrong.
A nice easy start saw us head out along the River Glenderamackin (superb name!) on a good path, picking up the first two controls before the long steady climb up to Mungrisdale Common, the col between Blencathra and Bannerdale Crags. This last bit up to the col was quite icy underfoot, thankfully not repeated anywhere else as I'd left my Kahtoola crampons in the car as I didn't expect them to be required.
One of the fun things about this kind of event is doing admin tasks like changing layers, getting food and drink, putting things away whilst on the move. It's made much easier with two, with the other ferreting around in your pack for the elusive sandwich or glove.
We were one of the last teams to start so most of the field were ahead of us. I think we overtook about 4 teams on this stretch and we certainly feel like we made an excellent start. Competitive Emma was making plans and Competitive James was making a rare appearance.
Anyway, we made it to the col and the wind, brrr, not hanging around here for long!
CP4-5
We came a bit unstuck coming down to find checkpoint 4, being too far left. In the end we thought we were too low, discovered we were in fact too low but found it after relocating and taking a bearing off a pair of sheepfolds.
The track up to Skiddaw House went quickly and we took the opportunity to eat. I shoved half a pork pie down my neck and a piece of cake. We'll be hearing more about the pie later.
Last year, Emma's food had got all mushed up together and had accidentally invented the fruit cake, cheese and guacamole sandwich which, she maintained was surprisingly tasty. This year she decided to cut out the squashy middleman and lump it all together at the start. The considered opinion was that it didn't work quite as well this time but it was certainly worth a try. I'm sure I saw half of it go back in the pack uneaten.
At Skiddaw house we were warmly greeted by Emma's father-in-law Colin who was manning the show there. Although it looked very inviting inside we declined to stay and chat over a cocoa, quickly dibbed and then charged off towards the next checkpoint.
CP6
In our haste, we didn't check all of our options and by the time we were attacking the direct line and thigh deep heather slopes of Great Calva we realised there was a track marked on the west side of the hill that we'd not seen. Dur... So we cut across to the main path to pick it up after a scenic 800m detour.
One advantage of such a night time event is that the terrain doesn't intimidate you as much because you can't see it. As a result there were several times where the sight of a long climb would have perhaps depressed us, instead we could just see some torches in the distance encouraging us to go for it.
Thankfully the path up was a bit better despite the mud and ice. We both broke out our respective walking pole to aid out ascent - deploy the third leg!. There was someone taking photos by the control on the summit, he looked like he was freezing his bits off!
CP7-8
After following the fence down off the top of Great Calva we picked up the faint path towards the summit of Knott which we managed to track all the way. We followed a bearing to the main path coming off Great Sca Fell, aiming off ever so slightly and picking it up where Emma had expected to from pacing (go navigation!).
I had started to feel a bit queasy over the last few checkpoints and burping unwelcome greasy pastry burps from the pie and it wasn't getting any better. I managed to keep it down but wasn't putting anything in on top of it so I was starting to run a bigger deficit than George Osborne.
I forced down a hummus and beetroot pitta and some jelly babies and willed myself over the next hill, reminding myself that it will improve and I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Things were starting to head into Type 2 fun territory.
CP9
The route to 9 was not straightforward. Contour left around the hill? Climb up right then down the river? Nope. Go big or go home we said. Straight over Brae Fell and down the other side to pick up the gully then the second stream junction. Handrailing all the way made for simpler navigation if a slightly longer route. Both the first two teams contoured round the bottom of Brae Fell, most other people just charged straight over the top. According to the splits, contouring looked about 10 minutes quicker.
Like most of the stream gullys on this event it was a steep sided affair involving much hopping from bank to bank, steep contouring or just very wet feet. A combination of all three was applied! I did spot a very cool old mine tunnel heading into the hill from the side of the beck but now wasn't the time for subterranean shenannigans, we had a control to find!
It wasn't long before there were three teams all gathered at this one control at the same time, exchanging a small amount of banter. Everyone had a different idea of how to get to the next point, ours involving a short scramble out of the gorge using an old tree and following a bearing to pick up the next path to lead us to...
CP10
Ah, hello weather. Where have you been?
Horizontal hail was making things hard work. I put my goggles on and things improved, but Emma, normally a glasses wearer, struggled with hers making her vision more blurry. Urgh, this was not fun, distinctly Scottish conditions!
