Choosing a place for a tent, overnight stay or camp is an important and integral part of any bike trip or bike trip. Typically, a cyclist spends 1/2 to 2/3 days in the camp: sleeping, eating, restoring strength after a day of riding. Based on my many years of cycling experience, I will share with our blog readers how to get up for the night as safely, comfortably and quickly as possible. The article will be supplemented by my faithful friend Dima Khovrin, who has solid experience in solo cycling trips.
When riding a bicycle away from home, I always adhere to the rule of setting up a tent at night in such a way that there is no direct access to a car. It has been noticed that the largest number of conflicts with local residents, rangers, farmland guards or simple gopniks occurs precisely because you are camping in the “wrong” place.
Choosing a place for a tent on a hike: the human factor
Often, a pleasant place on the banks of a quiet river or lake with a convenient approach to the water, a bench or even a canopy can cause problems for a cyclist. In such places, especially on weekends in hot weather, the likelihood of an unwanted encounter is very high. And, although most strangers will be friendly, there is always a risk of running into antisocial elements, and then the problem of unpleasant communication will not be long in coming.
Tipsy locals often like to chat and test you to see if your personality is “sound on its feet.” In my practice, alas, there were such cases. Once a group of local gopars arrived in three cars. Fortunately, the tent had not yet been pitched. After talking with them, I decided to change my overnight location, putting up a tent in a secluded place 500 meters from the river. I did everything right, because after a couple of hours a drunken frenzy began on the river with shots from Saiga and obscene language.
A couple of times, while riding along the rivers, I observed drunken brawls between vacationers, which, you see, is also unpleasant. Once, at a seaside overnight stay, a tipsy local resident kept me company. He turned out to be, in general, a harmless fellow, but I wanted to sleep, and not listen to his drunken stories about local authorities.
When spending the night near nature reserves, I ran into rangers a couple of times. Imagine when at night or at dusk a car with its headlights on is crawling across a field in low gears.
Something like an interrogation began, checking documents and so on. My friends also had to meet with private security guards on farmland and change their location (essentially, set up a camp). An overnight stay near a railway bridge turned out to be a visit from private security with machine guns for a close friend of mine.
Of course, meetings with the powers that be often do not pose a particular threat, but they are still very unpleasant. But a meeting with drunken residents looking for adventure can turn out sad.
Therefore, I repeat once again that my main rule for spending the night is to set up camp in places where there are no (even dirt) roads and direct passage of vehicles. It is advisable to place the tent so that your camp is not visible from the road.
The algorithm for choosing an overnight stay is very simple. From the knurled dirt road, we usually turn onto a barely approximate dirt road, drive along it and look for places at some distance from it. Usually these are small groves, forest edges, copses, or plantings between fields.
We generally try to avoid spending the night near bodies of water. Firstly, water attracts people, including not always sober fishermen; secondly, in the lowlands near the water it is often much cooler and wetter than anywhere higher in the area.
You should also not place it close to populated areas. Very often, drunk local people travel at night from one settlement to another. Of course, you can consider me paranoid, but several times I had to report to foresters or rangers for lighting a fire, tell farmland guards that I was a bicycle tourist and did not pose any threat to their arable land. Several times I had to wake up to the sounds of a car arriving late with not entirely sober passengers. In Crimea, my friends almost became victims of petty thieves, and on the Konakovo-Tver route, clients of my bicycle workshop lost their bicycles, which were stolen from under their noses while they were sleeping on the banks of the Volga.
If you are riding in a large group, then one way or another you yourself represent an impressive force and can already dictate your own rules and easily set up camp near any body of water. However, you shouldn’t relax completely, because even a large group is not immune from night theft.
Well, when riding in a small group, we usually plan a swim an hour before the stop, and place the overnight stay somewhere nearby so that we can have breakfast by the water or swim again after breakfast. On the other hand, if we come across a really quiet and peaceful place near a body of water, we won’t disdain it. In this case, you should not place the tent too close to the pond in order to avoid condensation and excessive dampness. When pitching a tent near a river or lake, it is better to choose a place slightly higher than the bed of the reservoir itself.
