cycle touring and water



In article <[email protected]>, chris French wrote:
>>
>In remote enough areas, I just take the water and drink it,
>yes there is a risk, but i think it is small.

In remote enough areas - there's nothing like finding a half-
rotted dead sheep in a stream to make you glad you decided
to wait till further uphill to fill your water bottles.
 
[email protected] (jacob)typed

> Getting water no prob - if you remember in time. By the
> end of a long hard day and a struggle to find a camping
> spot you can easily get distracted and forget about some
> necessities. For me this has sometimes led to things like
> breakfast consisting of half a cup of water, one digestive
> biscuit, a mouthful of whisky and a tin of sardines.
> Probably very healthy but not entirely satisfying.

Yebbut you probably have learned from your adventures and
will plan ahead next time you camp...

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email protected] Edgware.
 
> The water taps outside garages (petrol stations): I've
> seen them labelled as "not suitable for drinking" but is
> that really true? Is it just mains water or what?

It is always best to ask at a door or shop.I usually get a
polite reception when I explain the problem of finding a
supply.If not, well nothing lost.

I always have in my saddlebag , even for day trips locally,
a little bottle of iodine tablets and a few vitamin c
tablets (in a different bottle or bag) for killing the
iodine flavour.Chlorine tabs I have used but they are not so
relaible for some germs, I have read. Then I take water from
almost any source that looks reasonable if I need to.I
rarely actually have to use them, but it makes a lot of
difference knowing they are there. I only drink from streams
without treatment in remote areas and in this country. For
example, ground water in the usa is very likely to contain
Giardia, and that will ruin your holiday, if not your
bicycle as well.

I would not think that absence of a label on a tap in a
grubby public toilet is necessarily a recommendation to
drink .Some sources could be polluted with lead, or upstream
recieve the drainage from a cowshed.

If you go to
http://www.travax.scot.nhs.uk/registered/main.cfm you can
read guidance on water treatment.

TerryJ
 
You just reminded me to take a flask of Whisky!

Thanks :)

On 29/06/2004 15:01, jacob wrote:

> Getting water no prob - if you remember in time. By the
> end of a long hard day and a struggle to find a camping
> spot you can easily get distracted and forget about some
> necessities. For me this has sometimes led to things like
> breakfast consisting of half a cup of water, one digestive
> biscuit, a mouthful of whisky and a tin of sardines.
> Probably very healthy but not entirely satisfying.
>
> have a nice trip
>
> Jacob,
 
In news:[email protected],
Terry <[email protected]> typed:
> I always have in my saddlebag , even for day trips
> locally, a little bottle of iodine tablets and a few
> vitamin c tablets (in a different bottle or bag) for
> killing the iodine flavour.Chlorine tabs I have used but
> they are not so relaible for some germs, I have read.
<snip>
> For example, ground water in the usa is very likely to
> contain Giardia, and that will ruin your holiday, if not
> your bicycle as well.

It is Giardia that requires iodine to kill it.

A
 
In news:[email protected],
Helen Deborah Vecht <[email protected]> typed:
> Richard Bates <[email protected]>typed
>> Even if you are not staying on campsites, you can still
>> obtain water there if you are discrete.
>
> <pedant> I'm not continuous, are you? <pedant>

Ever since I've learned the distinction between (the
spellings of) discreet and discrete I've been aching to use
it, but I resisted this time despite the number of times
I've seen them written properly and not been able to.

But someone had to put the speling flame in, didn't they? :)

A
 
On 29 Jun 2004 11:50:43 -0700, in
<[email protected]>, [email protected]
(Terry) wrote:

>For example, ground water in the usa is very likely to
>contain Giardia, and that will ruin your holiday, if not
>your bicycle as well.

Make sure your trouser clips are VERY tight!

--
DISCLAIMER: My email box is private property.Email which
appears in my inbox is mine to do what I like with. Anything
which is sent to me (whether intended or not) may, if I so
desire, form a legal and binding contract.
 
On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 19:04:31 +0100, in
<[email protected]>, Helen Deborah Vecht
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Richard Bates <[email protected]>typed
>
>
>
>> Even if you are not staying on campsites, you can still
>> obtain water there if you are discrete.
>
><pedant>
>
>I'm not continuous, are you?
>
><pedant>

You learn something every day. Thank you!

--
DISCLAIMER: My email box is private property.Email which
appears in my inbox is mine to do what I like with. Anything
which is sent to me (whether intended or not) may, if I so
desire, form a legal and binding contract.
 
On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 21:33:51 +0100, "Ambrose Nankivell"
<[email protected]> wrote in message
<[email protected]>:

>It is Giardia that requires iodine to kill it.

I never knew that. I've had Giardia - and I've had IBS ever
since. It's thoroughly unpleasant. I caught it in a hotel in
Manchester, much to the surprise of my doctor.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after
posting. http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at
Washington University
 
Richard Corfield <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> On 2004-06-29, Pete Biggs
> <ppear{remove_fruit}@biggs.tc> wrote:
> > The water taps outside garages (petrol stations): I've
> > seen them labelled as "not suitable for drinking" but is
> > that really true? Is it just mains water or what?
>
> Presumably the water becomes not suitable for drinking if
> its stored in a header tank, or runs through non-certified
> plumbing, or perhaps they dont want to be sued by anyone
> who drinks it. You'd think that in a petrol station
> there'd be a good easy to access mains water system that
> could be plumbed into for these taps.
>
> - Richard

The South Downs Way has taps (no use to you I appreciate)
but there was an article in the CTC magazine which mentioned
a network of taps throughout the UK, try them;
www.ctc.org.uk
 
On 29 Jun 2004 18:08:48 +0100 (BST), [email protected] (Alan
Braggins) wrote (more or less):

>In article <[email protected]>, chris
>French wrote:
>>>
>>In remote enough areas, I just take the water and drink
>>it, yes there is a risk, but i think it is small.
>
>In remote enough areas - there's nothing like finding a half-
>rotted dead sheep in a stream to make you glad you decided
>to wait till further uphill to fill your water bottles.