We followed our bearing and picked up a path going the right way (or was it...) following a pair of lads along it. They stopped, looking confused and we pooled our collective brain power which, at 5:45am and with no sleep, meant we could just about use words to make sentences. Just.
They pointed out that the uphill should be on our right, not left which meant we were on the wrong side of the hill. Amateur mistake, we hadn't gone far enough and picked up a parallel path. The wind, hail and tiredness had meant we weren't paying attention to the map. So we took a bearing for the CP, aiming off to allow us to make sure we hit the path before it and off we went.
Chatting to these lads it turned out they were Neil and James from just over the hill in Ilkley. I remembered them from last year as the two who had beaten us into 3rd place. They were having a slightly harder time this year and were a bit slower.
Extremely good navigational catch by them, well done guys. We made it to the hut together and, after saying ta-ra, we slipped and glooped our way down the next path.
CP11
It was about here that it started to turn from hail to rain. Again I was thankful for my Buffalo jacket keeping me warm. The track ran steadily down, through some old mine workings in an out of bounds area to the road.
Staightforward navigation at this point, and my recent lack of long distance running was starting to tell on my knees. We paused briefly at the road, dropped some Vitamin I, forced more food down and I fertilised some heather in the good ol' fashioned bear-in-the-woods kind of way. Amusingly, the first question Emma's son asked her when she got home was "did either of you do a poo outside?" How did he know?
Thankfully, energy was slowly returning, and things were improving. We came to the ford river crossing that we'd been warned about in the pre race briefing. Thankfully the river levels had dropped so it was only knee deep instead of upper thigh deep. Nevertheless it was quite refreshing thank you very much!
Emma requested a new earworm at this point, having had Imelda Staunton singing "A Squash And A Squeeze" on a loop in head from somewhere near the start. I kicked off an acapella "Bear Necessities" from the Jungle Book and Emma remembered the second verse better than I.
I remember being quite surprised coming across a control, only to realise it was the one that we'd been heading for!
Now it was head down for the last big climb.
CP12-Finish
We wound our way slowly up a long shallow gully up in the grey light of early winter morning. Fresh snow on the ground and beads of water sparkling in our headtorch beams and the mountains looming out of the grey behind us made for a magical feeling. I love this bit, when you've been out all night and the day breaks anew. Always gives me a real boost. I still had to resort to counting my footsteps and forcing a jelly baby down every 100 paces just to keep me going.
We overtook another team at the top and somehow found our seventh wind, jogging down towards Mungrisdale and enjoying the gradely view down Bullfell Beck valley. Emma was keen to make sure we didn't go past the next control
"If I have to go back up that hill then I'm not going to be a happy bunny!"
We found the sheepfold and the control, trotting off down the track on the home stretch.
CP13 was visible from a fair way off: daylight eh, great invention! We could see the event centre but were a bit miffed as we had to run away from it for the last control, then past it again to get to the bridge before we could jog down the road for our round of applause from the marshals manning the finish.
Hurrah, we did it!
Post Race
Emma downloaded our timings from the dibber whilst I handed back our GPS tracker. I wondered if anyone had been watching our finish on that internet. Our printout showed that we were currently in 3rd out of 8 finishers but we knew that there were more teams behind us and one mixed pair ahead of us so no trophy this year.
However we were very pleased to find out that we were indeed 3rd overall on the C course this year so, whilst no trophy, we still retained our position from last year. Big smiles all round.
I remember it taking a while to enjoy the breakfast last year but no trouble this year, I'd been looking forward to the hash browns and baked beans from about 2/3rds of the way around.
Whilst inhaling my breakfast I was chatting to a few other teams. A few guys on the C course who'd made similar mistakes to us. James from CP10 turned up so it was nice to catch up with him and see how they got on.
Two chaps on the Short Score course who had got back too late and lost all their points. Had they made it back in time, they could have won but they gambled and lost. We commiserated with them and I was reminded of a line from "If" by Rudyard Kipling
"If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,"
They were fairly upbeat about it and we changed the subject to discussing food. One had made some chocolate caramel shortbread and offered us some. We discussed the addition of sea salt to the caramel and he'd put some orange oil in there too. They headed off and we tried the goods, not bad but I thought my version I made before xmas was better - more salt Igor!. Turned out that this guy was a Great British Bake Off finalist from this year (Ian Cumming) - how about that!
