Caching on 2 wheels.

[+Lazerus101]

Hi there,

 

Just wondering how many others, like me, do their caching on a bicycle? I realise that by and large geocachers tend to drive and then ramble from their cars, but as a non-driver I am somewhat limited in that regard.

 

I do enjoy the thrill of discovering new places to ride on my bike while enjoying the hobby but it has its unique pitfalls. Like areas where it is difficult to take your bike but of course there is nowhere to secure it either. I really appreciate caches in public parks as obviously these are nearly always accessible.

 

I have also recently moved to Preston and have just started to find the caches which are local to me and work out some routes for days out caching. Currently cant really afford a proper GPS unit so use my phone, though of course that runs out of charge faster than I would like.

 

I would love to hear anyone elses tales and tips with caching on 2 wheels.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Lazerus101

[+MartyBartfast]

Me! Although I usually chuck the bike on the back of the car and drive to an area and then jump on the bike, I've also done a few train/cycle trips . Although my bike is good for a bit of off roading it's not a full on mountain bike so I often leave it somewhere while I go exploring on foot and I've never had trouble finding somewhere to leave it, I have a long wire cycle lock so in the town/city I can always find a lamp post or fence to lock it to. In the countryside I will try to find somewhere out of sight of the main path (if possible) then any sizeable tree or fence post will usually suffice to lock it up.

 

A bike also comes in useful in towns for covering suspicious searching, many times I've had to stop and lean my bike against a fence while I 'adjust the gears'.

[+golfchick]

Love caching on 2 wheels but like martybartfast says I chuck the bike on the rack on the back of the car and drive somewhere to go caching. Can cover so much more mileage in the time given and the dog is always happier as she can run faster and work out her energy quicker and gets less bored when I have to stop and search for a tricky one!

[+McFlyAway]

Me, of course! When I first started this hobby, I used to find all of my caches by bike.

[+mellers]

When I first started, I used to do nearly all my caching by bike. In the heady days of caches being less than 3 miles away, it was a piece of cake and a fun way to get out and about.

 

Having exhausted all the very close-to-home caches near me these days (I don't think I have any under 3 miles from home any more), in order to carry on with my continuous caching streak, I'm doing an average of a 25-mile round trip for ONE cache lately. Now, I can do 10 miles on a bike with no bother, but 25 (EVERY day!!!) would floor me completely, so sadly necessity means that I do most of my caching on 2 motorised wheels and take my scooter instead.

 

It's actually really handy, as I can park it almost anywhere, so nearly twice as many caches become cache and dash for me! I've also been known to take it on some pretty rough roads, making it nearly an all-terrain vehicle!

[+Thathanka]

I'm geocaching on bicycle and mostly in weekends. Trips 30-40 miles for 1-5 (rarely more) caches are nothing unusual. For me it is combining two activities I love the most.

[+The Great Redmondo]

Paul and I loved caching trips on our bikes, it makes it such a different outing to caching with the car.

We recently purchased a motor home so cycles are the perfect solution when out on road trips.

 

We had a very unfortunate experience on our last cycle/caching trip away from the motor home. We cycled a six-mile route mainly on roads, to access an N T Wood. Everything was great; we past by some lovely properties in a village, hardly any traffic or people about and we were enjoying a very pleasant bike ride in what seemed a lovely area. I’d stopped to pet the horses in a field; it was that type of outing.

We arrived at the wood, which was gated in such a way as to prevent cycles gaining access. We could have hauled them over the fence but that didn’t seem right.

No problem, we have a thick and hefty combination lock and have on numerous occasions secured the bikes slightly out of the way, waypointed their location and gone off on foot to find a few caches.

We didn’t think anything about leaving the bikes locked up for an hour at this particular location, nice village and not a soul about.

 

When we returned, probably about an hour and a half later all that was left was our bike lock, which had been cleanly cut with some heavy-duty bolt croppers. Both bikes gone.

