Solo Gravel Safety

[Ming the Merciless]

If you do limp to civilisation, leaving your bike behind, remember where you left it so that you can retrieve it later on!

This is where marking it with a waypoint works well. Either on a paper map on a physical GPS.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I'm expecting that there's some ability on the part of the lost rider.
If he doesn't know which way he's going or what a cliff looks like how did he even plan his route ?

You must agree that locating yourself is easier with a GPS device ?

They downloaded a GPX or route off a website and followed the line on the device. No need to map read. As long as they only need to follow the line that works great. But gives little context of the wider area around them.

There have been a number of cases of people following a route on their phone. Phone battery going dead and then they need rescuing.

 

[Joffey]

I did download the GPX route from a website. I know the nearby roads quite well but have never ventured up that particular path before so once I was up there the only way I could have got myself down was to retrace my steps.

At the summit of that climb it was featureless apart from the odd valley. You could probably work out where you are using a compass and an OS map (of which I had neither) if not relying on an offline phone map.

I also dropped my phone at the top so cold have broke it - if anything this thread has made me realise that I need some kind of hard copy map and compass if venturing off on my own again. The frame bag with kit in it is the direction I'm going to go for future solo trips.

Oh and a whistle - good tip that.

 

[Baldy]

The down side of using OS maps is on a long trip you can end up carrying quite a library. On my Badgers Divide trip I had I think it was 8 maps. On the route I used the Wahoo coupled with RidewithGPS and viewranger. I have a power bank for recharging.

 

[MichaelW2]

Star Trek gave us the mobile phone.
Red Planet gave us foldable/rolling self orienting digital maps. Still waiting....

 

[Blue Hills]

I did download the GPX route from a website. I know the nearby roads quite well but have never ventured up that particular path before so once I was up there the only way I could have got myself down was to retrace my steps.

At the summit of that climb it was featureless apart from the odd valley. You could probably work out where you are using a compass and an OS map (of which I had neither) if not relying on an offline phone map.

I also dropped my phone at the top so cold have broke it - if anything this thread has made me realise that I need some kind of hard copy map and compass if venturing off on my own again. The frame bag with kit in it is the direction I'm going to go for future solo trips.

Oh and a whistle - good tip that.

apologies if missed a point - read thread quickly - I would consider getting something like one of the Garmin Etrex20 series - handheld so good off the bike if you need to walk - damn tough - run off two AAs which can be rechargeable and you can take spares - I would always take spare batteries for my garmin on a day ride even if the batteries seem fine/fully charged - you can get sudden drop offs whenever you have two cells.

 

[ColinJ]

As for the map reading thing...

I was watching Aussie Gold Hunters a few nights ago and one of the prospectors wandered off in the bush without his walkie talkie or GPS. It took a while to find him. A map would have been completely useless because for many kms there were only tens of thousands of bushes, trees, and vast patches of dirt. No landmarks whatsoever.

I imagine that a GPS device could be more use than a map in many dense forests?

When I cycle somewhere new I have the route on my GPS, which does not have any mapping - I just follow a route line. I also put the route on my phone, which has all the OS maps for the UK on it. For me to get lost, either the GPS satellites would have to fail, or both of my devices simultaneously.

I have only had one GPS failure in 15 years, which was due to a rechargeable battery suddenly dying. It didn't run out of charge, it lost its ability to hold the charge it had been given a couple of hours earlier. Carrying a couple of spare AA batteries would deal with that issue.

 

[Gillstay]

I think your missing the point. We don't have deserts or dense forests !

 

[Ming the Merciless]

As for the map reading thing...

I was watching Aussie Gold Hunters a few nights ago and one of the prospectors wandered off in the bush without his walkie talkie or GPS. It took a while to find him. A map would have been completely useless because for many kms there were only tens of thousands of bushes, trees, and vast patches of dirt. No landmarks whatsoever.

That is where the compass comes in. Rare that you’ll be using a map without a compass in featureless terrain. On glaciers you also supplement that with an altimeter watch for navigation. But for UK; map and compass are reliable and work in any upland terrain featureless or not.

 

[Baldy]

I think your missing the point. We don't have deserts or dense forests !

We might not have deserts but I know lots of dense forests, mostly not far from where I live.

 

[uphillstruggler]

The real issue is not how much kit/tech you take but having the knowledge to use it, the sense to plan a route and inform the relevant people that need to know and to have the gumption to not ride beyond your limits

You may never need the contents of your new frame bag, but in a difficult situation, you’d rather be looking at it than for it

Best of luck to the OP, hopefully we will get to see some pictures of their routes as I don’t get to ride the Yorkshire dales so it would be good to see what I am missing

 

[classic33]

I think your missing the point. We don't have deserts or dense forests !

We do however still have featureless terrain. That boulder you passed by at the roadside wasn't there a similar one further back?

For me, the reliance on electronic aids to get about has led to a decrease in people's ability to just get out there and enjoy the countryside. The attitude of "I've a mobile phone, I'll use that to get help if I get into trouble", is the bigger problem. And it' usually when it's needed it let's you down.

Enjoying the countryside, can be as simple as actually noticing that fields may actually have livestock in them. Or they're being cut, having slurry spread over them(That's what that smell was/is). The subtle changes in the landscape. You're now above the local treeline, looking down at what are, now you have time to look, actually planted not natural growth. There's no "black art" to being able to follow a route, deviate from it and then get back onto it. There's little stopping you from exploring off the beaten track. But as the location gets more remote, it draws more on your ability to work out which way you should be going.

Get out there, enjoy your surroundings, and travel a bit further the next time.

 

[ColinJ]

That is where the compass comes in. Rare that you’ll be using a map without a compass in featureless terrain. On glaciers you also supplement that with an altimeter watch for navigation. But for UK; map and compass are reliable and work in any upland terrain featureless or not.

How does that work? If you can't see anything but trees and you don't know where you are, how does the compass help?

I could see how you could navigate by taking a bearing to e.g. a distinctive bend in a river, the edge of a clearing, whatever...

 

[Ming the Merciless]

How does that work? If you can't see anything but trees and you don't know where you are, how does the compass help?

I could see how you could navigate by taking a bearing to e.g. a distinctive bend in a river, the edge of a clearing, whatever...

Well you take back bearings on the way out and pace it. Marking your passage with a machete if necessary. Basic nav.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

If we are not taking the Australian outback. Then you just choose a bearing and walk on it till you emerge. In the UK it’ll get you out of the woods in a not that long time. Even in Australia you’d have some idea of where the track / dirt road (that you came from) runs . So you’d set a bearing guaranteed to intercept it. You are aiming to intercept what’s called a hand rail in nav.

The only reason you don't know where you are is because you weren’t navigating to get their originally.