Shane Ohly, the race director, did all the prize giving stuff and thanked all the marshals and volunteers - he is Mr. Positive! We trundled off home via the services for an espresso or two and back via the cheese shop to stock up on weapons grade brie for a much needed shower, gear drying and power nap!
Results
SI Entries results page is here
Live tracking including reply was here - http://live.marmot-dark-mountains.com but I expect it won't be there forever.
Strava log from the slightly grainy GPS tracker is here
23 miles / 37km
5545 feet / 1700m climbing
4383 calories
13 finishers on our course out of 23 starters,
Equipment
Event Musings
Aftermath
I feel like I've got really bad jet lag. This is how I felt at work on Monday (I wasn't actually asleep on my to do list, honest!)
Thankfully I had some steak and a beer when I got home which made everything alright again!
None of this would have been half as much fun without the other half of Team Spinach so thank you to Emma for putting up with me. Hopefully you enjoyed it as much as I did. Proper team effort and I'm very glad to have you as a racing buddy.
Same time next year I hope?
I love it when a plan comes together
It's been that time of year again where Team Spinach dust off their night navigation skills (wander round the moors looking confusedly at a compass), start a new performance diet (we've finished all the cheese from xmas) and turn our thoughts towards the Marmot Dark Mountains event (we did it last year and didn't die).
We felt a lot happier with our navigation skills from last year so our only real preparation was loosening the legs on the KCAC Wed night social fell runs and a quick test of bearing following in the dark on Ilkley Moor. I've been doing some cycling over winter and Emma threatened to break out her Nell McAndrew exercise DVD so we were in "good" shape.
This year the event was based in Mungrisdale village on the east side of the Northern Fells of the Lake District. It's a lovely little village with a nice looking pub, The Mill Inn, next to the beck. Must come back for a second visit.
Mungrisdale (C) Visit Cumbria
Get Set...
Kit check was very nearly a short affair as Emma had left her sleeping bag in the car but that was sorted out. Not as exhaustive a kit check this year; last time they wanted to see everything but I'm guessing with the much larger number of competitors this year that they just wanted to see the essentials. We got checked for sleeping bags, emergency bag, tent, torch, gloves and hats.
We spent a bit of time looking at the map and trying to guess where we would get sent. Thankfully the steep bit of Bannerdale Crags and the south sides of Blencathra (including Sharp Edge) and Skiddaw were all marked as out of bounds. Of course with the live tracking it would be simple for the organisers to check if anyone had infringed an out of bounds area - only one team was disqualified for this.
C course map, lots of squiggly lines
Even though we had a couple of hours to kill before the start it went quickly, filled with cups of tea, chatting to folk and packing our bags, getting ready. Emma debated what layers to wear and opted for warm and of course ended up having to de-layer on the first long climb. So it goes: be bold, start off cold!
Go!
CP 1-3
All that map studying meant we dibbed at the start and immediately set off in the right direction! Sometimes this is the easiest bit to get wrong.
A nice easy start saw us head out along the River Glenderamackin (superb name!) on a good path, picking up the first two controls before the long steady climb up to Mungrisdale Common, the col between Blencathra and Bannerdale Crags. This last bit up to the col was quite icy underfoot, thankfully not repeated anywhere else as I'd left my Kahtoola crampons in the car as I didn't expect them to be required.
One of the fun things about this kind of event is doing admin tasks like changing layers, getting food and drink, putting things away whilst on the move. It's made much easier with two, with the other ferreting around in your pack for the elusive sandwich or glove.
We were one of the last teams to start so most of the field were ahead of us. I think we overtook about 4 teams on this stretch and we certainly feel like we made an excellent start. Competitive Emma was making plans and Competitive James was making a rare appearance.
Anyway, we made it to the col and the wind, brrr, not hanging around here for long!
Us (68) putting in a good lead on our fellow competitors
CP4-5
We came a bit unstuck coming down to find checkpoint 4, being too far left. In the end we thought we were too low, discovered we were in fact too low but found it after relocating and taking a bearing off a pair of sheepfolds.
The track up to Skiddaw House went quickly and we took the opportunity to eat. I shoved half a pork pie down my neck and a piece of cake. We'll be hearing more about the pie later.
