Gearless

I was a little apprehensive about this weekends adventures as I stood in my living room on thursday evening, methodically prepping my rigid mountain bike by fitting my Alpkit bikepacking luggage. I was working around the bike taping off the areas where the luggage would make contact while thinking about the plans for the weekend.

My main bike has no gears; it’s what’s known as a singlespeed. I put a lot of miles on this bike, but normally add gears for my bikepacking miles. I’d decided to make this weekend a bit of an experiment, and hopefully save some time in the evening, by keeping my bike in its normal configuration.

I was planning to go bikepacking on a singlespeed. This doesn’t sound dramatic, but it was going to be hard work. Most people won’t ride singlespeeds; they think they’re hard work and rather limiting by the relatively slow pace. They’re not wrong by the pace, on the flat at least. It’s rather nice to be riding something so simple in a modern world where everything seems to be getting more complicated.

Given I normally ride this bike, why was I so worried about this particular trip? Singlespeed bikes are hard work at the best of times; add an additional ten kilograms of food, water and camping equipment and you’ve got a lot more work to do on the same gear. There’s no bailing options either; no simple downshift to make that hill just a little bit easier. It’s all or nothing.

Ten kilograms may not sound a lot, but let’s think about this for a moment or two: my bike weighs 12 kilograms. That means that the additional equipment I need for a trip increases its weight by over 80%. And that’s before you even consider the five-or-so kilograms of camera gear I’ll have on my back. All in I’ll be looking at around 15 kilograms of additional equipment.

Thankfully, although the trip proved to be hard work, it wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared.

Saturday

It’s Saturday morning. Luke had come down from his home in Somerset the previous afternoon, arriving at mine just as I finished work. Both of the bikes were now almost ready to go as we ate breakfast. We quickly made our lunch for both days as proceeded to wedge it into any free space we could find among our bike luggage.

A surprising amount of time is often spent faffing at this point; picking up all those odds and ends that somehow never get remembered when you’re supposed to be doing the packing. A little while later we’re ready.

The bike is surprisingly easy to move as we head off, but I know that’ll change once we’ve got the first climb out of the way. We make quick work of a trip to Evans Cycles in town before heading out towards Dartmoor. The first short climb on the way out of Plymouth soon proves my concerns — my gear is going to be right on the limit of my abilities for this trip.

Once we’re rolling along the steady gradient of the Plym Bridge trail the heavy bike is much less of an issue for my single gear. It takes us about an hour to make our way up to the end of the Plym Bridge Trail, limited on pace by how fast I can comfortably spin.

At Clearbrook we pickup the first real hill; it’s by no means long, but starts off as a road section, before turning off onto steeper and energy-sucking moorland at the best of times. At this point I’m leaning right over the front and stood-up to keep the bike moving with any kind of pace, but it’s proving to be easier than I had anticipated. This pace is key to hold the momentum I know I’m going to need when I reach the bridge at the top which has a step-up onto the concrete structure.

Once we’ve regrouped on the paved cycle-track again we roll steadily into a short climb onto a piece of small singletrack that cuts out several gates, a corner, and adds a whole lot of fun. It’s a short but steep climb, so I start it in a sprint, giving a good amount of speed to make it up the steepest part before picking my way carefully through the roots along the top. Rolling out the other side I try and follow my normal routine and pop the front wheel up; the bike proves too heavy for that today though.

It only takes a few minutes to spin into Yelverton along a combination of road and cycle paths.

Turning right onto the main road I quickly spin the bike up-to-speed; limited by my gear ratio once again. That’s fine though, there’s no rush, and I’d rather preserve my energy for later on. Within a minute or two we’re rolling down the hill and hang a hard-right onto Lake Lane, cutting out a slog uphill on a busy road. At the end of the road we go straight over, aiming to leave the roads as soon as possible.

Our next obstacle is a short and sharp technical climb; it’s steep in places, has step-ups and is loose making grip hard to come by in places. This went exactly as I expected. A fast run-up followed by bailing part-way up as I ran out of momentum before jumping back on and proceeding to twist and turn my way along my carefully chosen line to the top.

