Thomas Ivor's 21km charity triathlon - going nowhere, fast!

The National Autistic Society recently launched their '7k for 700k' challenge, in which adults are challenged to swim, run or cycle 7km in a week; Thomas Ivor, at nine, is going to do all three. In one day.

7km on the turbo trainer isn't really a big deal for our long-distance adventurer, but 7km in the pool (4-5 hours, we reckon) is a serious piece of work, which he wants to do now, to reward the efforts of his swimming teachers, Becki and Glenn, one of whom is off to pastures new very soon. From not being able to swim two years ago, Thomas Ivor has gone on to win a race in the Olympic pool in London recently, and now is taking on his first serious endurance distance swim, with an eye on going further in the future. We blame Sean Conway's TV show...

Thomas Ivor swims most days, mid-morning, often during Aqua Zumba (so he can cope with tides and currents!) because he is home educated - it's been like that for well over a year now, because he's one of the 50% of children with a diagnosed Autistic Spectrum Disorder who's had to wait that long for the specialist educational help he needs. As a result, his curriculum is a tailored one, and it's allowed him to master his swimming strokes with regular repetition and guidance from his teachers, who have had to adapt their methods for him, and the wonderful team of lifeguards who have taken him under their wing ever since he won his accreditation to swim in the lanes by himself.

We also want to acknowledge all the folk from the 'adventure community' - some well known names, some less so, but all heroes - who have taken the time to train with, speak with, or otherwise encourage the lad. Many of the difficulties he faces, you would never see, but it all means a great deal to him and helps with his motivation.

Good luck to the mighty @thomas_ivor this weekend! https://t.co/XW3XeDsyOu

— Dave Cornthwaite (@DaveCorn) January 17, 2018

So, tomorrow, Friday 19 January, Thomas Ivor is going to do something about his situation, by making the most of it. He's trying to raise a tenner for every km of his challenge, and if Family ByCycle's readers would like to support him, with a donation or a message on Twitter @Thomas_Ivor - that would be wonderful! He will be back to write it up afterwards - probably quicker than Daddy...

7 great reasons to take your family bothying

It's been a long time coming but following the girls' foray into bikepacking, we broke new ground at the weekend with a trip to a bothy in Mid-Wales with our girls Ruth (4) and Rhoda (2). What an experience! It's something we want to share.

What's a bothy?

The term originates in Gaelic and these days a bothy is generally taken to refer to a shelter (often in the way of old crofters' cottages or estate huts) in a wild place, which is available for the use of passing travellers. The vast majority are in Scotland but there are a few in Northern England and in Wales, lots of which are cared for by the Mountain Bothy Association. We visited one of two belonging to the Elan Valley Trust.

A bothy isn't likely to impress Lenny Henry. You're going to have to bring your own sleeping gear. And cooking gear. And lighting. And make a fire. Oh, and you'll probably need to take water with you, and a trip to the toilet may involve a spade and a bit of a walk...

Hold on, though, - that's wild camping with the benefit of four walls, a roof and guaranteed permission! Here's why we think any adventure-loving family should give 'bothying' a shot:

1. It's free!

So many opportunities to do things in the wilds actually come at a cost. Even campsite prices seem to be rising steadily, often calculated in such a way as to penalise families travelling light and bright, who aren't turning up with a Chelsea tractor, a tent the size of Belgium, more Christmas lights than Oxford Street and a shrunk down, folding and ultimately dismal version of every appliance and item of furniture found in their home. 

You've got to get to your chosen bothy, but that goes for any outing. You've got to eat and keep warm, but you'd have to do that at home. Fundamentally, using a bothy needn't cost you anything. How many forms of under cover accommodation can claim that?

2. They're always open

Not only are bothies free to use, they're a reliable place to stay the night - particularly at a time of year when campsites are closed and the weather even less dependable than normal. Just be prepared to share with whoever has had the same idea as you! We had the bothy to ourselves on a Saturday night, and judging by entries in the 'bothy book' it looked like most visitors had enjoyed a similar stay, but we reckon you could have slept twenty in the bothy we visited, without trouble. Of course, you might find a bothy equally welcoming and useful as a lunch stop during a day in the wild.

