Category: Summer Gathering 2021

What do you need to bring?

– bicy­cle 🙂
– bicy­cle pan­niers
– tent, sleep­ing mat and sleep­ing bag
– headlamp/flashlight
– pow­er bank for charg­ing elec­tron­ics
– bot­tles for car­ry­ing drink­ing water
– a seal­able tup­per­ware for car­ry­ing food and eat­ing out of, mug and cut­lery
– toi­letries and med­ica­tion
– clothes to stay warm and dry
– first aid kit
– a basic cycle repair kit if you have one
– ban­ners and flags to attach to your bike! (no XR ban­ners please)
– cash for dona­tions for food.
We are look­ing into con­tin­u­ing the bike ride along the sec­ond leg of the pro­posed route from Birm­ing­ham to Leeds from the 20th to rough­ly the 27th of August. For this leg, you will also need:
— camp­ing stove & gas
— cook­ing equip­ment

Camping Sites

We have tried where pos­si­ble to get per­mis­sion to use camp­ing sites. How­ev­er, in some places we will be tres­pass­ing, and as such, facil­i­ties will be min­i­mal. We have select­ed places that we feel are suit­able to camp for the nights of the 15th-19th.
On the night of the 20th, we will be wild camp­ing in a park in Brum cen­tre, and from then on, wild camp­ing in loca­tions that we have not yet vis­it­ed, and there­fore we can’t guar­an­tee they will be bril­liant places to camp.

Food & water

On the first leg of the ride from Man­ches­ter to Birm­ing­ham, we will have a cater­ing team fol­low­ing us in a vehi­cle. With vol­un­teer sup­port from us, they will pro­vide one cooked, veg­an, evening meal each day, and pro­vide the ingre­di­ents for us to make our own break­fast and packed lunch­es.
Vol­un­teers in the kitchen will need to wear a face mask and observe phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing.
Dona­tions for food are great­ly appre­ci­at­ed, though no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.
On the sec­ond leg, we will NOT be catered for, so if you are cycling from Brum to Leeds, you will need to buy your own food and cook for your­self.
Most of the camp­ing sites have run­ning water near­by. How­ev­er, you need to have at least 2 1L drink­ing bot­tles with you on the ride, and to fill them up when­ev­er pos­si­ble on route to camp­sites. Stay hydrat­ed!

Toilets

At some of the camp­sites, there are toi­lets. Where there are not toi­lets, we will have a bike trail­er toi­let cubi­cle in tow, and a spade. Col­lec­tive­ly, we will have to dig a pit for every­one to poo in. If the idea of poop­ing in a pit gross­es you out, then make sure you use pub­lic toi­lets on route.

Checking your bike is ready to join Roll Back the Tracks

Lots of dif­fer­ent bikes can make this trip, but it needs to be in good work­ing order.

Please make sure you have at least one water bot­tle hold­er on your bike. You also need to think about how you will car­ry your lug­gage. You need either a pan­nier rack bolt­ed to your bike frame to car­ry pan­nier bags with your belong­ings, or you’ll need to bring bike pack­ing bags to car­ry lug­gage direct­ly on the frame. Please don’t come with a back­pack of all your stuff, you will be sweaty and uncom­fort­able quick­ly. Full sus­pen­sion moun­tain bikes are not rec­om­mend­ed.

If you don’t cycle reg­u­lar­ly, or you are bor­row­ing a bike for the trip check that the bike fits – take it for a test ride of a few hours to see how com­fort­able it is. You need to be able to stand over the frame with­out it touch­ing you between your legs and be able to com­fort­able reach the han­dle­bars and brakes.

Check your brakes

Rim brakes (the brakes act on the metal circular part of your wheel)

• pull on the brakes one at a time to ensure that they can stop the bike
• check there is plen­ty of rub­ber across the whole of all the pads (espe­cial­ly if your brakes are noisy)
• check that the brakes just touch onto met­al and not onto the rub­ber of the tyre
• check that when you pull the brake lever (the part in your hand when rid­ing) the lever does­n’t touch the han­dle­bars.

