Solo rides (127 Hours)

evillittlegoat

Just watched 127 Hours last night, excellent stuff. Not strictly MTB related although theres about 10 minutes of it at the beginning. Its definitely making me rethink my solo runs though, I'll be making more effort to make sure I can be found if I go AWOL. I'll be packing a pocket knife with a nice sharp blade too!

So what do you do? Leave a route map in the car or at home? Tell a buddy who knows your route?

jimexbox

I take my phone.

tsenior

i thought you were planning some sort of mental endurance ride.

phones break, drown, run out of battery and frequently dont have a signal .

always carry one but its a good idea to let someone know where you are going as well. I have a couple of A3 OS photocopies of the local area up on the fridge with all my regular local routes and variations marked on it and leave a note with the mrs with "red, A, C, E, black lion " (for example) written on it.

nipper9

hi
i usually tell my mrs and my best mate and atleast 1 work mate where i will be heading and wot time iam due at certain points

oh and sometimes i just wait for the mrs to go to the shops jump on my bike and just nip out for a couple of hours without telling her!!!!! naughty i know but hey sometimes u just got to be a man

MarcBC

NB: Phones only work if you are conscious.

Northwind

There's some common sense things you can do... Like, I just realised I've been riding at glentress and innerleithen for years but never took down the emergency contact info for the duty ranger, that's just stupid, an ambulance isn't going to find me if I say "I'm halfway round the black just after the steep slab" after all let alone "I'm on one of the secrets".

On a less positive note I carry around a couple of tramadol, knowing that if I ever need to walk off a mountain with a broken foot, then I can. And a wee bit more clothes food and water than I expect to need, plus a foil blanket thing- these aren't actually all that useful for warmth, they'll keep you warmer but they won't warm you up. But, they can be a wind shield if you're careful (they rip easily) or keep the rain off, or just be a big shiny attention grabbing thing.

bike-a-swan

I'll take a first aid kit if going anywhere nasty, a bit of food on anything were I might end up in the middle of nowhere. Most of my riding is fairly well covered or rarely more than a relatively short distance from a road, so unless I knock myself clean out and pile into a ditch it's a level of risk I'm happy with.

sniper68

As mentioned phones break/lose signal etc.If going into the wilderness/up mountains etc as well as an emergency blanket a whistle and a torch are your best bets(make sure you know the international distress signal ) If you do have a phone signal it helps if you have a map for a grid reference and actually know roughly where you are.

MountainMonster

I just don't go on solo rides anywhere that will be hard to find. If I want to go exploring I always bring buddies with me.

A gps system is also very good. You can relay your GPS coordinates to whoever is coming, if you contact them.

sniper68

MountainMonster wrote:

A gps system is also very good. You can relay your GPS coordinates to whoever is coming, if you contact them.

It is but not if it's smashed in a crash Don't just rely on technology take a good old fashioned map as well.

ollie_lucas1985

I usually just go out and not tell anyone!.. after seeing this film it would make sense to tell people but still, I dowbt I will..

More to the point.. would YOU cut off your arm to save your life?

hammy7272

I reckon I would cut my arm off to save my life. I haven't watched the film but I have read the book it is based on and it was great. It always amazes me what we are a capable of in extreme last resort situatons.

Pirahna

Always worth letting somebody know where you are, if it's a regular route mark it out on a OS map and leave the map with somebody.

Having said that I don't know of anybody that's been badly caught out mountain biking but have been part of a couple of motorcycle green lane nasties, including one trip from an air ambulance. Wost for me personlly was a quick evening spin on an XR600 by myself, got bogged down in a rut that look OK and wasn't. Spent 2 hours trying to heave the bike out, Mrs didn't have a clue where I was and was going frantic.

bfreeman0

I let a few people know where I'm heading, as the route is generally unplanned. I also make sure the other half rings me every half an hour, so that she knows I'm safe, plus keeps her from being bored.
I've had many phones and not one of them has broken because of impact. (Used to drop them all the time) and signal quality is pretty good where I go anyway, better than at home actually.
Going biking today, so if there isn't a reply by 12:00 you can safely say I'm either dead or been caught out :P

evillittlegoat

Northwind wrote:

There's some common sense things you can do... Like, I just realised I've been riding at glentress and innerleithen for years but never took down the emergency contact info for the duty ranger, that's just stupid, an ambulance isn't going to find me if I say "I'm halfway round the black just after the steep slab" after all let alone "I'm on one of the secrets".

Thats good thinking, I must do the same. Id need the ranger to unlock the fireroad gates so an ambulance could get anywhere near my local spot. Particularly on a night run when the whole place is locked up.

Buckled_Rims

I'm in the more extreme situation in that I also climb the Scottish mountains solo (sometimes using a MTB for the Land Rover tracks to get right into the mountains.)