We now proceed to cut straight over the open moorland, weaving between gorse and ferns as I pickup speed, trusting the tires to find grip on the slick grass and piles of dust before running out of trail. I hit the bridge at speed — Luke close behind, knowing there’s a drop on the other side — before aiming for the small gap in the bank. We both resume our position on the old railway line, plodding our way steadily upwards towards Princetown.

Progress is fast now; the gravel track may be tiring on a rigid mountain bike, but its firm and requires minimal effort to keep moving. The biggest delays are now the numerous gates between us and our turn-off at the bottom of the Kings Tor.

The trail we use as a shortcut here took everything I had to make it up. It’s loose, it’s steep and it’s not as simple as pointing up and peddling. The first ten meters are simple gravel, each stone a little larger than the last. At the same time the trail steadily gets steeper, with lines of bedrock building miniature ledges which are impossible to ride directly up without gears. This isn’t just a case of raw-power. It’s more delicate than that; this is a game of juggling power, grip, and balance in order to navigate up without stalling or wheel spinning.

As I approached the top my thighs were on fire, the burning steadily spreading as I asked just one more — there’s always just one more — turn out of my legs before giving up. I was pulling hard on the handlebars as I tried to keep the wheels moving, just waiting for my hands to fly off, leaving me in a heap on the ground. Somehow that moment never came as I made it to the top.

Before long we were sat in the now halloween themed Fox Tor Cafe — the blueberry and lime cake is amazing — reflecting on the day so far. My thighs were still burning, subtly reminding me of the days abuse.

As we left the weather had changed dramatically from when we entered. The low and dull clouds had now been all but blown away leaving the low sun to dance across the land casting long wintery shadows.

As we began the ascent to the top of Great Mis Tor the game of bog-dodging began. This is a precarious game where an unfortunate volunteer — me — has to roll carefully through each bog trying to find the careful balance between care and speed. If you get it wrong one of two things will happen: you’ll be turned into a human catapult as the front wheel disappears, or you’ll stop and have to sink a foot into he depths of the bog. Neither are particularly pleasant options.

Somehow we both made to it dry up to the bottom of the rock garden, where we pushed the last few meters up to the top. We both quickly erected our tents on a flat and relatively sheltered area before I shot off to start shooting the sunset.

Sunday

Day two started early. The sunrise was at 7:30, which meant I had a 6:15 alarm set. I’d intentionally set my alarm a few minutes earlier than normal to get a brew on before shooting the sunrise. As I unzipped the tent door I quickly noticed the entire sky was on fire, and I’d probably missed the best part of the show.

I now moved quickly, scrambling out of my sleeping bag and pulling on my down jacket. Thankfully I’ve gotten into the habit recently of checking all my camera gear is ready to go before I go to bed when I’m wild camping. Normally there’s plenty of time to setup, but it’s worth it for the odd time, like today, where you really can’t afford any delays.

I moved around quickly shooting several different compositions before finding something I was truly happy with. I’ve grown to love this time of day recently. It’s a quite, peaceful time of day where there is little around to distract. It was just me and my thoughts.

It was a while before Luke appeared. When he did appear we didn’t hang around too long as despite the clear conditions that morning; it was forecast to deteriorate in the afternoon.

The initial descent was exactly that which we rode up the previous evening, as we tried to remember where it was safe to pass through the bogs, but naturally ended up taking a completely different route through.

From here we took the access road to the FM radio mast on North Hessary Tor. The descent down the other side is a fast one which comes out on the road near to the hostel tap in Princetown where we filled up with water.

The ground from here was well known to us both. This made for quick progress to the top of the infamous Widowmaker descent, helped by the recent new surfacing over South Hessary Tor.

We both entered the Widowmaker at speed with a couple of minutes between us. We were leap frogging each other to give each their own chance to take any pictures they wanted. This passed almost incident free as I managed to puncture my front tyre — something which was quickly rectified by the tubeless tyre sealant without so much as a pause.

The descent comes out onto the road at the back of Burrator Reservoir, leaving us with an easy ride back into Plymouth.

Solo.

It had been a while since I last did any solo backpacking. You have to be careful when you’re doing these things on your own. It’s easy to find yourself in areas where you won’t see anyone else; it starts to get lonely.

