Does your bike leave your side?

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
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Moonwai
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Joined: 5 Mar 2015, 11:47am

Does your bike leave your side?

Post by Moonwai »

I have been doing a lot of reading about touring trips and reading a lot of touring journals on crazyguyonabike.com and one of the things I have been wondering is...

If you are away on a round the world trip lets say and are camping every night, where do you keep your bike if you want to go on a walk through a village and take some photos etc or is the bike always by your side?
mercalia
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Joined: 22 Sep 2013, 10:03pm
Location: london South

Re: Does your bike leave your side?

Post by mercalia »

u take your bike for walkies on a lead?
eileithyia
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Location: Horwich Which is Lancs :-)

Re: Does your bike leave your side?

Post by eileithyia »

depends on the distance from campsite to village i guess, but usually just leave bike behind.... with a lock to prevent opportunist walk off with it... but most rural places it is unlikely a bike would be targetted as they would need to know you are arriving....
I stand and rejoice everytime I see a woman ride by on a wheel the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood. HG Wells
tatanab
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Re: Does your bike leave your side?

Post by tatanab »

Moonwai wrote: where do you keep your bike if you want to go on a walk through a village and take some photos etc or is the bike always by your side?
The same applies when you go to take a shower or into the toilet block. Do you take it with you? The sensible answer is to judge each situation individually. I leave mine locked to something like a tree, or even a hedge or a fence - just to make things difficult. Then, off I go for a shower. The circumstances are surely no different than when you go into a café/bank/museum etc which is often discussed here.
Moonwai
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Joined: 5 Mar 2015, 11:47am

Re: Does your bike leave your side?

Post by Moonwai »

But what about if you have valuables in your panniers like laptop/tablet and camera etc. Have to carry all these things around everywhere you go without your bike?
wirral_cyclist
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Location: Wirral Merseyside

Re: Does your bike leave your side?

Post by wirral_cyclist »

Moonwai wrote:But what about if you have valuables in your panniers like laptop/tablet and camera etc. Have to carry all these things around everywhere you go without your bike?


Depends if you're bothered about them being nicked, if it bothers you then carry them for safety, if not then chance it.

A tablet and camera and perhaps even a netbook? would go in a handlebar bag - but as that's all your eggs in one basket you'd need to be careful...
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foxyrider
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Re: Does your bike leave your side?

Post by foxyrider »

You have to take a chance at some point. Be sensible, don't flash your kit about, if you leave valuables in the tent keep them away from the door and maybe hidden with the dirty/smelly washing! Camping always involves a high degree of trust, lets face it, any tent can be accessed very easily but on a campsite there are generally a lot of more nickable goods lying about or left in the caravans/campers. I must admit to getting a bit blasé when I'm away in Europe but you need to assess things as you go - an urban site surrounded by social housing will have me taking more care than a rural site ten miles from nowhere.

I've been camping since the mid sixties and neither I nor my family have had anything stolen on a campsite from a tent or caravan - in fact the only recurring item stolen has been ill advisably stored gas bottles from a caravan in storage, you don't do that a second time!
Convention? what's that then?
Airnimal Chameleon touring, Orbit Pro hack, Orbit Photon audax, Focus Mares AX tour, Peugeot Carbon sportive, Owen Blower vintage race - all running Tulio's finest!
simonhill
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Re: Does your bike leave your side?

Post by simonhill »

From reading the first post, I took it that he was talking about wild camping in far away lands, rather than a French campsite.

I often travel in faraway lands, but I don't camp. Partly for security reasons (ie having a hotel to store all my stuff in) and partly because hotels are often so cheap that camping is an unnecessary hassle. Nonetheless, I would imagine that when wild camping most people wouldn't leave their tent unattended for more than a few minutes. A modern tent with all its goodies, not to mention a bike would be a very tempting target for many people. Even if theft wasn't an issue, then touching and investigating your stuff probably would be.

When I first cycled in India nearly 20 years ago my bike was like a space craft compared to the local machines as such, attracted all sort of interest. Not malicious, but the twiddlers as I called them would touch and fiddle with everything that moved. For this reason I always tried to keep it in my hotel room with me.

I haven't been to India for a while, but find that in other parts of Asia I am much less paranoid now. Partly due to complacency, but also local bikes have changed so much that compared to their multigeared disc brake, full suspension (cheap rubbish) bikes, mine doesnt look much. Straight bars also help to make it look less exotic. Hence it is currently locked to the fire escape ladder in the hotel garage/bikepark downstairs at the time of writing. I just hope it is still there tomorrow morning!!
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