The SOTA International Cycling Weekend 2014 will take place on 28/29 June. The objective is to encourage activators to use a bicycle for some or all of their journey to do one or more activations. It’s a fun way to do activations that requires some slightly different solutions to most activating. Last year we had about six takers - surely we can do better than that?
As usual, photographs and accounts will be welcome. Please post them in this reflector thread.
If you like that sort of thing, post your cycling stats using Endomondo - I can be found there.
That clashes with the Friedrichshafen weekend - shame that, as Nick G4OOE and I will be there as part of an EU Tour by car and on foot and will be unable to take part.
The Grande Depart for the Tour of France will take place in Yorkshire the following week.
Not sure what Endomondo is but I will have a look…we should be QRV form the DM/BW region though on the Sunday so we would hope to work some of the cycling activators on June 29th from the BW summits.
I have set up an Endomondo group for Amateur Radio Cyclists and Hikers. Endomondo is a fitness app for IOS and Android and any GPS unit. It will be a good way to get fit for the summer SOTA season.
That clashes with the Friedrichshafen weekend - shame that, as Nick G4OOE and I
will be there as part of an EU Tour by car and on foot and will be unable to >take part.
You can hire bikes cheaply in FN Phil, 8Eu for the day ISTR. I did that last year or the year before. Loads of excellent cycle routes around the countryside with plenty of places to stop for a plate of pig&chips and a glass of foaming brew.
I’ll introduce you to my mate Phil at Blackpool and he can tell you about him meeting Michael Miles when we on our bikes by the lake!
Now I’m not what you would call a regular operator, but this sounds like a little challenge I could join in. Not much in the way of hills around here, but currently trying to inprove my cycling ready for the Coast to Coast later in the year. So perhaps a weekend out doing some hill training / Sota operating.
You’ve also put given me the idea of including some SOTA whilst on the C2C. Will have to look at the route again.
Cycling does require a bit of rethinking of your operating approach - and a careful choice of summit. You don’t have to cycle from home either, you could put the bike on the train or even do part of the journey by car.
In reply to G3CWI:
If wx good that weekend I have a summit in mind with a 3km granny gear climb to the saddle. So I will save that summit until then my other bike to summit was burnt out during the summer and the forester has it closed off till further notice. 73 de Ian vk5cz …
Very good idea, I finally have an excuse to try and ride my Orange Five up Snowdon, Not sure the decent with a SOTA pole will be particularly safe though.
To my surprise I see that several of the summit paths are indeed Bridleways so you would be within your rights to ride to the top. You could probably get away without a pole.
Just make sure you get the reference sorted before setting off!
Yes - 001 isn’t that difficult to mistake, unlike last nights. Mountain bikers generally have the same rights as walkers on most Bridleways although coming down the odd dive out of the way by walkers is never a good idea, in the peaks there is a big debate going on presently about access to bridleways by MTB’ers.
It would be HF, so it would suffer without a pole although it works amazingly well with the antenna on the ground. Its a good idea though Richard.
Yes I was reading that before, sensible really. Timing would be tight
though for a good activation in the morning before going back down. The fewer people about the better, both activities are probably seen as anti-social by most.
Before 07 it was very popular for Downhiller’s to push up can come back down the pyg track, the Fort William of NW !.
I don’t understand why this “agreement” has been applied to the bridleway heading east from Rhyd Ddu, as I remember it, it is a good, in fact a motorable track for much of the way, and very rarely busy, unlike Snowdon Ranger, where IMO the agreement is a good idea as it is a busy (though rather boring) track.
I don’t know the paths and bridleways on Snowdon but I can hazard a guess that the agreement covers all the bridleways.
Ease of enforcement.
If you have some bridleways where it’s ok and some which are banned then you will get a million and one chancers testing their luck. When caught they can protest innocence and claim they thought “it was ok on this bridleway and I must have read the map wrong.” Ban it on all of them and a load of excuses are removed.
Sorted… too many tasks at the same including playing with C# database code, updating spotters to use Python3 from Python2, trying to get Python3 to build on my little Linux box when it builds on everything else, trying to produce a list of reasons why I need a “jolly” to our office in Mountain View, enjoying a bowl of Christmas pudding and drinking a pleasant and fruity Grenache Noir. I’m barely competent at one of those never mind all at once! It’ll get worse as it’s very nearly Malt-o’clock!