You also have to be one hundred per cent confident in yourself. You need to trust your own ability to navigate. Your own ability to make it out the other side. Your own ability to get yourself out should things start to go wrong. There’s no sending your mate for help.

All of this comes with practice, confidence (which comes with practice) and a certain level of fitness (which comes with practice). Even so, I wanted to push myself over the bank holiday as well as access some more remote locations to shoot, and so I originally picked a long route from Okehampton (just north of Dartmoor) to Ivybridge (just south of Dartmoor) before establishing that the public transport links weren’t good enough over the bank holiday for such an ambitious plan.

Instead, I chose a new end-point at Yelverton with a more reliable bus service and arranged a lift to Okehampton for the start. Even this shortened route was just a tad over 40 km, which may not sound like much, but add a full backpacking load and a landscape photographers camera rig (to get an idea of what gear I carry take a look at my post on getting started backpacking) and you’re talking about some serious weight.

Prelude

It was dark as Luke and I walked in. We’d headed off from Plymouth around 19:30 having driven out to Peter Tavy with a plan of camping under White Tor. We’d missed the sunset, unfortunately, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

It’s always interesting walking in the dark. You see everything under a different light, the tors are nothing more than a silhouette, the trail seems to fade away under your eyes, and you can barely tell if a site is suitable to camp on or not.

We pitched up around 21:00, cooked dinner, and retired to our respective tents. This was nothing more than an excuse to spend a night in a tent.

The next morning we packed up and walked out quickly and efficiently. Luke was to proceed back home to Somerset, and agreed to drop me in Okehampton on the way through, the start of the real adventure.

Day One

I left Okehampton around 12:00. This was later than I’d hoped, but it didn’t really matter too much. Sunset wasn’t until 20:00 so I had a realistic seven-and-a-half hours to get to my destination for the day. I pushed hard out of Okehampton, wanting to try to make up for some of the lost time. It was hot, humid and there wasn’t even a small breeze; I was dripping before I was out of the town. I made good time up to the military training camp, and then continued on the road as far possible.

Just past the final carpark on the edge of the firing range near Okement Farm I started to notice my left heel was hurting. Not wanting this to turn into a blister I stripped my boot and sock off to find my under-sock was creased around the area and had pinched the skin underneath causing the pain. I don’t normally bother with an under-sock (I don’t know why I did on this occasion, either) so I removed both and stuck with my normal Bridgedale Trail socks that I normally use for longer backpacking days. For the rest of the day I used both of my Leki trekking poles to reduce the strain on my feet and prevent my heel getting any worse.

I didn’t really know what to expect of the trails and bridleways on north Dartmoor. On the south of the moor many of those marked on the Ordinance Survey map are non-existent on the ground; either claimed by the bogs or just so little-used that nature has taken them. I was pleasantly surprised on north-moor to find them to be mostly a mixture of concrete, gravel, and tarmac.

These conditions allowed for fast progress until I turned off the main route to head down to the River Taw and pick up the trail running alongside. This briefly slowed me as the rough trail into the valley was hard to follow, disappearing in places. Despite this it didn’t take long to reach the ford over the river.

It was at this ford that I met another couple heading out on a similar route to mine, ending at Fernworthy Forest. They’d left a little earlier than me and I bumped into them as they stopped to refill their water bottles. I took the opportunity to shoot the small set of waterfalls under the ford and to inspect my heel again and see how it was holding up. It was actually starting to look at little better, so I took that as a good sign when I pushed on aiming for Hangingstone Hill.

After Hangingstone Hill the trail was virtually non-existent. I made careful progress through the marsh to Whitehorse Hill, and then through the bracken to Quintins Man Cairn. This is right on the edge of the firing range, which happen to be extremely useful for navigation purposes. They’re marked on the OS maps, and surrounded by a set of white and red stripped poles around 10 ft. high. They stand out, and are easy to follow thanks to the maintenance quad-bike tracks that follow them. I followed these to the bottom of the firing range (involving an interesting experience attempting to jump over the meter-or-so wide Teign River, which is rather hard with a heavy backpack). From the end of these I headed to the top of Winney’s Down where I made a mental note of an old house ruin which would be suitable as a foreground for the sunset shoot if I couldn’t find anything else.