Last year, Emma's food had got all mushed up together and had accidentally invented the fruit cake, cheese and guacamole sandwich which, she maintained was surprisingly tasty. This year she decided to cut out the squashy middleman and lump it all together at the start. The considered opinion was that it didn't work quite as well this time but it was certainly worth a try. I'm sure I saw half of it go back in the pack uneaten.
Artists impression of the contrary cakey culinary curious concoction. Crikey!
At Skiddaw house we were warmly greeted by Emma's father-in-law Colin who was manning the show there. Although it looked very inviting inside we declined to stay and chat over a cocoa, quickly dibbed and then charged off towards the next checkpoint.
CP6
In our haste, we didn't check all of our options and by the time we were attacking the direct line and thigh deep heather slopes of Great Calva we realised there was a track marked on the west side of the hill that we'd not seen. Dur... So we cut across to the main path to pick it up after a scenic 800m detour.
One advantage of such a night time event is that the terrain doesn't intimidate you as much because you can't see it. As a result there were several times where the sight of a long climb would have perhaps depressed us, instead we could just see some torches in the distance encouraging us to go for it.
Thankfully the path up was a bit better despite the mud and ice. We both broke out our respective walking pole to aid out ascent - deploy the third leg!. There was someone taking photos by the control on the summit, he looked like he was freezing his bits off!
CP7-8
After following the fence down off the top of Great Calva we picked up the faint path towards the summit of Knott which we managed to track all the way. We followed a bearing to the main path coming off Great Sca Fell, aiming off ever so slightly and picking it up where Emma had expected to from pacing (go navigation!).
I had started to feel a bit queasy over the last few checkpoints and burping unwelcome greasy pastry burps from the pie and it wasn't getting any better. I managed to keep it down but wasn't putting anything in on top of it so I was starting to run a bigger deficit than George Osborne.
I forced down a hummus and beetroot pitta and some jelly babies and willed myself over the next hill, reminding myself that it will improve and I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Things were starting to head into Type 2 fun territory.
CP9
The route to 9 was not straightforward. Contour left around the hill? Climb up right then down the river? Nope. Go big or go home we said. Straight over Brae Fell and down the other side to pick up the gully then the second stream junction. Handrailing all the way made for simpler navigation if a slightly longer route. Both the first two teams contoured round the bottom of Brae Fell, most other people just charged straight over the top. According to the splits, contouring looked about 10 minutes quicker.
The teams contouring around the Bottom of Brae Fell got a Willy Knot! Ha!
#humourfor6and36yearolds
Like most of the stream gullys on this event it was a steep sided affair involving much hopping from bank to bank, steep contouring or just very wet feet. A combination of all three was applied! I did spot a very cool old mine tunnel heading into the hill from the side of the beck but now wasn't the time for subterranean shenannigans, we had a control to find!
It wasn't long before there were three teams all gathered at this one control at the same time, exchanging a small amount of banter. Everyone had a different idea of how to get to the next point, ours involving a short scramble out of the gorge using an old tree and following a bearing to pick up the next path to lead us to...
CP10
Ah, hello weather. Where have you been?
Horizontal hail was making things hard work. I put my goggles on and things improved, but Emma, normally a glasses wearer, struggled with hers making her vision more blurry. Urgh, this was not fun, distinctly Scottish conditions!
We followed our bearing and picked up a path going the right way (or was it...) following a pair of lads along it. They stopped, looking confused and we pooled our collective brain power which, at 5:45am and with no sleep, meant we could just about use words to make sentences. Just.
They pointed out that the uphill should be on our right, not left which meant we were on the wrong side of the hill. Amateur mistake, we hadn't gone far enough and picked up a parallel path. The wind, hail and tiredness had meant we weren't paying attention to the map. So we took a bearing for the CP, aiming off to allow us to make sure we hit the path before it and off we went.
Chatting to these lads it turned out they were Neil and James from just over the hill in Ilkley. I remembered them from last year as the two who had beaten us into 3rd place. They were having a slightly harder time this year and were a bit slower.
Extremely good navigational catch by them, well done guys. We made it to the hut together and, after saying ta-ra, we slipped and glooped our way down the next path.
