School Night Bivvi Club – A Recipe For Midweek Adventure

What is School Night Bivvi Club and why should I give it a shot?

School Night Bivvi Club is pretty Ronseal – camping out on a ‘school night’ which as of course none of us are of school age, simply means during the working week. But there’s no real club about it – more of a concept, and excitingly something that people all over the country are starting to join us on!

It’s a really simple idea that we started over a year ago now. In good weather it has become almost a fortnightly occurence and has certainly attracted a good deal of curiosity.

School Night Bivvi Club, or SNBC, is based on British adventurer Alastair Humphreys’ idea of a microadventure, and certainly something that’s easy to get people to commit to when weekends are usually so full of other obligations and plans.

A microadventure is an adventure that is short, simple, local, cheap – yet still fun, exciting, challenging, refreshing and rewarding.

Alastair Humphreys

In my eyes, there are two main reasons why you might want to try SNBC. Firstly and foremostly, because it’s fun. Sometimes even more fun than big weekend expeditions, it breaks up the working week and gives you time with friends in the great outdoors.

Secondly, it’s a fantastic opportunity to practice and learn bikepacking skills like keeping a fire or testing out sleeping equipment or set-ups. When planning summer tours or races, lots of people will train to improve their endurance, but how many actually practice camping..?

The Golden Rule

Before we get onto the how-to, you must learn THE GOLDEN RULE of SNBC, or outdoor adventure full stop. Leave No Trace is fundamental to this, which I really don’t feel needs qualifying. As most wild-camping in the UK is illegal without the landowner’s permission, with the exception of Scotland’s Right To Roam and Dartmoor, discretion and utmost respect is key. Do contact the landowner for permission in the first instance. For more information on what it means to Leave No Trace, check out this handy organisation’s website here.

Here’s how – the 5 steps

1. Gather your crew
2. Find your spot
3. Choose your kit
4. Plan your grub
5. Share the stoke

Simples!

1. Gather your crew

A club of one is no club at all. Start by finding friends to share it with. Top tip; if you have friends or acquaintances that are experienced campers/bushcraft people, it really helps & they’ll probably teach you a lot! Darroch of Wild Swim Bike Run is our ‘SNBC Dad‘ and being ex-military has a lot of tricks and tips up his sleeve! For the sake of covert-ness, it’s worth limiting numbers to 6-ish, unless you have landowner’s permission of course.

2. Find your spot

Finding the right spot to start with may seem daunting, so there’s no harm in doing some recce rides to find good spots for wild-camping in advance of your first outing. In fact, it’s a very good idea, especially in winter. There’s nothing worse that trying to find a camp spot in the dark in a place you don’t know!

What you’re looking for will depend on your kit (tent/hammock/bivvi/tarp), the weather and what’s local to you. It’s a good idea to get started in the summer as you’ll generally need less kit to keep warm and dry, and there’s better leaf cover too. There’s no harm in choosing a window of a couple of days and then deciding which night looks best close to the time.

Typically if you’re bringing a hammock and tarp you’ll be looking for woodland, although not strictly necessary – we’ve had a lot of fun stringing up on barren campsites and in disused sheds! For bivvies and tents you’ll be looking for flat-ish spots which you can clear of twigs/stones, and these certainly don’t need to be confined to forests. Do remember to be discreet though here, especially thinking of who might be able to see you in the bright morning light! Generally, look for sources of shelter, like walls, hedges or banks on flat, well draining ground.

3. Choose your kit

There are whole online forums dedicated to bikepacking gear… but in this instance I think it’s key to keep it simple. As SNBC is just one night, you’re not too far from home and you’ve likely planned around good weather conditions, you really don’t need to bring the kitchen sink, or the latest, most advanced equipment. If you plan ahead you can even leave a set of clothes at work and shower there, if you’re lucky enough to have one. Here are the basics:

• Sleeping bag – check the season and don’t be afraid to check eBay or pre-loved kit forums for a bargain. Alpkit make some really decent and great value bags too (I love the SkyeHigh 500 Hydrophobic for Winter/Spring/Autumn).