3. The adventure begins at home

I've always reckoned that the best adventures begin with map sheets spread across the lounge floor, or multiple browser tabs open on the computer, at least one of which is Google maps telling you the distance from your home to somewhere exciting.

A very distinct part of bothying is that the onus is on you to find them, not only when you go, but beforehand! Locations used to be protected by almost masonic-like secrecy, but no longer! Nevertheless there's still a school of thought that says that these wonderful places should be kept for those who will cherish them. If you want to try this bothying lark badly enough, and take the trouble to do some basic research online, you'll find all the information you need for a wonderful adventure. Then, you just need to decide how you're going to get there! For a first trip, we would recommend choosing somewhere relatively low-risk - some bothies are surprisingly close to public roads - and be sure before you set out that you have the tools and skills to navigate to your destination.

4. There's less to pack - and you already have the gear

It's always great to discover a new activity for which you (not to mention the children) don't need to go out and buy a load of stuff up front. The great news is, if you camp as a family, you already have what you need - you just leave the tent at home and throw in a few candles instead. Boom. For us, that's a significant weight saving on our bikes. Ruth and Rhoda took the opportunity to test out their new Alpkit 'Cloud Covers' which reduced the bulk still further. There are a few consumables to consider, but the equipment you'll want, you are sure to already own and be familiar with if you camp as a family, with or without bikes.

With a bit of research you can get an idea as to whether you will want to take fuel with you for heat. Some bothies have a ready supply of wood nearby, but by no means all. We chose a bothy which we could get relatively close to with the car, so took in a 10kg bag of coal as insurance. It turned out we didn't need it and as a result, subsequent visitors will get a pleasant surprise and a warm night, too!

5. The weather doesn't matter (so much!)

We can't promise that the bothy you visit won't be draughty. We won't tell you that the night won't be a cold one, and getting there will be an adventure in itself, and subject to the great outdoors, but four walls and a roof is a major game-changer when the weather is marginal - or downright awful.  We went all-out to test this theory by going to Wales in February, in the back end of the mighty storm 'Doris', with a forecast for it to blow a hoolie and persist with rain. Camping would have been miserable. Anything else would have been too urban and too expensive. The bothy was brilliant.

6. Peace and quiet - remember that?

Mrs Large (the elephant) should have visited a bothy - although the book might well have ended up being called 'We're going on a bothy hunt'. If you want solitude, you will find it in the back end of nowhere, especially at times when others are dissuaded from going there. One of the main rewards for the schlep to a remote bothy is getting away from it all. To step outside your front door at a time when the world is still busy, and to see - and hear - absolutely nothing artificial, is priceless to us.  We put the girls to bed and sat with a roaring fire on, totally undisturbed, before retiring for the night without having to lock up.

7. Have a unique adventure

How often do you stay somewhere that is a destination in itself? Every bothy is different, not just in setting and geographical location, but the structures themselves, the rudimentary facilities they offer, and indeed the fellow travellers you may meet there. There is a bothy to suit every taste - some are little more than a hut, a few have toilets and running water. Some are many miles from the nearest road, set in rugged mountains or on desolate moorland; others enjoy their own beach and view of the coast, and a good few are accessible to adventurous families.

Where to find your first bothy, then? Well, that's easier than it used to be. The Mountain Bothy Association decided not so long ago to start publishing the locations of their bothies, and some super books have emerged in recent times. We really like "The Scottish Bothy Bible" by Geoff Allan (review coming up!), and an enchanting film from Alastair Humphreys which our children have loved for some time.

We're already looking for an opportunity to go bothying again, with our bikes and Ruth's new bikepacking setup. We've been tipped off about one or two interesting options in Scotland. Be sure to bookmark our blog and follow us on social media to find out more, and if you've got a question, or you've got a bothying story to share, please do so in the comments below!

Too much, too soon, or too little, too late? Thoughts on childhood and opportunity.

We've had some really lovely responses to the video we posted yesterday.

@FamilyByCycle This is wonderful, the editing, the narration, everything!

