Winter Touring and Camping

[JackE]

I have a backpacking friend who lives not that far from you (in Northants). He camps all year round and probably knows most of the pubs that allow camping in your area. Perhaps you could join up with his group over a weekend and get the lowdown on winter camping from some very helpful backpackers and cyclecampers. PM me if you want to make contact.

 

[Muddyfox]

Read Alastair Humphreys books about his world tour (moods of future joy & thunder and sunshine)

He wild camped at -40 degrees in Siberia ..... brrrr

Simon

 

[vernon]

With regards Nokia charger ,i have been thinking of this
http://cgi.ebay.co.u..._fvi=1&_rdc=1
If you are going to use dynamo may as well run your lights as well.
I was thinking of adding one of these
http://cgi.ebay.co.u...e=STRK:MEWAXT
to charge AA/AAA batteries for camera or head tourch as well.
If you have any other ideas let me know.

There's no need to wait for the Nokia bike charger to become available theres already a solution out there - the B&M e-werks charger.

The Nokia charger is a one trick pony and only charges Nokia phones. The B&M charger comes with a range of leads including USB to facilitate a range of devices being charged. The down side is it's price - £110 from Germany and the need for a Shimano or Schmidt hub dynamo.

I used my BU&M to keep a PDA and a mobile phone charged on a three week tour in France.

 

[vikingcyclist]

If it stays dry it could be fun. If it p!sses with rain it will be a miserable experience. Imaging crawling into your bivi bag at 4pm - your clothes are wet so you get your sleeping bag and bivi bag wet. A very long and uncomfortable night. Then when you finally get up and its still raining and you have to put all your wet stuff back on again and set out in the cold rain. Wet hands, wet feet. Truly miserable.

Of course if you get a few crisp sunny days it could be great

A bit of rain wouldn't hurt, but I'm with you on the raining at night thing. Hopefully a tarp'd help with that as it'd provide enough shelter (in theory) to stay dry while getting into the lovely (freezing) sleeping bag.

Of course, I'm now getting a three men in a boat type feel about this plan, which is only encouraging me.

 

[vikingcyclist]

There's no need to wait for the Nokia bike charger to become available theres already a solution out there - the B&M e-werks charger.

The Nokia charger is a one trick pony and only charges Nokia phones. The B&M charger comes with a range of leads including USB to facilitate a range of devices being charged. The down side is it's price - £110 from Germany and the need for a Shimano or Schmidt hub dynamo.

I used my BU&M to keep a PDA and a mobile phone charged on a three week tour in France.

I did have a look at the B&M charger, and thought about it, but the price put me off. I may still get one at some point but for me the big benefit of the Nokia (other than the 15 euro projected price) was the mount, since it'd let me use the GPS.