Rather amusingly, parts of England – including where I live – are in the grip of an official heatwave (Level 3!).  The weather has been extremely settled & good recently, but it is amusing that there have to be nationwide alerts if summer actually turns up properly on consecutive days as no-one seems to know what to do (the last heatwave was in 2006).  Level 4 is apparently a national emergency, so I look forward to seeing what state of panic ensues if that happens.

With sleeping inside being a little difficult (at least it’s not humid) I thought last night was a perfect opportunity to try out a few of the bike-packing items I’ve bought recently.  That is – a Thermarest Neoair inflatable mattress that provides a lot of mattress considering how tiny it packs down, an Alpkit bivy bag and a very cheap & lightweight sleeping bag.

So with my sleeping bag strapped to the handlebars of my singlespeed & everything else loaded into my Camelbak (better & more permanent carrying solutions will appear after new bike is collected), I headed out into a very pleasant evening to scout around the forest for a suitable bivy site for the night.  It was very nice riding in the cool of the evening & there were few people around (it’s nice to see someone riding an identical bike to one which you had ten years ago)  – but I didn’t want to get too far from home as the following morning I had to ride home, shower, make lunch, breakfast & then ride to work before seven o’clock.

On my well worn route to the centre of the forest, I found a few potential sites & eventually settled in a small clearing in some woods well off the beaten path.  It’s a simple arrangement to set up – ground sheet, mattress then sleeping bag inside bivy bag on top of all that – so I wasn’t expecting many problems & there weren’t any.  It has been sometime since I’ve slept under the stars, so it was nice to watch the night take over from dusk as I lay staring at the sky.  Shortly after, a herd of horses walked through seemingly crashing through the undergrowth (I bet they weren’t, but it was so quiet it sure sounded like that), grabbing a supper of grass noisily as they went.  I was a little nervous that they’d be so startled by my presence that I’d some how get trodden on, but it wasn’t quite as bad as coming out of a tent in Nakuru National Park & discovering a herd of giant water buffalo staring at you.  A frog visited me too – that was odd as I was nowhere near any water, I thought.

Anyway, the rest of the night was uneventful – but it was still a bit warm, so sleep was fitful.  Eventually the alarm went at five and I got up, decamped, watched a herd of deer close by and rode home – somehow I got to work even earlier than normal.  So a successful little outing trying the gear & adding a small amount of adventure to my normally quiet week.  It’s nice to know the forest is so convenient for more than just riding – it’ll be easy to head out to safe surroundings to test more overnight gear in the future.