From the top of Winney’s Down I was aiming for Sandy Hole Pass on the East Dart River, about a kilometre west of the waterfall I was planning to shoot. I then proceeded to follow the river east until I came across the waterfall. It couldn’t have been any better as a location for the sunset shoot, I immediately forgot about the house ruin I’d seen earlier.

I setup camp about 200 meters east of the waterfall so as not to intrude on the others already setup near by. After a quick brew I grabbed the camera - with about an hour to go until sunset - and went and setup. 75 minutes later I’d just finished watching one of the best sunsets I’ve seen in a long time.

Day Two

I woke to the soft pattering of rain. I knew it wouldn’t be as bad as it sounded, it never is in a tent; but it’s always harder to get out of bed when it is raining. I felt surprisingly good given the number of miles, the pace I’d put down, and the sheer weight I’d been carrying the previous day.

As I’ve built more experience wild camping I’ve started doing a few things to make life easier in the morning. I leave a small carabiner clipped onto the door, as it’s more secure than the clip built into the door to hold it open. I leave a small pan already filled with water within easy reach of the inner tent, the flint sat on the lid. Finally, I leave breakfast next to it ready to go.

Despite the rain I clipped the door back, and lit the pre-heat on the stove, watching the rain drops quickly evaporate under the heat of burning petrol as the stove sizzled into life. As I heard the gas vapours making their way through to the main burner a quick turn of the fuel gauge lit the main burner. I disappeared back into the depths of my sleeping bag as the stove heated water through.

Just inside the inner tent my mug sat waiting, tea bag already in place. Once the water had been boiling long enough to kill any microbes and bacteria from the river I filled my mug and tipped the bag of beans into the pan for breakfast. This morning routine is just another part of a well-oiled process for me, allowing me to take onboard the energy I need for another hard day.

Once the motivation has been found to crawl out of my sleeping bag packing away doesn’t take long. I try to keep most things in their respective dry bags; it’s simply case of reassembling the jigsaw puzzle, something which can mostly be done in the shelter of the tent.

I started making towards Sandy Hole Pass. It was an easy point to orientate the map from, and I’d seen an easy point to cross the river heading the other way. Once up top I could see a long way ahead, so I picked out as many of the waypoints as possible that I’d chosen during a lunch break at work during the week.

I quite like using the tops of tors for navigation when the weather allows; you can normally see your next waypoint at some distance, the scenery is better, and it makes navigation a breeze using the surrounding tops to orientate yourself. Saying this, it’s still important to be able to navigate through the valleys in bad weather using only your compass because you can’t see more than 10 meters ahead – Dartmoor is particularly famous for these fogs.

I made pretty good time for the majority of the day given the rough terrain that is well off the beaten track, and that fact the my heel was now starting to cause me a little more grief. It was fine while I was on the flat or descending, but what started at the start of the day as a slight tingling was now causing noticeable discomfort. I was back to using both poles full-time in order to try and reduce the strain on it; the last thing I wanted was for it to get any worse while I was still in an area with no-signal and off the beaten track.

Despite the issues I was having I sat in the Fox Tor Cafe in Princetown eating cake and drinking coffee by 14:00, having left my camping spot at 10:00 that morning. I sat there for the first few minutes googling the busses on my phone. I know the southwest corner of the moor rather well, so a walk out to Yelverton isn’t overly exciting via any route for me. With this in mind, and not wanting to make my foot any worse, I figured I may as well get a bus from Princetown if I could. With one scheduled half an hour later I asked a local if the bus still runs. This was a good idea as it turned out, with busses not running on Sundays.

With a bus an hour until gone 22:00 I had plenty of time to get down to Yelverton. Despite this, I didn’t see any point in hanging around anymore and so threw my bag back on and set off down the road. There are more exciting routes off, but sometimes you just wanted the most direct, and that’s exactly what I took. Much to my dismay, about 45–minutes after setting off the Princetown bus that I’d been told by a Princetown resident doesn’t run on Sundays drove straight past me.

A few hours later I was sat on the bus watching the Plymouth suburbs flicker by as we wove through the city towards town; just one short and painful walk from my flat.