3 weeks to go until we leave. I'm trying (and failing) to resist getting excited.
I think I'm ready (which means I'm not at all ready). My kit list has more ticks than blank spaces, my spare room looks like someone ram-raided an outdoor shop, there are collection tins dotted around south Bristol and my wife is so bored of this subject she stopped talking to me weeks ago.
I've also started to commute into work with a nearly fully laden bike. As if riding a fatbike through the streets of Bristol wasn't enough to draw attention, now the thing is hung with bags and bottles and cages etc... It looks great; but subtle it aint! Surprisingly it's not much more difficult to ride. Yes, I've lost a few kph on my usual route, adding 8 minutes to a normally 45min journey. But what we're planning isn't a race, so it's about how we feel at the end of each ride, not how long it took.
That said, it was gratifying to get back onto my road bike this weekend for the first time in an age. Being able to compare pre-fatbike rides with post-fatbike is an eye-opener. Hills which previously took it out of me are comparatively simple affairs now. If Bradley Wiggins or Dave Brailsford is reading this (and I've little doubt they are... I'm told they're glued to this blog and hang on my every word); I'd suggest you train for everything on a fatbike. Riding anything else afterwards is like levitating.
On the fundraising front; the MNDA campaign is going pretty well. There's nearly £900 of sponsorship online (https://www.justgiving.com/Icelandic-Fatbike), and the tins are slowly filling up. The notable exception to this being The Hare pub on North St, where the tin is already full (amazing work!).
The Family Vincent also attended a MNDA fundraising event in Horfield at the weekend. The medieval recreation was particularly awesome, though also slightly reminiscent of the League of Gentleman. Still, anyone selfless enough to dress up in hessian and give up their weekends to charitable causes sits on a moral plain some way above my appreciation for historic battle tactics.
Further fundraising glory may also be found in the form of a Limited Edition print donated by the good (and profoundly potty-mouthed) men of Modern Toss. Unfortunately my enthusiasm for gratuitous swearing seems to be less widely shared than I assumed. As a result, the online auction of the print is proving to be a little disappointing. Hmm... I may need to dream up another plan for that particular venture. Perhaps a live auction in the pub after we get back from the trip. Alcohol is often at the heart of ill-thought-out decisions, so it could be a good place to get a stupid bidding war going on.
Speaking of becoming famous and retiring young (that's what the previous paragraphs were about right?); this blog was name-checked on the world famous Fat-Bike.com Radio Show. Yeah, I know?! I think I'm about 40-50mins in. You have to listen very very carefully. Very carefully. I'd suggest good headphones and quite a lot of patience is required. Still, that means this blog is now officially famous, and I don't need any of you hangers-on and groupies getting in the way of my ascent to stardom anymore. So do one yeah?
Tuesday 23 June 2015
Sunday 14 June 2015
Nutrition, Packing and a Trial Run
So, as I sit here watching the cricket and suffering with Sinusitis, I've got plenty of time to start tying up loose ends before we head off to Iceland in a month. Like 'how are we transporting the bikes?' and 'what are we going to eat?' and 'how the hell are we going to fit everything onto our bikes?'... You know, unimportant niggling little things like that.
I've said it before, but planning this trip has not been easy. I guess it's because we're bikepacking newbies. So we have absolutely none of the gear we need for this kind of trip. It turns out my tent is wrong (well, it's preposterously large, heavy and weak), my bags are wrong (an 80ltr rucksack is not advised), my stove is wrong, most of my clothes are wrong. At the start of this I didn't have a bike, bags, spares, maps and a host of other things it seems are essential if I want to survive.
And it's not like I don't mind using what I've already got, but my mountaineering boots are wrong, using my road bike would be suicidal, and apparently having a route in mind is deemed wise (I'm still not convinced on that last one).
So when I say that planning is not easy, I think what I'm trying to say is that this trip is proving to be a bit of a gear-fest. And that's because we're starting from first principles. The next trip (I hope my wife doesn't read this bit) should be a doddle.
But despite the fact that the cupboard was very much bare when we started planning, we're pretty much ready. So ready in fact, that we managed a trial run up on the Quantocks last week. It was useful to try the bikes (nearly) fully loaded, to see how we're going to pitch the tent while pretending the weather wasn't glorious (this is where we learned that the current tent sucks) and to sit out and just enjoy being in the middle of nowhere. It was good fun, with the notable exception of the food. The food was sodding awful.
"So what are you planning on eating?" I hear none of you asking. Well, I've been researching food to a ridiculous extent too. And it turns out that Bachelors Super Noodles contain pretty much the same calorific content as those posh dried food ration packs they sell for £5 a go in the local Outdoor shop. Yes, I'll confess that Super-noodles are neither super nor, probably, noodles. But they fill you up, are light, are full of energy and they're very very cheap. Nonetheless, with something like 9 to 10 days of food needing to be carried, there's simply no way to haul everything we need. So we're going to be running at a fairly high calorie deficit throughout. I can only hope that where we cross main roads (such as Myvatn) we can find a nearby shop or garage! Otherwise we're going to be hungry.
