Camping - WillCycle

Giveaway – Food For The Road

18/06/2022 by Will

Food For The Road - a cycle touring cookbook

Food For The Road Food For The Road is a new cookbook with a difference: it’s aimed specifically at cooking delicious meal, using just a single pot. The booklet is small – intentionally so – and will take up no space at all in your panniers. It contains 19 recipes, one of which is for … Read more

Mass campout postponed

07/06/2022 by Will

Best-laid plans, and all that On Sunday, I had a gorgeous ride. Unfortunately, some 2 miles from home, things changed rapidly. While cycling downhill, along a very narrow rural lane, I crashed. From the state of my bike’s front wheel, it seems something must’ve gotten stuck in the spokes, breaking at least 10 spokes an … Read more

The WillCycle Mass Campout

03/06/2022 by Will

A cluster of dome tents on a mountainside

A mass campout? Indeed! You are invited to participate in the WillCycle Mass Campout, on the 18th of June, 2022. Now we dealt with when it will happen, we’ll swiftly move on to where it will happen. Here’s where things get, well, interesting. A virtually physical event Wait, or maybe a physically virtual event! This is getting confusing, … Read more

The Cheshire Ring – a Travelling Ouballies Ride

12/04/202312/05/2022 by Will

The Cheshire Ring If you’re a regular visitor to WillCycle, you’d know that I’m quite a fan of cycling the very many canals in the UK. The reasons are simple, and very obvious: canal routes are often extremely stunning, are almost entirely traffic-free and are relics from the Industrial Revolution. I freely admit to being … Read more

Scrummy recipes for delicious camping meals

28/12/202306/05/2022 by Will

Food, glorious food I have a confession to make: I’m not a foodie. In fact, sometimes I’m quite envious of people who seem to find far more pleasure in food than I ever would. To me, food is primarily fuel. As a result, I’m not a good source for recipes. However, the people I interact … Read more

Your first cycle camping trip

14/04/202214/04/2022 by Will

Cycle camping at Redlake, as part of a mini cycle tour

Excitement! The night before you set off on your first ever cycle wild camping trip on your own, you will probably be nervous. And more than a little excited! It’s a big thing you’re doing – stepping out of your comfort zone, and into the unknown. Of course, when we’re nervous, we’re most likely to … Read more

Kit Review: A Trangia-copy spirit stove

20/12/202211/04/2022 by Will

Trangia copy? Yes, mine’s not an official Trangia, but a very well-made copy that you probably wouldn’t be able to tell apart from the original. Why did I get a copy? Easy – I wanted just the stove, and didn’t want to spend much, as this will be my backup stove. Why a backup stove? … Read more

Tips for staying warm while camping

08/04/202208/04/2022 by Will

Warmth – an essential element Many people tell me they won’t go camping unless the weather is very hot, as they don’t want to be cold overnight. If done right, even in surprisingly cold weather, you should be able to stay toastie-warm. The tips I listed below should help you remain warm. Active or passive … Read more

Wild camping & cycle camping in the UK

01/07/202516/03/2022 by Will

Cycle camping (mainly wild-camping) and cycle touring tips and advice

What is wild-camping? Wild-camping is camping away from formal camp sites. In the UK, wild-camping is legal in almost all of Scotland, but against the law in England and Wales (with the exception of parts of Dartmoor), unless you have explicit permission from the landowner. Here’s where things get a bit complicated: yes, wild-camping is … Read more

Coleman Performance Gas review – best avoided!

25/09/202204/03/2022 by Will

Camping gas explained Gas cartridges for camping stoves mostly use butane gas, which is cheap, and in mild to warm temperatures offers good performance. The trouble with butane is that it really performs poorly in the cold, and your gas stove may completely fizzle out just when you’re most reliant on it. Manufacturers of such … Read more

Earth, wind, fire and ice

28/12/202328/02/2022 by Will

Cold-weather camping I’ve been forced to delay a planned winter camping trip on Dartmoor by a combination of having to do out-of-hours work over several weekends, and the severe weather we’ve been having for a while. Seriously, going camping in such a remote spot as I was planning to, while there were 80+mph gales blowing, … Read more

Are YOU ethical in your adventures?

08/07/202220/02/2022 by Will

Adventure, or conquest? Once upon a time, explorers set off from Europe with a view to “conquer”, and that Eurocentric view persists in some form or another to this day. If I was to ask you who discovered the Victoria Falls in Africa, you’d probably answer that David Livingston did. If you answered that, you’d … Read more

C2C to see what there is to see

11/03/202217/02/2022 by WillCycleAdmin

Crossing England from sea to sea The island of Great Britain is longer than it is wide, meaning there are lots of opportunities to cycle a “coast to coast” of some sort, crossing the island (mostly) from east to west, or vice versa. There are many well-known cycle touring routes that cross northern England, with … Read more

Is cycle touring dangerous?

17/06/202302/01/2022 by WillCycleAdmin

Will I die if I go cycle touring? Will I be run over, or murdered as I’m sleeping in my tent? Will I be attacked, robbed and possibly beaten? Is cycle touring dangerous? Let me start answering those questions by asking you how you define dangerous. Some things are obvious: walking up to a pride of hungry … Read more

The death of wild-camping in the UK?

19/12/202117/12/2021 by WillCycleAdmin

Wild-camping, at least in England and Wales, is strictly speaking against the law, unless done with the explicit consent of the landowner. Here’s where things immediately become murky: against the law is not the same as being a crime. In fact, under the law (at least in England and Wales) trespass is a civil offense, not a criminal offense.

What this means in practice is better explained with an example: Imagine you own a piece of land somewhere, and I trespass onto that land, for whatever reason (but I’m not breaking any other laws, and certainly not damaging anything on your land). In this scenario, your options are extremely limited. Basically, you can ask me to leave. If at that point, I humbly apologise, and start packing up, legally there is nothing further you can do. If you tried to frogmarch me off your land, I can charge you with assault, which is a crime, and if you break anything of mine, that may incur some extra charges.