There are two things you can do to get your jacket working as good as new. First up Washing. You need to wash your jacket first to ensure it is clean, and in case it’s necessary make sure any reproofing can go on easily. In many cases simply washing your jacket will have it back performing near it’s best. It isn’t just a case of washing in normal detergent though as that will make things worse for technical outdoor gear. You need a specialist wash that will get rid of any residues that block breathability and attract water to make your gear “wet out”. There are a few products that will do this, but we really like Nikwax Tech wash for the washing bit. Not only does the hippy in me like it (it’s water based and environmentally friendly man) but it won’t damage the water repellent treatments on the outside of your jacket, nor any waterproof membrane either. To get the best results we reckon our foolproof instructions below will have you covered;

1. Clean your detergent dispenser. Sooper dooper important this bit, if there is any gunk left from your day to day washing, it’ll clog the pores of your gear, stop it breathing as well as stopping any reproofer from going on effectively afterwards.
2. Run your washing machine on it’s hottest wash with nothing in it. This is doing exactly the same thing as cleaning your dispenser by getting rid of the gunk inside. If you have a really grotty machine you might want to do it twice As a side note, our resident Dorset washing repair man Laurie reckons you should do this once in a while anyway to stop stuff building up that can damage your washing machine.
3. Get your gear ready. Loosen all draw cords and close all zips and Velcro so the jacket doesn’t catch. If there are any really filthy bits, rub a bit of neat Tech wash directly on to the affected area(s).
4. Wash a maximum of two items. Simples really, ensures that your stuff gets properly clean.
5. Follow your clothes care instructions.  Most washes should be on a delicate/synthetic wash with a slow spin to stop abrasion of your gear, follow the instruction label on your gear first and foremost.
6. Allow to dry naturally. This is really important if you are using a spray on reproofer later.

Assuming you have followed the instructions above for washing your gear, you won’t need to clean out your washing machine again so it’s just the following;

1. Maximum of two items. Same as above
2. Follow your clothes care instructions. Delicate or synthetic wash on a slow spin thanks people.
3. Warm dry your coat. This last bit isn’t critical but we find that heat ensures that repellency treatments lasts longer. Our order of preference for most effectiveness is tumble dry on a low setting if your garment allows it, shoving it on a hot radiator, popping in an airing cupboard, putting it out to dry in the hot sunshine, or (and be very careful here…) Ironing it on a very low setting.

December has brought me to the last month I can be in the USA. With the visa waiver I am only allowed to spend three months in the USA, so today I will be flying out of New Orleans (I have not finished the trek yet obviously, New Orleans was just the cheapest place to fly out of) back to Bogota, Colombia to spend Christmas with my fiance Camila and her family. This is going to be a very welcome break let me tell you. I will return to finish the remaining 500kms as soon as possible in 2012.

 It has been a good month that brought many more great memories, but also it brought me the cold weather and also a little snow. The cold weather started to get to my body a little, especially my achillies tendon. It got to a stage where in the mornings I could not even walk and I would have to hobble along for the first hour until it warmed up and stretched out a little. I was to find out I had developed tendonitus,so I had to shack up in a motel for a few days and live on Ibuprofen. It was amazing how quickly it healed after a few days like that, and it worked out great as the days I ended up in the motel, a huge storm hit with flood warnings in the area, so I was able to enjoy the view from my window from the warmth of my bed.

Finding my way eventually to Memphis it was nice to arrive there, marking off the three quarter marker of the trek. I was only able to get 50kms past Memphis when I had to start hitch hiking towards New Orleans to get my flight. I ran into an amazing bunch of people all hooked up with the Newspaper association in the states of Mississippi and Lousiana who were good enough to drive me all the way from Tunica (which is the town I got to before stopping) to New Orleans. With many stops along the way, doing interviews and meeting people connected to the media, I arrived in New Orleans 3 days after. Having met these great people along the route that I will be following on my return, I am really looking forward to the next stretch of the trek. The river itself is going to be a lot harder to follow as it is like a giant wiggly snake from Memphis on, compared to the nice, straight Mississippi river from the north. But I guess it will be a change of scenery which is always a good thing.