— Anna McNuff (@AnnaMcNuff) August 15, 2016

It's prompted me to write a little about a couple of fundamental principles we apply - that just because most children of a certain age don't do a particular thing, it doesn't mean ours shouldn't; and that to presume we have nothing to learn from our children limits our own horizons.

So often, children of our kids' generation get precious little chance to be children. They are burdened with pressure and responsibility they don't need, given choices to make that would best be made for them, and exposed to things they just don't need to know about. We live in a society that does all that, and then has the temerity to wrap them in the most appalling kind of cotton wool. We're in an era where a parent can believe their irrational fear of the bogeyman can kibosh every other child and their families having photographs on a school sports day - if there are any actual sports at all and if indeed anyone is allowed to win. Children are prevented or at the very least dissuaded from going outside to play, and then left in front of computer screens and televisions bringing them far more risk and brain-rot than they'd have found in the street.

This week sees the launch of the latest film adaptation of the classic 'Swallows and Amazons' and the director, bless them, has decided both that the original storyline isn't exciting enough for today's kids, and that a child nicknamed 'Titty' is now a problem. On the contrary, by my reckoning the biggest anathema for the children watching the film, and the most exciting prospect, will most likely be the idea of playing in the great outdoors, never mind doing it without 'elf an' safety or other politically correct spoilsportism (if that's not a word, I've just made it one!).*

It would be all too easy for me just to whinge about that, but we've learned that opportunities to do something about it are still abundant, if parents take it upon themselves to lead from the front whilst the state still lets us (even if it has long since decided no longer to actually advocate this pernicious, maverick approach, or make it easy for working families to do it).

The greatest disservice children today suffer from is paucity of expectation, of smiling dream-assassins determining what they may or may not try to do, with a predetermined agenda of troubling themselves as little as possible - and so as a family we delight in setting the bar high, making opportunities and cheering the children on to go for it, because they usually can (in their own way) and because it's exciting! Engaged children are, frankly, much easier to parent, so we're doing ourselves a favour, too. It isn't always easy - one day I will write the blog post about 'taking a child cycling vs going for a ride on your own' - but it's seldom without reward.

Few people expect a little girl of three to be riding a trailerbike helping to tow her little sister all afternoon, less still to be learning to read the map as she goes. The faces as we pass people say it all. Nobody expects said little girl to help to film, and then record the voiceover for, a film documenting the trip, but as cute as we may think it is (whether anyone else does is another matter - it's our job!) pivotally, Ruth is so, so proud of herself. That little film will now be the springboard to something else. Having tried the trombone, she's asking to learn the violin. Who knows, maybe she's planning to busk round Spain like Laurie Lee, and latterly Alastair Humphreys.

Maybe for your family and your children it's not even bicycle touring but some other activity or interest you love, that you want to adapt to make it family friendly. Give it a go! I'm sure you can find a way.

One of the biggest motivators for Family ByCycle, is not to say 'look at our kids aren't they incredible' (that's the kind of sickening self-promotional bilge we all whizz merrily past on our Facebook timelines, let's be honest), and in any case we don't hold all the answers, but hoping to encourage other parents 'you can do this, too!' - we dare to dream that we can help build a critical mass of families with children whose horizons are as broad as they can be, who dare to dream, who participate in and explore the world, yes, as children, not as frustrated, stressed little adults, neither constrained to their peer group and the expectations of others. After all, who as an adult surrounds themselves only with people born within a year , and a few miles, of them?

Thomas Ivor's talk about cycle touring as a child received a wonderful reception at the Cycle Touring Festival in Clitheroe earlier in the year, and he's delighted to have accepted an invitation to speak at this Autumn's 'Yestival'. We're especially looking forward as a family to participating in the 'Dreamcamp' part of the event, in the hope not only of inspiring kids to think big, look far and aim high, but for the adults to receive from them a healthy dose of childlike wonder and enthusiasm. I'd rather be blindly accused of 'too much, too soon', than any of our family grow old to realise we did 'too little, too late'.

Why not join us there and give it a go?

Read more on this topic in another post from a little while ago...

