Retrobike Touring.

[Iwasgoodonce]

Things are progressing. Despite having accumulated a lifetime of outdoors type stuff, I have made some purchases. Here’s a list along with the feeble self reasoning behind the purchase!
Bob Yak trailer. Well, my old panniers are getting old and tatty and I always wanted a trailer.
Tent. Got a Big Agnes Hotel. I have soooo many tents. None quite the right size. I think I’ll fit the bike and trailer in the porch and only 2.5Kg.
Solar panels. I’m going to need to charge my Garmin aren’t I? Wonder if Nokia make a usb charger fo a 6230i?
Lightweight mattress plus dry bag pump. To look after my bashed up and largely broken carcass.

I have just about the rest of the stuff. I’m going classic Monitor 17B for the stove, this is a Retro site after all! Still on my list to buy is a cable lock and a cooking pan. Anyone got recommendations for either? Pan wise, I’m thinking:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191342155106
I also have planned an easy itinerary in a difficult area. I’ll be heading for the Shropshire hills. I can leave from home on the bike and the wife can easily drive over for a pub meal if she wants.
I just hope the MRI I have booked shows nothing that will rule this trip out. I’m really looking forward to it.

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

Things are progressing. Despite having accumulated a lifetime of outdoors type stuff, I have made some purchases. Here’s a list along with the feeble self reasoning behind the purchase!
Bob Yak trailer. Well, my old panniers are getting old and tatty and I always wanted a trailer.
Tent. Got a Big Agnes Hotel. I have soooo many tents. None quite the right size. I think I’ll fit the bike and trailer in the porch and only 2.5Kg.
Solar panels. I’m going to need to charge my Garmin aren’t I? Wonder if Nokia make a usb charger fo a 6230i?
Lightweight mattress plus dry bag pump. To look after my bashed up and largely broken carcass.

I have just about the rest of the stuff. I’m going classic Monitor 17B for the stove, this is a Retro site after all! Still on my list to buy is a cable lock and a cooking pan. Anyone got recommendations for either? Pan wise, I’m thinking:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191342155106
I also have planned an easy itinerary in a difficult area. I’ll be heading for the Shropshire hills. I can leave from home on the bike and the wife can easily drive over for a pub meal if she wants.
I just hope the MRI I have booked shows nothing that will rule this trip out. I’m really looking forward to it.

Sounds brilliant, we wouldn't be camping though Care to share the route? Or is it flexible?

 

[Iwasgoodonce]

Sounds brilliant, we wouldn't be camping though Care to share the route? Or is it flexible?

Cheers! It is flexible. I have these books by a chap called Arthur Mee. He wrote them before WW2 and basically lists most of the villages and towns in a county. For each he writes about what makes that particular place special. This is usually things in the church but also people that have a place in history.
I live on the Staffordshire/Shropshire border and I’m riding out to between Much Wenlock and Atcham. I will stop at all sorts of places starting with Bonningale and ending at Hughley I think. I will see if I can find the features he wrote about nearly 100 years ago. I’ll take a few photos and scribble a few notes and write it up later. Day two will see the tent left in a small campsite I have found and me visiting more places.
Day 3 will be similar to the ride out but a different route. I just want a change from riding the same loop over and over trying to improve my time each ride. Put some miles in with a sort of purpose and relax a bit. You cannot beat Old Father Time.

These are the books:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King's_England

 

[hamster]

Don't bother with a solar panel, they really don't charge enough unless huge - in which case heavy. Have a look at a power bank and/or dyno hub. Usually you can persuade someone at a campsite to charge or there are charging lockers by the showers increasingly these days.

 

[Iwasgoodonce]

Thought briefly about a hub dynamo but, I don’t know? I have very bad memories of the bottle type. I have got an A3 size panel that I’ll try. A garmin 800 is the main thing I’ll need. The battery is well past its prime to say the least. An iPod maybe? I’m going to get new batteries in that before I head off. The Nokia brick will only be switched on when required.
I could have got away with just a power bank. I just like gadgets I suppose.
I’m sure therefore that @hamster will convince me that dynamo’s have come on leaps and bounds and offer next to no resistance in order to give up their power.
What happens if you stop? They have probably sorted that as well. I’ll then get one of those as well! I note that the Fairlight Faran I keep looking at can have a dynamo system built into it.

 

[hamster]

Agreed that it's night and day between bottles and modern hub dynos. Easiest is a dynamo driving a USB power bank. Certainly some phones will drain faster than they charge as they put the screen on and been every time they sense a charge - hopeless in traffic or on a winding route (learned that the hard way). Frankly you never notice the dyno. You are riding at 100-150W and the dyno takes 3W - so about as much as riding up a 1:100 hill apparently.

I got converted forever by a late start (2019 trip, reported somewhere back upthread) which meant setting off for an evening ride and arriving at 2330 at our hotel. It was irritating but no disaster to have to ride 3 hours in the dark with dyno lights.

 

[Iwasgoodonce]

I’m thinking about security. I know the bigger and heavier a lock is the more secure it is. I have a bang average D shackle lock that I use if I go shopping or something. I don’t want to cart it around as it weighs about the same as my new tent.
My route takes me to mostly small places off the main roads. I still want to lock the bike though. I have owned it since 1991 and don’t want to lose it now.
What do experienced tourers like @hamster use on tour? I am hoping to fit the bike in the tent with me at night so the lock would be needed for the frequent stops I expect to make.
I’m thinking a cable with a key. Around 180cm in length to include securing the trailer as well.

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

I’m thinking about security. I know the bigger and heavier a lock is the more secure it is. I have a bang average D shackle lock that I use if I go shopping or something. I don’t want to cart it around as it weighs about the same as my new tent.
My route takes me to mostly small places off the main roads. I still want to lock the bike though. I have owned it since 1991 and don’t want to lose it now.
What do experienced tourers like @hamster use on tour? I am hoping to fit the bike in the tent with me at night so the lock would be needed for the frequent stops I expect to make.
I’m thinking a cable with a key. Around 180cm in length to include securing the trailer as well.

I use a Magnum cable lock about 12mm diameter, looks better than it probably is. Weighs 1.1kg long enough for both our bikes.

 

[MT62]

Haha been bikepacking with people who eventually just leaned their custom made steel modern gravel bikes against a tree for the night and were like "it will probably wake us if anyone walks around".
I personally carry u-lock everywhere, but also, I use racks and all my camping gear is heavy anyway. For the night, I try to compose the bike into the structure of the tent, like running the poles through wheels and such, if it makes sense. Thinking a fine but not really heavy cable lock would do the job, any that would require noisy tools to go through.

 

[hamster]

If I am riding somewhere like Dartmoor then I take a small cable lock - the sort to immobilise the bike when popping into a small shop. When elsewhere a 20cm D-lock. If I am camping somewhere massively visible to lots of people it's probably the wrong spot anyway.

A 30 year old touring bike isn't a particularly attractive target. Probably the most valuable bits are removable with an Allen key anyway - but that takes time and isn't likely in rural areas. So I don't stress too much about it.