• Hammock option – my preferred method! Hammocks are super versatile (despite common misconceptions) and great value at entry level. You can pick up a basic (but great) model at DD Hammocks for just £27, and in summer if it’s warm enough that’s all you need with your sleeping bag. When it gets colder you’ll need to protect yourself from wind under your back/bum, where you can add a matt inside the hammock or a specialist underquilt which traps air under the hammock itself. Equally, if you string up a tarp over the hammock you can easily angle it to shield the wind off of you to keep you warmer – and drier – as you sleep soundly!

• Bivvi option – The quickest option, you can grab a standard bivvi from Alpkit for £47, which are typically more breathable than cheaper Army-issue ones (although a solid budget option at around £20). This literally cocoons your sleeping bag and mat and turns it into a shelter which you can use pretty much anywhere. For ultimate efficiency, deflate your mat (I have the Cloudbase from Alpkit which is fairly comfy and not too expensive), and roll up your bag, mat and bivvy as one. Then when you find where you’d like to kip, just unroll & inflate.

• Tent option – I’m really not the best to advise on this one, but I suppose if you’ve already got one or you’re more comfortable in a tent, why not! You’ll need your bag and a mat too.
• Other kit to consider – a head torch comes in handy, although you can easily substitute with a bike light, cooking kit (more on this next), a hipflask of your favourite tipple (helps the sleeping, too), a knife for whittling marshmallow sticks.

• Bags – If you’re struggling to swallow the cost of a full bikepacking bag set up in addition to all the kit, fear not! There are loads of handy tricks to get around this. Take an Exped drybag 5L+ and pass one end (hook) over one shifter and onto your bars, then fill and clip the other end to the other side of your bars. Voila, £10 handlebar bag! Use bungees and Voile straps to attach other bits of kit to racks or your bike itself.

4. Plan your grub

You can make this as complex or lazy as you like! There’s certainly no shame in taking your dinner in a cosy local pub (we certainly did for the first few), which also reduces the kit you’ll need to fork out for to begin with & much less planning.

If you’d like to cook at your campsite, you have two main options; stove or fire. We’ve mainly opted for fires, but it’s always good to have a small stove to boil up water for warming soup, noodles or hot chocolate.

Before we get started, here are a few outdoors fire safety rules:

• Don’t light fires when local fire bans are in place. If the localised fire risk is medium/high don’t light fires and use camping stoves with caution
• Always use designated fire pits when available
• A fire should always be small enough to be manageable
• Dig a fire pit or surround fire area with stones to contain the fire
• Ensure the area around the fire is clear of low hanging branches, ground level flammable material
• Always have a means to put out the fire quickly – water or damp soil to smother
• Never leave a lit fire unattended
• Always close down a fire completely:
  • Extinguish – Even cold ash should be watered down – embers can live underground and ignite fire after you have left
  • Cover fire area with soil
  • Return the fire area to the state you found it

When it comes to the fire, we’ll admit that we’ve never gone totally natural. By this point we’re usually ravenous, so getting a fire going is more of a priority than being precious about bushcraft technique! Clear a space, gathering large stones to mark the edge of the pit and for balancing your grill on (top tip: we use Morrisons baking cooling racks at £3 – you’re welcome). Check out options like a fire log, charcoal, firelighters and gel fuel to help out, but don’t neglect collecting good wood and tinder too. When it’s been wet out, we tend to buy a large disposable BBQ as the wood is likely to be too damp for fires.

After you’ve got the fire going, you want to cook over the embers. Top tip here – don’t choose chicken! We now mostly use delicious local sausages (thank you Homemead Farm), pork chops and beef brisket, corn on the cob and bratwurst, all wrapped up in buns or naan. Of course you can’t forget the marshmallows too!

Next up is breakfast – now in the interest of time-saving, we always hit up our local cafe in Bath for a hearty meal before work, but equally you could leave something at work or cook at your bivvi spot – the choice is yours.

5. Share the stoke

That’s the basics, now go and enjoy it! Why not share your experiences and open up the possibilities for others. When you learn, there’s the opportunity to pass it on to others, so why not invite curious friends and colleagues? Sleeping in a hedge might not be for everyone, but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!

Share your adventures with #SchoolNightBivviClub & let us know how you get on! Thanks to Daniel Groves for the photography.