"In my teens I went camping with a friend by a waterfall in
the mountains. Alongside was a chuckling stream which
burblewd its way down across the gravelly bed-rockand
spattered against the slanting stones in the sunlight. We
crouched down and drank from cupped hands. The water was
cool clear and reviving.We splashed it on our faces, rubbied
it through our hair. And then we trudged upthe wooded slopes
, the shadows of dappled leaves dancing around our feet, to
see where the stream came from. Around the bend in the
stream came the answer: propped in the water like a garish
sacrifice was the half-rotten corpse of a sheep, hollow eye
sockets starng to the sky, flies buzzing around the cavity
where its brain had been, with strands of putrid intestines
and tufted strands of rotting wool waving in the water. the
once-crisp taste of water in one's mouth seemed to acquire a
different flavour after that.

Did we become ill with dysentery? Was the water poisoned and
full of germs? Of course not. the water we drank, just a
short distance downstream, was perfectly pure. We owe the
purity of the water not to the fact that it has never been
touched by microbes, but because it is populaed by them. It
is the presence of microbes in water that renders it free
from germs." Brian J. Ford, 1999, "Genes - the Fight for
Life", Cassell Frm Ch.5 - "Cells against Pollution"

There's more, but I'm bored typing. :)

--
Cheers, Euan Gawnsoft: http://www.gawnsoft.co.sr
Symbian/Epoc wiki: http://html.dnsalias.net:1122 Smalltalk
links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk)
http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk
 
Simon Brooke <[email protected]> of gradually deteriorating wrote:
>There are public lavatories in most villages in the UK and
>many of these will have drinkable water. If the water is
>not drinkable there will usually be a notice saying so.

Your Scottish perspective is showing Simon. For a female
cyclist who doesn't care for nipping behind a hedge,
Scotland is paradise because there *is* a lavatory in almost
every village. But not in England there isn't. Public parks
used to be a decent bet for a lavatory in many of them, but
not any more.
--
It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless of course,
you are an exceptionally good liar. - Jerome K. Jerome
Steph Peters delete invalid from [email protected]
Tatting, lace & stitching page <http://www.sandbenders.demon.co.uk/index.htm
 
Steph Peters <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> For a female cyclist who doesn't care for nipping behind a
> hedge, Scotland is paradise because there *is* a lavatory
> in almost every village.

Plus, even if there isn't a lavvy, you've got a good excuse
for wearing a kilt. The best item of clothing ever invented
for ease of going to the loo! Not the most practical for
cycling unfortunately (unless you go very slowly).

Graeme
 
"Ambrose Nankivell" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> It is Giardia that requires iodine to kill it.
>

Does the iodine kill nothing else? Can the other nasties be
killed with something less foul tasting? My wife has an
underactive thyroid and can't use iodine treatments for
water, so that kind of restricts many of the water treatment
methods. She also contracted Giardia on a trek in Thailand,
not pleasant!

The new MSR gadget looks interesting for iodine free water
treatment <http://www.msrgear.com/filters/miox.asp>

Graeme
 
Gawnsoft <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> Around the bend in the stream came the answer: propped in
> the water like a garish sacrifice was the half-rotten
> corpse of a sheep, hollow eye sockets starng to the sky,
> flies buzzing around the cavity where its brain had been,
> with strands of putrid intestines and tufted strands of
> rotting wool waving in the water.

What a wonderful description! I know of a few of my canoeing
friends who have shared recirculating eddies with carcasses
equally as attractive. One of them was unfortunate enough to
be swimming at the time, it was the first time on the trip
he kept his mouth shut :)

Graeme
 
On 29/6/04 6:55 pm, in article [email protected],
"Pyromancer" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified
> as Alan Braggins <[email protected]> breathed:
>> In article <[email protected]>, chris
>> French wrote:
>
>>> In remote enough areas, I just take the water and drink
>>> it, yes there is a risk, but i think it is small.
>
>> In remote enough areas - there's nothing like finding a
>> half-rotted dead sheep in a stream to make you glad you
>> decided to wait till further uphill to fill your water
>> bottles.
>
> But how often does that actually happen?

Last time I was off the beaten track and needed to get water
from a stream there was a dead sheep in it.

As Simon says elsewhere, there are a lot of dead sheep in
the hills.. keeps the carrion feeders going.

..d
 
On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 23:07:55 +0100, "Ambrose Nankivell"
<[email protected]> wrote in message
<[email protected]>:

>the apache module mod_speling

Is that the one for making sure you've spelled the names of
the members of The Who incorrectly?

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after
posting. http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at
Washington University
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
cycle touring and water
Replies
49
Views
931
UK and Europe
Simon Brooke
S
Raymond2
CYCLE TOURING AROUND FRANCE.
Replies
2
Views
2K
UK and Europe
Pinxante
Pinxante
daanny boy67
I plan to cycle the "great glen" cycle route from Fort William to Inverness, can I use my touring bi
Replies
3
Views
2K
UK and Europe
dabac
dabac
P
new cycle touring board game due out
Replies
9
Views
394
UK and Europe
Danny Colyer
D
garytour
cycle touring web site
Replies
0
Views
4K
UK and Europe
garytour
garytour
Top Bottom Back