CP11
It was about here that it started to turn from hail to rain. Again I was thankful for my Buffalo jacket keeping me warm. The track ran steadily down, through some old mine workings in an out of bounds area to the road.
Staightforward navigation at this point, and my recent lack of long distance running was starting to tell on my knees. We paused briefly at the road, dropped some Vitamin I, forced more food down and I fertilised some heather in the good ol' fashioned bear-in-the-woods kind of way. Amusingly, the first question Emma's son asked her when she got home was "did either of you do a poo outside?" How did he know?
Thankfully, energy was slowly returning, and things were improving. We came to the ford river crossing that we'd been warned about in the pre race briefing. Thankfully the river levels had dropped so it was only knee deep instead of upper thigh deep. Nevertheless it was quite refreshing thank you very much!
Emma requested a new earworm at this point, having had Imelda Staunton singing "A Squash And A Squeeze" on a loop in head from somewhere near the start. I kicked off an acapella "Bear Necessities" from the Jungle Book and Emma remembered the second verse better than I.
I remember being quite surprised coming across a control, only to realise it was the one that we'd been heading for!
Now it was head down for the last big climb.
CP12-Finish
We wound our way slowly up a long shallow gully up in the grey light of early winter morning. Fresh snow on the ground and beads of water sparkling in our headtorch beams and the mountains looming out of the grey behind us made for a magical feeling. I love this bit, when you've been out all night and the day breaks anew. Always gives me a real boost. I still had to resort to counting my footsteps and forcing a jelly baby down every 100 paces just to keep me going.
We overtook another team at the top and somehow found our seventh wind, jogging down towards Mungrisdale and enjoying the gradely view down Bullfell Beck valley. Emma was keen to make sure we didn't go past the next control
"If I have to go back up that hill then I'm not going to be a happy bunny!"
We found the sheepfold and the control, trotting off down the track on the home stretch.
CP13 was visible from a fair way off: daylight eh, great invention! We could see the event centre but were a bit miffed as we had to run away from it for the last control, then past it again to get to the bridge before we could jog down the road for our round of applause from the marshals manning the finish.
Hurrah, we did it!
Post Race
Emma downloaded our timings from the dibber whilst I handed back our GPS tracker. I wondered if anyone had been watching our finish on that internet. Our printout showed that we were currently in 3rd out of 8 finishers but we knew that there were more teams behind us and one mixed pair ahead of us so no trophy this year.
However we were very pleased to find out that we were indeed 3rd overall on the C course this year so, whilst no trophy, we still retained our position from last year. Big smiles all round.
Thankfully we didn't suffer from any of these
I remember it taking a while to enjoy the breakfast last year but no trouble this year, I'd been looking forward to the hash browns and baked beans from about 2/3rds of the way around.
Whilst inhaling my breakfast I was chatting to a few other teams. A few guys on the C course who'd made similar mistakes to us. James from CP10 turned up so it was nice to catch up with him and see how they got on.
Two chaps on the Short Score course who had got back too late and lost all their points. Had they made it back in time, they could have won but they gambled and lost. We commiserated with them and I was reminded of a line from "If" by Rudyard Kipling
"If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,"
They were fairly upbeat about it and we changed the subject to discussing food. One had made some chocolate caramel shortbread and offered us some. We discussed the addition of sea salt to the caramel and he'd put some orange oil in there too. They headed off and we tried the goods, not bad but I thought my version I made before xmas was better - more salt Igor!. Turned out that this guy was a Great British Bake Off finalist from this year (Ian Cumming) - how about that!
Shane Ohly, the race director, did all the prize giving stuff and thanked all the marshals and volunteers - he is Mr. Positive! We trundled off home via the services for an espresso or two and back via the cheese shop to stock up on weapons grade brie for a much needed shower, gear drying and power nap!
Results
SI Entries results page is here
Live tracking including reply was here - http://live.marmot-dark-mountains.com but I expect it won't be there forever.
Strava log from the slightly grainy GPS tracker is here
23 miles / 37km
5545 feet / 1700m climbing
4383 calories
13 finishers on our course out of 23 starters,
Equipment
- My Buffalo Systems Mountain Shirt absolutely thrives in these kind of conditions. I only saw one other Buffalo wearer, we shared a knowing nod and an amused glance at all the fancy brand names, knowing in our hearts that we were the true champions. In my imagination at least.
