Would an event like this interest you?

rodgers73

Before I began cycling I was a bit of a petrolhead and I did a few "banger rallies". Not the smash 'em up races on oval tracks but 3-4 day rallies usually somewhere in Europe in cars that have to cost usually less than £300 or so.

Here are a few examples -

http://www.wackyrally.co.uk/welcome-wacky-rally

http://www.ramshacklerally.com/

I recently started to wonder if a cycling equivalent would appeal to anyone?

Regardless of whether it does or not I'm considering doing a fairly long distance ride on an extremely restricted budget to include the purchase of a bike, spares, food, drink, accommodation etc. It will most likely to be London to Rome for a total cost of no more than approximately £100, based on 1200 miles at 100 miles a day.

Could easily adapt this to something more modest for those who fancy this kind of mechanical/endurance challenge?

Lookyhere

rodgers73 wrote:

Before I began cycling I was a bit of a petrolhead and I did a few "banger rallies". Not the smash 'em up races on oval tracks but 3-4 day rallies usually somewhere in Europe in cars that have to cost usually less than £300 or so.

Here are a few examples -

http://www.wackyrally.co.uk/welcome-wacky-rally

http://www.ramshacklerally.com/

I recently started to wonder if a cycling equivalent would appeal to anyone?

Regardless of whether it does or not I'm considering doing a fairly long distance ride on an extremely restricted budget to include the purchase of a bike, spares, food, drink, accommodation etc. It will most likely to be London to Rome for a total cost of no more than approximately £100, based on 1200 miles at 100 miles a day.

Could easily adapt this to something more modest for those who fancy this kind of mechanical/endurance challenge?

thats £8 per day, including food and camping costs, i think the days of sleeping rough in a field by the side of the road, might be long gone.
i ve back packed africa and cycled around europe on a shoe string when i was unemployed but i dont think it could be done on that small amount now a days.
a route i did a while back was Santander to Roscof dept /arr plymouth, saves on a flight back from Rome, unless you are staying?? - a longer version... leave Calais, cycle all around france, take in a the canal du midi and back to Calais.

but tbh i think most people like their creature comforts too much to slum it......

craker

There's a North to South Wales sportive in September that's a £100 and it's a single day's ride (not sure how they justify that, 4 feed stops @ £25 each seems a bit steep).

Of course alot of folk would struggle with much more than a day ride. Some audaxes cover a weekend. They're cheap and you get to sleep in bus shelters :-)

rodgers73

I guess its a cross between a cycling event and something else. Probably not many people's cup of tea but I'm getting tired of organised events and more into expedition cycling so maybe trying to get anyone else on here into that is a bit of a waste of time

Anonymous

I do not get the concept of riding massive distances abroad (or even in the U.K.) on a 'forced' restricted budget concept personally.

If you only have that budget then go for it if its what you want to do, but viewing it as some sort of genre is nonsense IMO.

Cycling is about enjoyment and real challenges/achievements, not forced/fake ones.
Conquering Everest was great, but a two legged person hopping up it on one leg, or walking backwards etc.etc. .......... not so much :roll:

rodgers73

The genre exists in terms of car rallies so the question was - would you be interested in the cycling equivalent?

Cycling isn't "meant" to be anything - its whatever you want to make of it.

So, I think what you meant to say was "no, this event would not interest me, thanks"

Anonymous

rodgers73 wrote:

The genre exists in terms of car rallies so the question was - would you be interested in the cycling equivalent?


Cycling isn't "meant" to be anything - its whatever you want to make of it.

So, I think what you meant to say was "no, this event would not interest me, thanks"

Lots of things 'exist' in other areas. I assume you would agree that some of them would be silly translated to cycling?
I assume it exists in car rallies largely/partly because of its very affordability, thats completely different to creating a fake low budget to do on a crappy bike when you could do it on a better one.

I did not say the word 'meant' so why in speech marks?
I made two references to what I said being my opinion, and completely agree that cycling is there to make of what you will.

I did not mean just 'no, this event would not interest me, thanks'. I would have said that if I did
Did you want just 'yes, this event would interest me, thanks' if it did?
This is a forum, not a tick box questionnaire (although you could have just had a 'poll' if thats all you wanted) :roll:

Don't get all arsey just because its not the answer you wanted. I was just giving my opinion.
Not a lot of others seem that interested either, so flame them too 8)

rodgers73

My apologies - I wan't being arsey but I may have interpreted your comments as a little more unfriendly than they were perhaps meant.

The thread probably would be best if it were a poll, true. Interesting to hear your views but I hope this doesn't end up an argument about whether this sort of thing should happen at all. If no one is interested that's fine as I'm happy doing it under my own steam and I'm looking forward to it a lot.

I've done a lot of audax riding and solo rides that require mechanical self sufficiency and this is really just putting an additional stress on the mechanical side of that - making an otherwise old and knackered bike serviceable and nursing it through to the end of the ride. Nothing silly about that, in fact this guy seems to have had a great time doing it -

http://tomsbiketrip.com/how-to-go-cycle ... ks-part-1/

ai_1

I don't see much attraction in it myself.
I think the difference between the car version and your bike proposal to me is that the car rally is largely about cars, I think, whereas, the bike version is about cycling much more than it is about bikes. A cheap bike is likely to hamper the physical effort put in but it is likely to do so in frustrating rather than physically challenging ways and for me that's not what cycling is about.
Anyone interested in doing a long event is likely to already have a half decent bike. I don't see the point in buying a worse one specifically for this type of event. Anyone who doesn't already have a bike is unlikely to be interested either way.

desweller

I think the difference between riding a long way on a really nice bike and riding a long way on a tattier older bike is not as great as the difference between driving long distance in a modern car and doing it in something you picked up for £150. So the novelty value of contrast is less clearly defined.

Another aspect of the attraction of doing a banger rally is the higher likelihood of having to repair your own vehicle, which would be the case with bikes whatever bike you have.

Having said all that there is as you say a 'market' of sorts for it. A friend of mine did a self-styled Poor de Britain a couple of years ago, a loop of the country on £5/day I think it was, mainly because he was unemployed at the time. Pretty tough to keep yourself fed and sheltered on that.