I’ve had the idea for quite some time to do an activation entirely by human power. Ingleborough is my nearest summit but it’s quite a walk to any start point. I visited the Old Saw Mill cafe in Clapham one day and noticed that they had a bike rack. I formed the idea of cycling to the cafe as a nice ride out followed by a coffee. 
I’ve done the 7 mile bike ride to the cafe a few times and I’m now quite comfortable with the route, which is along quiet country back roads with very little in the way of traffic.
One day I strung together an idea that I could cycle to the cafe, leave the bike and then ascend Ingleborough from there. A bonus would be the option of refreshments at the cafe after the walk.
I didn’t want to spend a fortune for my project, so I bought a handlebar bag from Alpkit in the sale. The handlebar bag is basically a drybag, with an opening at each end, and two clip straps around the circumference which hold the bag on to the handlebar. I did a dummy run with my road bike to the cafe last year and found that I could probably carry enough stuff for an activation but the bar bag wasn’t exactly ideal.
July 2023 - dummy run to cafe with bar bag.
Time went by and an opportunity to activate Ingleborough by bicycle never came to fruition.
Earlier this year I set my heart upon trying to reach the Hebridean Isles of Coll and Tiree. I’d done a trip to Coll before using my bike and I wanted to do it by bike again, but have a nicer bike with proper luggage, not just a huge rucksack on my back. For my birthday I used all of my gift money, and more besides, to buy a Cube Nature Allroad multi-purpose bike. The bike came with a rack, mudguards and dynamo lighting.
Cube Nature Allroad
The Hebridean trip didn’t go to plan, I ended up on Iona instead as the Coll ferry had a serious electrical issue which put it out of action for a few days.
Bikepacking on Iona, Scotland
Thoughts of activating Ingleborough G/NP-005, were still on my mind and a perfect opportunity presented itself on Wednesday 19th September. My son would normally attend college on a Wednesday but he was not required to attend on this occasion. It’s me providing the transport to college so that meant that we both had a free day. The weather has been fantastic lately and the weather on Wednesday was no different. My son used his free time during the summer break to get his Foundation licence.
I’d been keeping an eye on the space weather and as per usual the sun was doing funny things just around the time I wanted to make use of HF propagation. It did look as though the Kp index was coming down, so although I wanted to take my handheld for VHF FM, I also packed my KD1JV Mountain Topper and EFHW antenna. The new bike with panniers made taking the necessary hiking and radio gear really easy.
It took me some time to get my stuff ready but we set off from home at around 0930 (BST) and the bike ride took around 1 hour with a stop at a shop for supplies.
Our bikes at the start of the walk.
Rather than pay the £2.50 each to walk through the woods, we walked up the road used by fell rescue and then joined the main route again just before Ingleborough Cave. I thought about my grandad who died almost 40 years ago, he was a keen cyclist, and caver, and had been involved with Ingleborough Cave and cave rescue I believe. My grandad owned a bike shop in Keighley when I was around 5 or so, called Don Horsman Cycles.
We walked up the gorge called Trow Gill, the last time I had been up had been with my grandad, all those decades ago.
Trow Gill
We walked past Gaping Gill, which is a hole in the ground around 100m deep, supposedly the highest unbroken waterfall in Britain.
The climb is not very steep but goes on for quite a way to the summit of Little Ingleborough. The views from this point of Pen Y Ghent G/NP-010 are superb and not something that I had expected. The views to the west were also very good.
We reached summit about 45 mins later than the alerted time of 1200BST.
Ingleborough summit
I turned on the FT60 HT and called CQ, working G6AEK first of all. Once I had had my QSO, I passed the radio to my son and he was able to make his first ever amateur radio contact, using his own call sign also. We continued with this method of swapping the radio until we had both worked the same four stations each. The last QSO was with David G0EVV/P on Skiddaw G/LD-004, it was super for my son to start off his chasing score with a 10 point summit to summit contact! I worked one more station but my son had tucked into his sandwiches by that point and he didn’t need another QSO as he’d already qualified. I thought my son did really well and I’m grateful to the chasers we worked who were patient and forgiving.
I’d had visions of the perfect activation by bicycle and it included a transatlantic QSO. I set up my home made end fed antenna running north-south and connected up my home built MTR-2B, switched to 20m. The Kp was showing at K2, so I reckoned it was worth a try. I was absolutely fired up when KC1NDQ called in from MA! What a perfect result!
We were treated to a flypast by two F15 jets and then we made our steady descent, retracing our route back to Clapham. It felt very hot and my feet were hurting in my La Sportiva Boulder x shoes - I had had to compromise on footwear choice in order to do the bike ride. I drained the last of my 3.5 litre water bladder, in addition to the 750ml bike bottle.
We reached the cafe at about 1545BST and thankfully they were still serving drinks. I’ve never seen my son drink a can of Fanta so quickly! I enjoyed a nice flat white coffee, which I had been thinking about for quite a while during the walk down!
The cycle ride home wasn’t too bad, it’s quite a climb out of Clapham up to Keasden, and a couple of other uphill bits but there’s more downhill than up in that direction.
We had an amazing day, it couldn’t have been any better really.
Stats
22.5km by bike
13.5km on foot
623m height gain
73, Colin