- Ronhills with waterproof trousers and Sealskins socks looked after the bottom half and I was just the right temperature all the way round. Comfortable in fact!
Event Musings
- Don't follow other people, pay attention to what you are doing
- More frequent reference to altimeter when navigating to a point on a hill to ensure we don't drop too low. This requires frequent resetting of the reference at known altitudes throughout the event to take into account the changing barometric pressure due to the weather. This would have sped up our location of checkpoint 4 for a start.
- I didn't really look after my food intake prior to and during the event so suffered a bit
- The maps were much more robust this year. Last year's map ended up looking slightly foxed but as the late Sir Terry Pratchett would have observed "...it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well." This year's map survived being dropped in four muddy puddles, washed in a river or two and folded intentionally and unintentionally every which way. It still looks in great nick!
- A well run and friendly event
Aftermath
I feel like I've got really bad jet lag. This is how I felt at work on Monday (I wasn't actually asleep on my to do list, honest!)
Thankfully I had some steak and a beer when I got home which made everything alright again!
I earned my point.
Monday, 19 October 2015
Friday Night Bikepacking Microadventure
My rucksack has oft been me pillow
The heather has oft been me bed
And sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead
Unlike Ewan, I've been faking it for years. I'm not a proper outdoorsman because I've never bivvied out. Never slept under the stars, just in a tent. Bit of a fraud really.
So to celebrate a good year of cycling, having clocked up nearly 2000 miles this year, I decided to break my bivvying duck, load up the mountain bike, head out after work on Friday night and do some some overnight bikepacking. There was a favourable forecast for the evening and, with autumn in full swing, night time temperatures were only going to fall. It was go tonight or wait another year, so...
Inspiration
I've been inspired by a chap I know on Strava via the Triban Owners group, called Dave Roe, who has a good line in epic cycle touring adventures including cycling round Iceland and a retirement ride from Turkey back home to Fleetwood near Blackpool. Reading his trip report about his culinary adventures, battles with mosquitos and joys of summiting the Stelvio Pass made me want to load up my bike and head off myself.
Another source of inspiration is adventurer Alastair Humphreys whose undertakings include cycling around the world, canoeing the Yukon river and hiking the 118 miles around the M25. Adventures of this scope don't sit with the 9-5, 5 day week that we all seem to end up with. Alastair works hard publicising the concept of the "microadventure" - something that is challenging yet accessible.
You do not need to fly to the other side of the planet to do an expedition.
You do not need to be an elite athlete, expertly trained, or rich to have an adventure.
Adventure is only a state of mind.
Adventure is stretching yourself; mentally, physically or culturally. It is about doing what you do not normally do, pushing yourself hard and doing it to the best of your ability.
We run a system of "Adventure Points" in our house. This is a way of encouraging the nippers to push themselves and try things that they wouldn't normally. For the promise of a chalk mark on a board? Pfft... Kids are mugs.
Still in the lead suckas!
It's a sliding scale. For example the kids get an adventure point for going camping or walking up a big (for them) hill. I have to go for a long walk or do a whole load of winter mountaineering to get just one. Because adventures are relative. Anyway, I need to stay one step ahead of the mob so lets go get another point!
For the promise of a chalk mark on a board? Pfft... mug!
Gearing Up
I'm a big fan of Alpkit gear - it ticks the boxes of light, simple, cheap and effective. They love their lightweight adventuring and bikepacking and have some great stuff for adventures. I used an Airlok Xtra drybag strapped to my handlebars with my sleeping stuff and jacket in and my faithful everyday commuting Gourdon rucksack for everything else. There's a Fuel Pod for my bar light battery and some tools too.
Other gear of note includes my PHD Minimus sleeping bag which weighs nothing and packs down to a ridiculously small size and is super warm. A pair of £5 fleece trousers that are the warmest thing known to man were stuffed in the bottom or the pack. Lastly, a big numb foam mat was strapped to my pack, rather spoiling the look of the whole thing...
I've used the website Lighterpack which is great for visualising just where the weight you are carrying is.
Herman in the bike rack at work, ready to go!
The red dry bag and top tube bag are colour coded with the bike fork and frame details. I'm not sure what this says about me.
Adventures!
