Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
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Heltor Chasca
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by Heltor Chasca »

Here's a good read: http://www.theecologist.org/reviews/boo ... empel.html

I didn't fall out any trees today BTW, I ended up planting more instead. Where does that leave me on my book challenge?

I think I'll buy it anyway! [emoji1]
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smith4188
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by smith4188 »

Heltor Chasca wrote:Here's a good read: http://www.theecologist.org/reviews/boo ... empel.html

I didn't fall out any trees today BTW, I ended up planting more instead. Where does that leave me on my book challenge?

I think I'll buy it anyway! [emoji1]


Thank you. I'm glad you survived. And yes, that's a very good book, the one that actually inspired this trip. Happy planting!
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khain
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by khain »

Sounds very interesting. Will your blog have an RSS feed? I don't use Twitter or Facebook but would like to follow this. What technology will you be using to record the trip and how will you power it?

What sort of daily mileage are you planning? Getting enough calories will be tough. Catching fish takes time and eating seaweed and nettles will soon get really tiresome. I've tried fishing/foraging on tour and at the end of the day you really want stodge. Still, if you've prepared mentally for a while it should be easier. Have you much foraging/fishing experience?
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smith4188
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by smith4188 »

khain wrote:Sounds very interesting. Will your blog have an RSS feed? I don't use Twitter or Facebook but would like to follow this. What technology will you be using to record the trip and how will you power it? What sort of daily mileage are you planning? Getting enough calories will be tough. Catching fish takes time and eating seaweed and nettles will soon get really tiresome. I've tried fishing/foraging on tour and at the end of the day you really want stodge. Still, if you've prepared mentally for a while it should be easier. Have you much foraging/fishing experience?


I'll probably just be posting to Facebook via my Kindle (no computer), so no real blog as I go but, if enough interesting things happen, there will be a book at the end of it. Maybe I can find a way programmatically to have the FB posts also recorded on my website to make it accessible to everyone. I want to keep technology to a minimum but I'll probably charge what I have via dynamo. None of the solar panel options seem to work well enough, unless you know otherwise.

It's 6,000 km in 100 days and so 60 km a day, giving plenty of time to forage and fish. And yes, I can imagine that there will be a few foods that I never eat again after this trip having got utterly sick of them on the road. I just want to see 1) if it's possible at all and 2) if it's actually enjoyable. I'm also looking forward to losing quite a bit of weight.

I've some foraging experience, more so here in Spain than in the UK, but I've a small stack of relevant Collins Gems from which to learn and I'll educate myself as much as possible before we begin. I've also done some fishing but I'm no expert.
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Rogo
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by Rogo »

Are you hoping to use the kindness of strangers along the route for showers/sofa surfing/warm meals?

I'm away touring until Oct, but if you're around the Liverpool area any time after that, all of the above will be available to you.
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smith4188
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by smith4188 »

Rogo wrote:Are you hoping to use the kindness of strangers along the route for showers/sofa surfing/warm meals? I'm away touring until Oct, but if you're around the Liverpool area any time after that, all of the above will be available to you.


That's very kind of you, thanks. Unfortunately the ride will be over by October.

My rule is that I'm allowed to accept offers of food, beds, etc. but I can't put myself in a situation where those offers are more likely. I really want to see what is possible from nature rather than bumming off others. I doubt I'll get many spontaneous offers anyway. In my experience of cycling around Europe, very little is offered freely by the relatively rich folk in western Europe but in the east, especially in the poorest countries, they came thick and fast.

Thanks once again!
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Sweep
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by Sweep »

I can thoroughly reccomend steven's previous book - one of the best cycling books i have ever read.**

Unfortunately i won't be able to join you on this ride.

Isn't one of the conditions that you need to give consent to be filmed?

** though am seriously concerned, after reading it, how this latest trip is going to be managed without beer.
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smith4188
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by smith4188 »

Sweep wrote:I can thoroughly reccomend steven's previous book - one of the best cycling books i have ever read.**


Cheers, Sweep!