Disk brakes

• Check that the front and the back brake stops your bike (rather than when both are pressed at the same time).
• Check the rotary wheel is straight and firm­ly attached.
• If the brakes are ring­ing you need to get them adjust­ed.

Wheels

• Check that quick release wheels are prop­er­ly tight­ened. You should be able to read the word ‘closed’ when they are;
• oth­er­wise, check that wheel nuts are tight, espe­cial­ly if you remove your front wheel.
• Clean the brak­ing sur­face if you have rim brakes – use wash­ing up liq­uid in water and a rag.
• Check the tyres are ful­ly inflat­ed. The pres­sure is writ­ten on the side of your tyre.
• Check the tyres still have a pat­tern across the sur­face and do not bulge.
• Check that the brakes haven’t rubbed a grove in the rub­ber of the tyre.
• Check that the wheel runs in a straight line – do this by lift­ing one end of your bike and push­ing the wheel round fast, it should move smooth­ly and not rub.
• Look at your wheels to ensure all the spokes are there and squeeze them in pairs to check they are of a sim­i­lar tight­ness.

Frame

• Make sure there are no cracks or big dents in the frame.
• Check the bolts attach­ing mud guards, water bot­tles and the pan­nier rack are all tight.
• Can you move the han­dle­bars flu­id­ly?
• Could they be too loose? Put the front brake on, turn the front wheel 90 degrees and then see if the front of the bike rocks if you push for­ward on the turned han­dle­bar. If so, it needs tight­ened.

Gears

• Look at your chain and every­thing it touch­es. Dirty? It real­ly is worth­while using an old tooth brush to clean each link and con­tact point before re-apply­ing oil to each link and then remov­ing any excess with a rag.
• Move the ped­als and ensure they can freely turn round com­plete­ly.
• Check that the bike can go into all of its gears. There are going to be hills, so you’ll need a range of gears.

Got a creaking bike?

Can you work out where it is com­ing from? If stand­ing up to ped­al makes it stop check your sad­dle, if it is worse when you ped­dle hard it is like­ly your bot­tom brack­et.

Got a prob­lem with one or more of these areas? If yo don’t know how to fix it find a friend who does or take it to an inde­pen­dent bike shop – but watch out they may not be able to do this at short notice.

Please bring a spare inner tube with you in case you get a punc­ture, the size is writ­ten on the side of your tyre. If you don’t know how to change a flat tyre still bring a spare inner tube and we can fix it togeth­er.

Hav­ing a ful­ly work­ing bike is your respon­si­bil­i­ty.
We are meet­ing togeth­er on the 14th at Rye­bank Fields Protest Camp in Man­ches­ter to check bikes. Please bring a bike which is in full work­ing order as we may sad­ly have to ask you not to come if you’re bike isn’t up to the job and we can’t get parts to fix it.

How can you help?

• Know of any­where we (max 50 rid­ers) could sleep in the fol­low­ing areas?
◦ North Cheshire
◦ Birm­ing­ham Cen­tre (ide­al­ly near Dig­beth)
◦ West Leices­ter­shire
◦ Sheffield
◦ Leeds
• Involved in a crit­i­cal Mass or cycling group in Brum, Not­ting­ham, Sheffield or Leeds? Help us organ­ise some cyclists into a crit­i­cal mass!
• Have you got a bike sound sys­tem you could bring on part of the ride?
• Do a work­shop on route. Sing a song round the camp­fire.
• Get cre­ative and make some flags or ban­ners for our bikes!
• Vol­un­teer in the kitchen.
• Tow the bike trail­er toi­let for a few hours.
• Spare some change? We are try­ing to raise 2000 pounds to fund the project. can you help either by donat­ing or shar­ing? Here´s the link to the crowd­fun­der:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/roll-back-the-tracks

Drop us an email on rollbackthetracks@riseup.net to RSVP or for more info.