I picked my way over the tops on quiet lanes and crossing busy main roads to reach the foot of the track that goes over Barden and Embsay Moor. I've ridden this a couple of times with Karl but always in the other direction. A long steady climb with some nice views over Upper and Lower Barden reservoirs in the fading light. I stopped to eat a banana and shelter from the wind in a shooting butt by the track, feeling a little chilly in my base layer and windproof.
It started to drizzle as the dark arrived quickly (as is it's wont at this time of year) and I got quite cold on the descent into Rylstone. I had to have a cereal bar (trying some from Aldi, yum!) and a word with myself before starting the long climb to Weets Top above Malham. I reasoned that I'd come this far and I had all my stuff with me so it would be a shame to bail out now just because I was having a bit of a sugar low.
As with all low times, they pass and you get back into the rhythm again. The climb up to Weets was grassy and steady and not too hard to follow in the dark. The rain had abated and the wind had died down allowing me to warm up a bit. I was tired at the top but still abandoned the bike to hike over to the trig point for a sit down and a another cereal bar.
Down the track and road, past Goredale Scar and into Malham by front brake pads had decided that they were worn out and the spring was rubbing on the disc with a nice ticketty-ticketty-ticketty noise. I considered stopping to replace the pads (always carry spares kids!) but that would have meant getting colder so I pressed on, mostly using the back brake for the rest of the ride.
There was a little bridleway leading out of Malham that joined up with the road above the cove. I started down it but the fist sized limestone rocks that lined the bottom put me off as I was too tired to fight / push my way up a more technical trail so I just slogged up the road. I'd been on the go for 3 1/2 hours now and was starting to struggle.The cove road out of Malham nearly finished me off so I stopped to shovel a load of fruit, nuts and oatcakes down my neck when I reached the bridleway turnoff. I started to feel a bit better after this, should have done it sooner.
I cracked on, slowly winding my way up and over Kirkby Fell and towards Stockdale Lane, reeling the summit in with my bottom gear and wobbly legs. The slippery, stony descent without a front brake or any energy was testing at times. I was very relieved to make the farm track and whiz down to the road.
Quite a challenging ride for me, especially with low energy and in the dark. Time to find somewhere to eat and sleep in that order!
Strava log
Bish Bosh Brew BivvyI'd had a look at the OS map before setting off and had spotted a couple of places that could be suitable. After a bit of poking around in a small wood with a stream running through it I found a nice flat spot next to a stream and underneath the remains of what looked like an old lime kiln. Nice and sheltered from the breeze, it even had a mobile signal so I could check in with Louise to let her know I hadn't yet been eaten by a curious badger.
After shooing some spiders out of the way and pulling on some warm clothes I got the stove on and climbed into my bivvy / sleeping bag. It was 10pm at this point and I was bloody starving! A mug of hot chocolate went down the hatch followed quickly by a couple of packets of meatballs in tomato sauce and a medicinal single malt - to keep the cold out you understand...
I was certainly warm enough in my awesome PHD sleeping bag and I drifted off to sleep looking up through the leaves, watching the Pleiades drift in and out of view behind the clouds and the odd plane blinking along.
I woke up at various times, once with a start when something flew down my neck, once for no reason and once when a pair of Tawny owls were hooting at each other and crashing through the foliage 5 metres above my head.
The next thing I know, my eyes are open and it's half seven and daylight. Good morning!
I'd certainly found a nice spot to camp, the leaves were all different colours and shades and it was all generally picture-skew.
I'd made a bag of muesli, milk powder, dried raspberry powder and sultanas for breakfast. Add hot water and away you go - yum - and more hot chocolate. Packed up, changed the brake pads on the bike (I was down to the metal) and rode down the hill into Settle. It was a lovely morning!
Arriving in plenty of time for the train I took the chance to get the worst of the muck off in the loos at Settle station, for my benefit and for my fellow passengers. The train was late coming in to Skipton meaning I missed my connection to Keighley so I pottered down the canal instead, enjoying the ride , the lack of hills, a couple of herons and a bacon butty from the tea van at Cononley. The butty was from the van, the herons were just bothering the fish on the canal and not in a sandwich. No sir.
Adventures are great, mountain biking is great, wild camping was great, but none as great as the shower I had when I got back home. Phew-wee I stank!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)