Sweep wrote:Isn't one of the conditions that you need to give consent to be filmed?


Originally, friends of mine were planning to travel down in a van with us filming the whole thing. That's fallen through for their own personal reasons. I will hopefully have a Go Pro and I'll film bits but it won't be the full length programme they were hoping to make. If someone wanted to come but absolutely refused to be filmed, then I'd find a way to include them.

Sweep wrote:** though am seriously concerned, after reading it, how this latest trip is going to be managed without beer.


Me too, me too.
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khain
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by khain »

I'm sure there must be a way of linking a blog to Facebook, Twitter etc so you don't need to update them separately. It's something I've been meaning to look into. You're right about solar not being up to much. I haven't used a dynamo but if you're just using a Kindle you shouldn't need much power. In fact a small solar panel would probably work. Don't know how you'd access wifi though.

I would try and get someone along with lots of foraging experience. Identifying plants and fungi can be tricky, even with a book, and a mistake will be costly. It's not something you want to be learning on the road when tired and hungry.

I reckon £1 a day is doable if you can find wild camps every night, but that could be tricky along the coast, particularly in England and Wales. You'd be better heading up the Scandinavian or Scottish coast. Better fishing (maybe not Scotland) and wild camping is legal. I suspect you'll end up cycling much further than you intended each day simply because of a lack of camping places and the need to pitch after dark. Does the £1 include spares and repairs and ferry crossings?

I'm looking forward to reading about this. Despite all the enormous advances in living standards over the last few thousand years I'm by no means convinced that modern life is superior to that of a hunter-gathering existence, and almost certainly the lives of 99% of people living in Britain over the last few thousand years would have been worse. I suspect the hardest trial you'll have on the trip is simply finding a place to peacefully pitch your tent every night.
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smith4188
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by smith4188 »

khain wrote:Don't know how you'd access wifi though.


With the original Kindle (not sure about newer ones) you access the internet with their 'experimental' (i.e. rubbish) browser via Amazon's Whispernet, which means, unbelievably, it's free. The browser is almost unusable, unless of course you're trying to live on £1 per day.

khain wrote:I would try and get someone along with lots of foraging experience. Identifying plants and fungi can be tricky, even with a book, and a mistake will be costly. It's not something you want to be learning on the road when tired and hungry.


An expert would be great but we'll have to work with what we have. Besides, we won't come across many mushrooms given the time of year (except possibly wet north-west of Spain in early autumn). I'm aware of the old forager-bold forager rhyme. I won't take any chances.

khain wrote:I reckon £1 a day is doable if you can find wild camps every night, but that could be tricky along the coast, particularly in England and Wales. You'd be better heading up the Scandinavian or Scottish coast. Better fishing (maybe not Scotland) and wild camping is legal. I suspect you'll end up cycling much further than you intended each day simply because of a lack of camping places and the need to pitch after dark. Does the £1 include spares and repairs and ferry crossings?


Wild camping the whole way is the plan. Forget the legality. The fact that a human is not legally allowed to sleep in the open air is a law that I think should be broken en masse, like the mass trespass of Kinder Scott. It won't be the only illegal act. You're not allowed to fish in the sea in Spain and Portugal without a licence, and yet it will be impossible to get one. I appreciate the need for lake and river licences. The need for a sea licence is abhorrent. (This type of law isn't unique in Spain. If you want to produce your own solar electricity in Spain, you must be connected to the grid and pay tax on the electricity you yourself generate. Or pay a truly massive fine.)

I'm hoping to find a way to cross the Channel within our budget. I have a few possibilities. If none of them work out then it will have to be exempted. Bike spares are included in the budget.

khain wrote:I'm looking forward to reading about this. Despite all the enormous advances in living standards over the last few thousand years I'm by no means convinced that modern life is superior to that of a hunter-gathering existence, and almost certainly the lives of 99% of people living in Britain over the last few thousand years would have been worse. I suspect the hardest trial you'll have on the trip is simply finding a place to peacefully pitch your tent every night.