What I do is simple. I have 2 phones. I leave my "spare" cheap phone in the house plugged into the recharger. I tell everyone not to answer the rings. I leave a message on the answer phone or txt of where I'm going, staying, eating, crapping, mending, parking etc....I also sometimes send a picture of my camps site if I wild camp.

Texting your GPS points to your spare phone is also good for safety in poor reception. I use the code like (direction + distance in km + from location in GB OS) NW + 12 + NN12345,98765.

The lass can answer the phone and check the voicemail or txt and clear it if she's nosy...which she is.

EnglishChris

My brother had an accident on the Syfidrin Trail at Nant yr Arian in the summer of 2009. I was with him but no-one else knew where we were (apart from "in Wales"). My brother was hoofing down a landrover trail towards the end of the day, with me ten metres or so behind him, and just as I thought "ooh this is a bit fast" he completely lost the front wheel on a tough tuft of wet grass and was dumped on his side before he knew what was happening.

His helmet was cracked right through in three places which made us both grateful he had it on. However, he didn't have any elbow protection on, and the impact caused him to shatter the bottom of is humerus at the elbow joint. As the broken end of the humerus forced its way out of the skin, it severed the tendon connecting his tricep to his elbow and luckily missed the nerve and artery that run down there. He tried to get up on his hands and knees and then realised there was something really wrong with his arm and stayed in that position for the next twenty minutes.

It was between 4-5pm and raining and immediately he was very cold. Luckily my GF had given me a survival blanket to carry so that went over him. My iPhone was appalling in the rain (touch screen is a nightmare when wet). We had poor signal and 3 aborted calls to the ambulance folk. We didn't know exactly where we were and the trail map rapidly disintegrated in the rain. Eventually we strapped his arm to him and walked out, Found a guy with a 4x4 who gave us a lift to somewhere with reception so we could meet the ambulance. We were relatively lucky as there were two of us, the injury wasn't as bad as it could have been (if he'd severed the nerve or artery, or not had a helmet on it could have been a lot scarier) and it turned out that we weren't that far from the road (as we hit the top of the hill we saw the ambulance drive past heading off into the distance, but at least my part instructions had got him to roughly where we were).

This made me make some promises to myself though:

i) Do a proper outdoor First Aid course (I have done first aid stuff in the past but its a while ago now) (still not done - must book!)
ii) Take an cheap second emergency phone with actual buttons and which is on a different network to maximise chance of getting a signal (done)
iii) Carry a proper (even if basic) GPS so you can give coordinates to the emergency services easily (done)

I watched 127 Hours a couple of weeks ago which reminded me I really need to book that First Aid course, AND make sure I tell someone where I'm going when I go riding on my own, which is quite often.

AND I've now also registered with the TEXT 999 service so that if I'm ever in the same situation with an intermittent signal, I can text details, location etc. http://www.emergencysms.org.uk/index.php

It took 3 ops and about 9 months of physio to get my brother back to normal and he won't get on a bike again! Here's his scar....

bfreeman0

oh by the way all i'm alive lol, wasn't as fun as I hoped as the trail was flooded really need to buy some common sense before my next ride hehe

Tony__B

I've had a couple of salutary experiences.

A few years ago arrived home early from work, on a November afternoon, and thought I'd manage a quick couple of hours on the bike before wife got home. Ended up in a bit of the local woods I didn't know and headed down a steep leaf-covered track that turned out to be a deep gully. Went straight over the handlebars and bike landed on top of me. Other than being a bit shaken and bruised I was OK but as I nursed my injured pride on the way home I realized that no-one knew where I was, I had no mobile with me and that it would have taken a while for my missus to spot that the bike wasn't in the garage even when she got home. It was getting dark and decided chilly and, dressed as I was, had I suffered a more serious injury then hypothermia would have been an issue as well.

As far as carrying a mobile goes, last year was riding through Swinley, came off and landed on pocket with phone in, rendering it useless. Again only minor injuries and hurt pride but it showed that relying on a mobile to get you out of trouble might not be the best solution.

In 127 Hours Aron Ralston's problems are all because no-one knows where he is, as he admits to his video camera. Take heed...

.blitz

Gave up relying on anybody or anything to bale me out a long time ago.

I only do solo rides and I take what I can as a form of damage limitation but the best bet is to put yourself in tricky situations on your t&c and sort it out. It's the only way.

gruffdris

always carry 2 phones with gps on different networks. both have "where's my droid" installed which will reply to a key word with current gps coords. also carry a compass, torch, pen knife, iodine, dyhydration sachet.

if im riding a planned route the gpx will be on my desktop or txt file of area and time i should return.