The Bikepacker: Knepp Estate

Day 1 - Outbound

In a few weeks, I (M1) will be flying to a distant land with my trusty touring bike The Mule, safely tucked into a comfy box in the hold. This will mark the start of what promises to be a major bikepacking adventure. Details will be shared right here in this very blog quite soon.

M2 is not coming on this next trip. She has her reasons and they're all very sane and sensible ones.

But M1 shall not be alone. Joining M1 will be his brother-in-law who shall henceforth be referred to as K1. K1 has not bikepacked before so he's taking quite a plunge starting with the ambitious trip we have planned.

For the summer trip, new equipment is needed. A multi-fuel stove. A bulky four season sleeping bag. Water purification systems. And more. More things to pack. More weight to propel using leg power.

Today, we set off on a short trip to the Knepp Estate in Sussex. The plan is to camp one night and return the same way the next day.

It's only a 55 km ride to Knepp. But the goal is primarily to test equipment, bike set-up and so on. To find and resolve teething problems. All before heading off to strange and distant lands.

We loaded up the bikes and set off at about 11:00. Within about five minutes and without having left the road we started on, we were back! Our first teething problems made themselves known very, very quickly!

On applying the front brake, M1 was nearly thrown by The Mule as the front wheel jerked abruptly to one side! What the?!

Meanwhile, K1’s nameless steed was making blood curdling screechy noises every time he braked. What the?!

M1 was bemused. Flummoxed. Some would say befuddled. New brake pads were fitted. It seemed unlikely dodgy brake pads would cause such symptoms but what with all the bemusement, flummoxation and befuddlement, what else could M1 do?

It wasn't the brake pads!

Finally, M1 noticed the state of his fuel bottle, carried on the underside of the frame in a new bottle cage. The penny dropped. With the bike heavily loaded, The Mule's suspension was compressing more than usual on braking and this was causing the rotating front tyre to hit the fuel bottle. Mystery solved. M1 is still and perhaps always will be a little befuddled. That's just the way he is though.

K1 meanwhile was cleansing his disk rotors. This did the trick.

We set off again. This time we actually got beyond the end of the road!

The weather was perfect. Spring. Sunshine. Blue skies. Wonderful.

We stopped for drinks and snacks at a farm shop. Lovely.

The remainder of the journey through the English countryside was a delight and we arrived at about 15:30, chose a pitch, got the tents up, collected firewood and then went for a walk in the famous Knepp rewilding zone. We saw White Storks of course. Knepp is famous for having reintroduced them to Britain. We saw deer, cows, loads of bunny rabbits and a few horses. We could hear Nightingales.

Back at the campsite, having hastily checked the instructions, we managed to light our petrol stoves without killing ourselves and cook a more than passable meal. K1 cooked himself some pasta. M1 had oatmeal with tuna with some packet soup added as a kind of sauce. It was delicious, I'll have you know!

The evening was spent by the fire, eating snacks and chatting, all with a background soundtrack provided by the many, many birds here at Knepp. Bliss.

Both of us have invested in a Helinox camping chair. They're amazing. Very light and packable yet strong and very comfortable. You have no idea, dear reader, what luxury it is to have a chair to sit on outside the tent!

By nightfall a splendid collection of stars had revealed themselves along with bright moving objects we tried to identify as either aircraft, satellites, meteors or perhaps, you never know…. UFOs! And there was a bright half moon providing gentle illumination.

It was getting chilly and M1’s Thermodrop said it was now 3 degrees Celsius. One of the new items of gear that M1 had brought was a new down jacket. It did the job nicely.

We hit the hay sometime after 10 pm, each retreating to our respective MSR tents.

I slept well enough. It was apparent that the temperature was fairly low in the tent but the new Sea to Summit down sleeping bag did a good job and I was never cold.

Day 2 - Return

I got up at about 5:50. The birds insisted it was time to get up as only they can. Before emerging into the outside world though, I noticed ice on the inside of the tent! Curious!

When I did exit the tent, it all became clear. There had been a very heavy frost. The bikes were iced up. Our water bottles were full of big chunks of ice. The Thermodrop insisted the temperature was -5 degrees Celsius! Brrrrrr. Chilly.

I was grateful for the new down jacket once again. Coupled with a thermal hat, I felt warm enough although hands immediately demanded to be thrust deep into the down jacket's pockets.

After a nice hot breakfast (oatmeal with honey and two cups of coffee for me), we packed everything away and cycled out of Knepp. The sun was climbing now and its warm rays were welcome.

About 20 km later, things got “interesting”. M1 heard K1 call to him from some way behind and cycled back to find K1 walking back down the road, his bike left on its stand. The reason? K1’s chain had broken! Quelle domage!

We parked the bikes on the pavement out of harm's way. K1 looked for a quick link with which to mend the chain only to discover that the ones he had were the wrong size! He has a 9 speed road bike at home which is what they were probably for. His touring bike has a 7 speed cassette and therefore, chain. Luckily K1 found a pin that can be used to join two links using a chain breaker tool. M1’s bike multi tool includes this so he found it and handed it to K1.

K1 did a heroic job, repairing the chain with the spare pin but was concerned it might not get us all the way home. We located a local bike shop and cycled about 2 km to it. They sold K1 a suitable quick link and a spare chain (just in case).

After that happily we had no more mechanical problems.

Our return route included Box Hill. We both made it up but it took quite some effort on our super heavy bikes! We did it, that's the main thing.

What did we learn?

The objective of this short trip was to test the bikes and how everything is set up as well as some of the new gear. What did we learn?

1. M1 knows to make sure his fuel bottle is positioned a little lower than the water bottle holder above it and to check that with the front suspension compressed, the front wheels will not touch the bottle.

2. M1 will definitely bring a spare chain despite knowing most brakes can be repaired easily with quick links. It's worth the small amount of additional weight.

3. K1 will make sure he has the right size quick links in his spares bag.

4. The Helinox chairs are great but if you're not sitting in them, a slight breeze can blow them over. We could imagine them being blown down a mountain with us in hot pursuit! So, each of us will be fashioning an anchor system probably involving tent pegs and cord to stop this from happening.

5. M1’s legs felt the cold when sat outside in the chilly evening. Maybe a down quilt or similar is called for.

6. We used more petrol than expected, cooking and making drinks. M1 probably used about half of what his fuel bottle contained. We'll be investigating how to use the MSR stoves as efficiently as possible. M1 will almost certainly bring a second fuel bottle to lash somewhere to The Mule.

7. We both need to keep training for endurance and climbing albeit both M1 and K1 did pretty well. Those bikes are super heavy though!

All in all, a successful and enjoyable trip :-)

Photos from Day 1