There's a certain romanticising about hunter-gathering, but I'm interested to see how my mood is affected when my main priority is finding food. Will the freedom of it all induce some sort of euphoria or will I be as depressed as George Orwell in Down and Out in Paris and London? Dunno. It's an experiment. I'll do my damnedest to get to the end regardless of how miserable it might become. But maybe it will be wonderful. I hope so.
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theDaveB
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by theDaveB »

khain wrote:I'm sure there must be a way of linking a blog to Facebook, Twitter etc so you don't need to update them separately. It's something I've been meaning to look into.


If you use Wordpress there are plugins that will post to Twitter and facebook when you make a post.

But the Wordpress admin will not work on a crappy browser, you would need to enable posts by email. So you make the post as a email and send it to your blog.

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beardy
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by beardy »

Bike spares are included in the budget


Gulp!

I think forty miles a day would average out at twice your budget for my cheapest bike!

A thought that I have looking at your plan is that a larger group will have to split any finds into smaller portions. To be more effective (hunter)gatherers you should possibly split up for stretches and take different routes in order to increase your foraging area.
The man who inspired this had 17 acres to feed just himself?

I remember seeing nice pickings in France but that would be mostly stealing, either from the edges of fields or overhanging trees. Again one person can "get away with it" but taking to feed a group will be seen as more significant.
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smith4188
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by smith4188 »

beardy wrote:I think forty miles a day would average out at twice your budget for my cheapest bike!


Really? I haven't spent anything like that much. If the bikes are in good condition before we start and we already have a couple of inner tubes and a spare tyre before we get going we shouldn't need much on the road.

beardy wrote:A thought that I have looking at your plan is that a larger group will have to split any finds into smaller portions. To be more effective (hunter)gatherers you should possibly split up for stretches and take different routes in order to increase your foraging area.


Yep, that's the plan. Depending on where we are, someone fishing, someone looking along the shore, another a little inland, to get the best variety.

beardy wrote:The man who inspired this had 17 acres to feed just himself?


He did, but he didn't venture any further afield - we have 6,000 km of territory - and he had no sea fishing possibilities. He also didn't have £1 a day. It might not sound much but it will buy flour, salt, sugar, oil, stock cubes, etc. On the other hand, he also wasn't travelling 6,000 km.

beardy wrote:I remember seeing nice pickings in France but that would be mostly stealing, either from the edges of fields or overhanging trees.


Overhanging trees are fair game, but I won't trespass.

beardy wrote:Again one person can "get away with it" but taking to feed a group will be seen as more significant.


I've had a handful of people write to me to say they are interested but, aside from one of them, each has a reason why it might not be possible. If we're a group, we won't be a big group and I'm preparing myself for the possibility of doing the majority of this alone. I hope I don't have to though.
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beardy
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by beardy »

If the bikes are in good condition before we start and we already have a couple of inner tubes and a spare tyre before we get going we shouldn't need much on the road.


Ah, different accounting styles. I take the sum of my outlay and divide it by the number of miles cycled so far.

So my newest bike is "costing me" 10p per mile just for the frame and forks at the moment.

The older bikes are down to near just the running costs which are nearer 5p/mile but if as you say you start off with a set of brand new consumables then you can mostly avoid outlay during the trip.

Is it "allowed" to exchange services for food? I have had opportunities on my travels to get a meal and board in return for some small job. This was once common practice in NZ.
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jamesgilbert
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Re: Unique Cycling Tour...Riders Wanted

Post by jamesgilbert »

It's a shame that websites like this one aren't more popular: http://www.urbanforager.org.uk/

In some towns especially, you often see fruit trees in the autumn covered in ripe apples or plums or whatever, most of which end up rotting on the floor. There used to be a map of Sheffield like this when I lived there, but I can't find it now.

A place I worked at had lots of Alpine strawberries planted, with signs saying that they were intended for people to eat them, but no-one ever did. Maybe because there were no best before dates? :wink:
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