Another box ticked is the bikepacking bags. If you're not already familiar with this stuff (and judging by the traffic sources to this blog, most of you know WAY more about this than I do), then there's a new(ish) move away from traditional panniers and racks, and towards bags which attach directly onto the bike. I'm led to believe that the main reason for this is so that you don't have to rely on a rack which, were it to break, would leave you utterly buggered in the middle of nowhere (after all, who packs a MIG welding kit in their spares?).
So the bags I'll be using are mounted to the bars (Wildcat - Fat Leopard), the seat-post and saddle (Alpkit - Kaola), the forks (5ltr dry bags on Salsa - Anything Cages) and inside the main triangle of the frame (Alpamayo Designs - Frame Bag). No doubt experienced readers will be wondering about the last one. This is a very new (so new they haven't launched officially yet) bike bag company set up by a friend of a friend. We're very fortunate in having a couple of their custom made (pre-production) bags. And with absolutely no loyalty at all, I can say that they really do look the business. Time will tell what they're like in the 'real world', but first impressions are very positive indeed. I've uploaded a few images.
So what have we got left to sort out? Not a lot really. Though we still have to work out how we're actually getting our bikes to Iceland. They're booked onto the plane, but do they go in (hugely expensive) padded/hard cases? Or do they go in clear plastic bags. The latter apparently protect your bike because the baggage handlers are less likely to stomp on something when they can see what it is? Hmm... While there is some logic to that, all it would take is one careless/hungover handler, and the trip is over.
Well, there's still time to sort that out. 4 weeks seems like a long long time away and I'm not a patient man.
I've said it before, but planning this trip has not been easy. I guess it's because we're bikepacking newbies. So we have absolutely none of the gear we need for this kind of trip. It turns out my tent is wrong (well, it's preposterously large, heavy and weak), my bags are wrong (an 80ltr rucksack is not advised), my stove is wrong, most of my clothes are wrong. At the start of this I didn't have a bike, bags, spares, maps and a host of other things it seems are essential if I want to survive.
And it's not like I don't mind using what I've already got, but my mountaineering boots are wrong, using my road bike would be suicidal, and apparently having a route in mind is deemed wise (I'm still not convinced on that last one).
So when I say that planning is not easy, I think what I'm trying to say is that this trip is proving to be a bit of a gear-fest. And that's because we're starting from first principles. The next trip (I hope my wife doesn't read this bit) should be a doddle.
But despite the fact that the cupboard was very much bare when we started planning, we're pretty much ready. So ready in fact, that we managed a trial run up on the Quantocks last week. It was useful to try the bikes (nearly) fully loaded, to see how we're going to pitch the tent while pretending the weather wasn't glorious (this is where we learned that the current tent sucks) and to sit out and just enjoy being in the middle of nowhere. It was good fun, with the notable exception of the food. The food was sodding awful.
"So what are you planning on eating?" I hear none of you asking. Well, I've been researching food to a ridiculous extent too. And it turns out that Bachelors Super Noodles contain pretty much the same calorific content as those posh dried food ration packs they sell for £5 a go in the local Outdoor shop. Yes, I'll confess that Super-noodles are neither super nor, probably, noodles. But they fill you up, are light, are full of energy and they're very very cheap. Nonetheless, with something like 9 to 10 days of food needing to be carried, there's simply no way to haul everything we need. So we're going to be running at a fairly high calorie deficit throughout. I can only hope that where we cross main roads (such as Myvatn) we can find a nearby shop or garage! Otherwise we're going to be hungry.
Another box ticked is the bikepacking bags. If you're not already familiar with this stuff (and judging by the traffic sources to this blog, most of you know WAY more about this than I do), then there's a new(ish) move away from traditional panniers and racks, and towards bags which attach directly onto the bike. I'm led to believe that the main reason for this is so that you don't have to rely on a rack which, were it to break, would leave you utterly buggered in the middle of nowhere (after all, who packs a MIG welding kit in their spares?).
So the bags I'll be using are mounted to the bars (Wildcat - Fat Leopard), the seat-post and saddle (Alpkit - Kaola), the forks (5ltr dry bags on Salsa - Anything Cages) and inside the main triangle of the frame (Alpamayo Designs - Frame Bag). No doubt experienced readers will be wondering about the last one. This is a very new (so new they haven't launched officially yet) bike bag company set up by a friend of a friend. We're very fortunate in having a couple of their custom made (pre-production) bags. And with absolutely no loyalty at all, I can say that they really do look the business. Time will tell what they're like in the 'real world', but first impressions are very positive indeed. I've uploaded a few images. 
So what have we got left to sort out? Not a lot really. Though we still have to work out how we're actually getting our bikes to Iceland. They're booked onto the plane, but do they go in (hugely expensive) padded/hard cases? Or do they go in clear plastic bags. The latter apparently protect your bike because the baggage handlers are less likely to stomp on something when they can see what it is? Hmm... While there is some logic to that, all it would take is one careless/hungover handler, and the trip is over.Well, there's still time to sort that out. 4 weeks seems like a long long time away and I'm not a patient man.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)