Water fountains?

[matticus]

In the UK, cemetries are probably the most numerous (and less likely to be barriered/turned off currently). even then, they're more of an opportunist thing than something you can plan. And sometimes they use water butts in this enlightened age.
With shops, you can plan ahead - but like a few others here, I'm not enthusiastic about using them (but I would do as a last resort). I'd be a lot happier next weekend than over the VE weekend - but it's clearly still a personal choice :/

(and talking of personal choices ... even in peace-time I hate buying water in plastic bottles, in a country where we have drinkable mains water. It's not a cost thing, honest! Although it IS crazy expensive in most shops...)

This is a very similar issue to a discussion had by tourers/audaxers over the ages. Especially hot days in rural france (where everything shuts just when you most need food/drink :P )

I'm anticipating a lot of discussion of refuelling tactics when/if audaxers are allowed out to play "officially" again. 200k in hot weather needs a lot of carrying capacity!

 

[Globalti]

Bottled water costs, what, £1 to £2 a litre depending on the label? Sometimes a tenner or even more in showing-off restaurants.

Tap water cost £0.016 a litre last time I could be bothered to work it out, which is why I won't buy the bottled stuff on principle unless I really am stuck. But now with the news of beaver fever in Scotland I'm going to have to be a bit more careful drinking from streams if there are trees upstream from me.

 

[Moodyman]

I would ask for a refill but not from the hosepipe. You have no idea where the end of it has been recently. Most people are cooperative and the only place I was refused was a filling station and garage on Skye a few years ago.

I don't understand the logic of refusal. Water, is a necessity of life after oxygen. I refuse to pay for something so basic.

I've been refused once. It was a newsagent type shop in a large market town. I was buying a few mid ride snacks and the shopkeeper refused to fill my bottle from the sink behind him.

I left the snacks on the counter and walked out.

I understand a shop might be on a meter, but I can't envisage an 800ml bottle costing more than a fraction of a penny.

To the OP, cemeteries and churches are a good source. I've often stopped by people sat in the garden and never been refused.

 

[Globalti]

I was refused a glass of tap water for my child by the owner of a cafe called Rumbletums in Ramsbottom where we had ordered food. He whined about water rates and people who expect free glasses of water. I told my son to get up and we walked out.

 

[HLaB]

Bottled water costs, what, £1 to £2 a litre depending on the label? Sometimes a tenner or even more in showing-off restaurants.

Tap water cost £0.016 a litre last time I could be bothered to work it out, which is why I won't buy the bottled stuff on principle unless I really am stuck. But now with the news of beaver fever in Scotland I'm going to have to be a bit more careful drinking from streams if there are trees upstream from me.

That is one of the reasons I wont buy bottled water either. The worst case of Peckham springs I saw in a documentary reinforced my attitude. Somewhere in Africa the only source of water was a river and folk were dying of Cholera. A British charity tried to address by finding a clean water source. They did. It was so clean/pure however, that a bottling plant set up on it and fenced it off. The locals still have to drink from the river

 

[Globalti]

Unfortunately that's typical of what happens in Africa when aid turns up; some greedy politician or businessman just steals it.

 

[lazybloke]

I was refused a glass of tap water for my child by the owner of a cafe called Rumbletums in Ramsbottom where we had ordered food. He whined about water rates and people who expect free glasses of water. I told my son to get up and we walked out.

A cafe /restaurant who is licenced to sell booze has a legal obligation to provide tap water free of charge. There are caveats and exemptions of course.
I once argued it on a P&O Ferry; pretty sure they had an exemption for not being on a rising main, but my patience was eventually rewarded with a glass of discoloured, desalinated sea water.

 

[rogerzilla]

my patience was eventually rewarded with a glass of discoloured, desalinated sea water.

That they told you was discoloured, desalinated sea water...

 

[lazybloke]

That they told you was discoloured, desalinated sea water...

Well I saw it come out of a tap.
Maybe a tap on a waste tank?

 

[PK99]

I was refused a glass of tap water for my child by the owner of a cafe called Rumbletums in Ramsbottom where we had ordered food. He whined about water rates and people who expect free glasses of water. I told my son to get up and we walked out.

So you asked for a free service, and your request was refused.

 

[Globalti]

So you asked for a free service, and your request was refused.

Don't tell me... you used to run a café in Rammy?

 

[figbat]

There are some apps that claim to provide a free refill database of outlets. Not sure how extensive they are or if they are genuinely altruistic, given that the one I looked at prominently advertised the bottle you could buy from them.

 

[jay clock]

Even if it has, you may find it cordoned off (like the one in Kingston), so I wouldn't rely on getting water. Shops and petrol stations are open to buy from

I do a once a year 100 miler with friends where we stop at a petrol station half way in the centre of Warminster. Buy snacks and fill water from the forecourt tap. Which has a sign saying "non drinking water" is clearly a scam to get you to buy overpriced Evian. So for several years all went well, until one time, the old boy who runs the place comes out and tells us we shouldn't be drinking it. Why on earth not, in the centre of a decent size town, the water must be fine.. In his best Wiltshire accent he said "naht when it's recoicled frarm the car wash!!".

 

[oldwheels]

I don't understand the logic of refusal. Water, is a necessity of life after oxygen. I refuse to pay for something so basic.

I've been refused once. It was a newsagent type shop in a large market town. I was buying a few mid ride snacks and the shopkeeper refused to fill my bottle from the sink behind him.

I left the snacks on the counter and walked out.

I understand a shop might be on a meter, but I can't envisage an 800ml bottle costing more than a fraction of a penny.

To the OP, cemeteries and churches are a good source. I've often stopped by people sat in the garden and never been refused.

I often cycle around coastlines and piers and jetties usually have a tap, sometimes tucked away in a corner and hard to find. In Portmahomack there were two taps and a guy mending creels advised me which one was best to use. The water tap at Tobermory boat slip is now padlocked as it has been misused by motorhomes.
A local restaurant had a barney as a customer asked for tap water which was refused as the only tap was in the kitchen and not reckoned to be sufficiently hygienic. The only water was expensive bottled and the suspicion was that it was profit rather than hygiene which dictated this policy.

 

[Globalti]

The kitchen tap was not reckoned to be sufficiently hygienic? What utter twaddle. If it was true the restaurant shouldn't have been open.