* Yes, I know about Pokemon. It will pass. Again. I predict that the gaggle of people staring at their smartphones outside the council offices late at night will not survive a single winter!

Inspiration for the infants

We had a super night out in London last week, to hear the mighty Anna McNuff speak at Dave Cornthwaite's 'YesStories' event. Taking the little two into town on the train is a #Microadventure in its own right!

Ruth and Rhoda are by far the youngest ever attendees to this event - and it's always something of a lottery when you take children to something they might not necessarily be expected at! Luckily, they received a wonderful welcome and acquitted themselves pretty well, despite an inopportune event with the reappearance of a half-chewed dried apricot during the main event. We really enjoyed Anna's new talk, 'Let me tell you about a time when...', and she coped wonderfully with both the live regurgitation and periodic heckling from her young fans. We are very grateful to her for her kindness and interest, and for blazing a trail for little girls like ours to follow.

In Mr Cornthwaite's 'Just say yes' spirit, and with the car's bike carrier finally fixed, I didn't have much choice, then, but to take the girls for a bike ride (Thomas Ivor is away this week) the following day, so we went to finish off the Brampton Valley Way, which I will write a separate review about shortly. We've been gradually crossing off different parts of it for a little while now.

Over two days, Ruth has done 20 miles on the trailerbike, Rhoda a lap of a car park, and the 'Bike+Trailerbike+Trailer' combination has been well and truly tested pending Katie's annual leave. By taking the double Croozer we can use it as a 'broom van' to sweep Ruth up if her little legs decide enough is enough; we can't speak highly enough of the Islabikes trailerbike (very sadly no longer made and still commanding decent money second hand). It confers a significant weight saving over the Trek Mountain Train we used in the Hebrides in 2014 and much improved stability thanks to the rack mount system, and whilst a little on the long side (a couple of feet longer overall than the double WeeHoo, we reckon) it is a remarkably nimble and manoeuvrable outfit.

As ever, assuming we get that far this summer, we're developing another touring setup, with Thomas Ivor on his Islabikes Luath 24, now morphing into a 'bikepacking' setup thanks to our friends at Alpkit, who have made him a beautiful bespoke frame bag. Our replacement bikes seem to be doing the business, although I am reserving judgement on the strength of the wheels.

All things being equal, Ruth is off to cycling club tonight for a first ride in her own right, so for now, here's a video of our outing in the Brampton Valley, which we will talk about a little more, soon...

WeeHoo-ing out 2015

Rhoda's Striderbike has been a hit, but we decided that one more ride as a family was on the cards for 2015, so with the trailer folded up, out came the WeeHoo for another run. Rhoda is still a bit small for it so the colder weather gives us an excuse to put the girls in their snow suits (obtained for buttons courtesy of the Dare2B online clearance!)

I'm rapidly growing in confidence with the WeeHoo and its peculiar centre of gravity. So, too, are the girls, and it is definitely much easier to load them and get everything ready, with two pairs of hands. Rhoda cried again early in this afternoon's run but, soon after, had nodded off! After a few laps of the bandstand, Katie was able to sit on my wheel to observe, and reports that it really is very stable and that we can have confidence in both how it tows and how the girls get on with it. We need now to look at pannier solutions. So far nobody seems to have done it with the 2015 model and its asymmetric rear arm. If it requires a welded solution, we want to give it a fair test in standard form, first!

Ruth borrowed her brother's Swisseye 'Young' glasses for eye protection; we were very impressed with the fit on her smaller face, and with the way she left them totally alone under her lid, thoughout the ride.

I dared to bring Katie along the cycle paths we tried in the autumn, which were a pain in the proverbial and littered with broken vodka bottles. Needless to say we returned home once more on the road, much happier with our lot.

Our little microadventure complete, we returned to the house and went off to the gym for a swim. I dropped a quick 1k on the rower as well, in a new PB. There's a turn-up for the books!

We've not covered quite the ground we'd hoped over Christmas. The weather's not played ball and we've had other things to contend with, but we are well set up for 2016. Happy New Year everyone - where will the coming year take you?