 

It turns out that the area is a crime hotspot and a certain community of residents are tooled-up, out with their van trolling the area. We spoke to the local farmer who was literally at his wits end because of the theft of all sorts of machinery and the like from his property. The police were very nice but said it’s unlikely that the bikes will be recovered. Also said if we’d had three locks on the bikes they would still have been taken, after all this type of theft is some peoples day job.

 

To add to that, we’ve fallen into an insurance loophole.

We discovered that our contents insurance only covered our bikes if they were at the homestead. The extra contents insurance for the motor home would have covered them if they had been stolen while attached to the motor home bike racks.

 

Moral of the story, whey up the value of your bike and the cost of separate cycle insurance if you’re leaving them unattended when you go caching.

 

This has not put Paul and I off caching with cycles (after all, bikes get stolen from just about anywhere) but if/when we buy new replacement bikes we’ll be a bit wiser. We’re considering buying some cheap older bikes but always end up debating the weight/comfort/suitability argument.

 

There are some scumbags out there but I still believe that most people in the world would sooner do you good than bad.

 

Happy caching, whether by bike, car or on foot. Debs

[team tisri]

Hi there,

 

Just wondering how many others, like me, do their caching on a bicycle? I realise that by and large geocachers tend to drive and then ramble from their cars, but as a non-driver I am somewhat limited in that regard.

 

I do enjoy the thrill of discovering new places to ride on my bike while enjoying the hobby but it has its unique pitfalls. Like areas where it is difficult to take your bike but of course there is nowhere to secure it either. I really appreciate caches in public parks as obviously these are nearly always accessible.

 

I have also recently moved to Preston and have just started to find the caches which are local to me and work out some routes for days out caching. Currently cant really afford a proper GPS unit so use my phone, though of course that runs out of charge faster than I would like.

 

I would love to hear anyone elses tales and tips with caching on 2 wheels.

 

I originally bought my mountain bike so I could strike out further and find caches. I have a car but hate driving in town and don't want to spend more time driving and hunting a place to park than doing something fun. So I bought a bike, started finding caches near home and went from there. For good measure I got fit without even realising it and lost several stone of surplus fat along the way.

 

I like to use all the maps I can get my hands on to find where a cache is so I can decide which bike to take. If it's a longer ride I'd rather take the cross bike for speed, but if when I get there I need to go along a muddy or stony trail I might choose the mountain bike for comfort. It's also good to scope out an area to see what the provisions for cyclists are - as you've said some places simply don't allow cycling and it's really dull to walk two miles along a footpath pushing a bike. Other areas are open to cyclists but unless you've got a pretty rugged mountain bike you wouldn't want to be there.

 

Nowadays I've found most of the caches within a few miles of home and usually combine caching with bike rides (rather than the other way around, which I did when I first got the bike), and if there's a cache that looks fun a ways from home I may go and get it. It's also good because I've come to enjoy bike touring - I picked off a few caches when I rode the Way Of The Roses with a couple of friends earlier in the year.

[team tisri]

... also second what people have already said about a bike being good cover. I lose count of the number of times I've got down on my knees to look under a bench on a busy street on the pretence of fiddling with gears, brakes or some such. Pumping a tyre can also provide a bit of cover for why you're doing something that looks a bit unusual.

 

Just be prepared for friendly passers by to see if you need any help - one time I was pretending to fiddle with my gears while fumbling through a hole in a fence looking for a cache and a lady on a bike asked if I needed any help. I wanted her to move on before she noticed my arm reaching through the hole in the fence, but without appearing ungrateful for her offer of assistance.

[+Legochugglers]

Having just returned from an outing caching on bikes we really enjoyed ourselves. Especially if there is a nice mixture of terrain to keep the boys happy then good fun was had by all.

 

The only problem I find is that we seem to arrive at the cache GZ too quickly. This causes us to overshoot where the GPS is pointing and then we have to back track which creates the old spinning arrow on the GPS especially under tree cover.