In general, speaking about the human factor, I will say one thing: each person determines for himself the level of peace and security. The task of any tourist is to return from a trip safe, unharmed, rich in new impressions, so my philosophy here is simple - the fewer meetings with people, the better. The exception, as a rule, is mushroom pickers, whom I encountered several times at my campsites, and the fellow tourists themselves of various breeds.
Arrangement
All work on setting up a camp begins with choosing a suitable location. It is advisable that the rest stop be located near a populated area. Camps should not be located in close proximity to nature reserves and wildlife sanctuaries.
Next, the selected area begins to be cleared of debris and branches. When organizing a vacation, it is important to take into account such an important factor as the availability of water nearby. If you plan to use this place for recreation for a long time, it is recommended to drill a well. If this is not possible, then the camp must be placed near rivers or lakes. But from a purely technical standpoint, such water cannot be used for drinking, even if disinfected.
The natural factor in choosing a place for a tent on a cycling trip
Choosing a place to spend the night and camp on the ground is a somewhat creative process and, for us personally, exciting. It’s so nice to put up a tent in a beautiful place, enjoying the views of nature and the sunset, soft grass under your feet, the rustling of tree leaves and the shadow from them on a hot summer day.
The choice of overnight stay depends a lot on the natural area where you are skiing. For example, in a forest zone it is better to place it somewhere at the edge of the forest, in a woodland or in a clearing. The morning sun will quickly dry your tent and gear from overnight condensation, while the shade from the trees will give you the opportunity to get a good night's sleep.
In mountainous areas, when choosing a place to spend the night, you must evaluate it with an interested eye for possible rock hazards and avalanches. It should not be placed near mountain rivers, because if it starts to rain at night, the small stream can turn into a seething stream of water. In winter, do not forget about avalanche danger.
In the forest-steppe zone, where there is a lot of farmland, we usually find good parking places in forest belts, far from dirt roads driven by transport; we often park in pine plantations, small copses and logs. Usually 5-6 trees, no tall grass and a flat place, even with a slight slope - this is enough to set up a small camp. We try to avoid tall grass in every possible way. Firstly, it is much easier to catch a tick in it, and secondly, you can lose your personal travel items. Dense thickets should also be avoided. Sleeping in a dark forest will be damp and uncomfortable. The exception is cases when there is absolutely nowhere to go. I always carry a Fiskars mini garden saw with me, with which in 5 minutes I can remove all the branches that interfere with the camp, and make even a completely inconvenient-looking place suitable for camp. A great example is in the photo below.
Overnight stays in the steppe zone are complicated by the rare presence of trees. Along the plantings in the steppe, as a rule, there are roads. In this case, you can hide the tent behind bushes, inside the folds of the terrain or in the shade of a lonely tree. In my opinion, the main problem with steppe camping is the light of your lantern, which you somehow turn on after dark. It was during one of the overnight stays that a motorcycle tried to drive towards us in the evening, but got stuck in the damp soil.
Under no circumstances should you park in the middle of farmland - for example, in a field of sunflower, wheat, rye, as large equipment driving across the field may simply not notice you.
What about wild animals?
In the conditions of the so-called “middle zone” there is no one to fear except wild boars and mad foxes (this is extremely rare). Boars are afraid of sharp sounds. If the ground around your chosen site is characteristically excavated, it was most likely hogs. They can visit at night and scare you with grunting.
There are also rodents such as mice. Particularly impudent individuals may gnaw a hole in the tent on the way to your food supplies lying unpacked inside the tent.
Ticks were mentioned above. I will add that in the spring, when there is no tall grass yet, there are already more than enough ticks.
Poisonous snakes (usually vipers) are inactive at night and are unlikely to crawl inside the tent