So as for now I am heading back to Colombia to spend the break at a little farm in the coffe region with my loved ones. My body is sore and I am really looking forward to being around family again.

I will be in touch January to let you all know the date of my return to the states. I hope everyone has a great Christmas and a happy new year, I know I will be enjoying it….

5) Google Earth – FREE Has been around for a while, and it’s always been a fantastic jaw dropper to show just what that Interwebby thing can do. We love it though for the simple fact that it’s no good at route planning or tracking, but does enable us to just fly amongst the hills, dream and plan our next jaunt out and about while flying like a bird.

4)  Go Sky Watch Planetarium – £2.49 Our favourite toy when we are wild camping and looking at the night sky. We really like the fact that you don’t have to touch the screen to navigate the sky and the display automatically shows correctly whatever angle you hold it at. You can ask it to point out Stars and Planets easily, and you have a groovy red version that keeps your night vision, or enables you to pretend you are on a Romulan battlecruiser.

3)  Gridpoint GB – FREE Feels like a bit of a Ronseal advert this one but it does do exactly what it says on the tin. It simply gives you your ordnance survey grid reference for where you are. Pretty handy in a white out or if you are lost. Only useful if you have a map with you, we nonethless think it’s pretty darn handy if you do get in the schtuck and want your phone as a backup to let you know where you are.

2) Gorillacam – FREE Taking photos when you are out and about in the hills is part of the outdoors experience for a lot of us and helps preserve the memories. The best camera as a photographer will often tell you, is the one you have with you, so although I have a nice compact, my iPhone is nearly always with me and has probably recorded more journeys. Gorillacam tweaks the functionality of the default camera to add loads of useful features from an anti-shake facility, rapid fire shooting mode, autosave, grid overlay, bubble level, press anywhere to shoot & time lapse mode. Pretty handy and has now replaced the standard camera application for me on the homepage.

1) Viewranger - £1.99 – £14.99  Our numero uno by some distance. There are a fair few GPS and navigation apps out there now, including classics such as Memory Map, but the one that stood tall in our eyes was Viewranger. Many people now have smartphones, so rather than lashing out on a brand new GPS, why not make use of the power that you have in your pocket? We have already reviewd it back in May and it has without fail been our most used outdoor application. There are two main choices, a £1.99 open maps version or a £14.99 version with credits to download Ordnance Survey or other local maps. Living in the middle of nowhere we love the ability to buy and download a map instantly, plus the maps work without having any signal. They also have a buddy beacon which enables you to track your friends, and link up to either their own service or Social Hiking to show your route real time and share your journey with others. From our point of view it also adds a safety element ensuring you have two maps with you when you head out.

So there we have our top 5 outdoor iPhone apps. Highly subjective and not without some heated debate in the office! We would have included Andriod aps as well but it looks like our office is filled with iPhones only (plus an Experian and one Blackberry) so forgive us for not including them this time around. What are your favourite outdoor apps and why? If you are an Android user, are there any other apps you have on the dark side we don’t have access to?

November

Well it has been a long walkabout so far to say the least. Last time I wrote I was a few days walk out of the city of Mineapolis. I caught good weather all the way to Minneapolis and covered good ground quickly, averaging around 33 kms each day. I was lucky enough to have s friend who lives in St Paul which is the twin city of Minneapolis and was treated to a shower, a bed and a good feed on arriving, gotta tell ya, it was a place I found hard to leave!

The next week saw me heading south east towards the city of La Crosse in Wisconsin. The walk has been attracting a lot of media attention and none more so than around this area. After doing a few interviews on the local TV and being in a few newspapers in that area, it became common for these two or so weeks for people to invite me into their homes for dinner or lunch and even people yelling encouragement out of their shop windows in the smaller towns, it was small things, but it is those small things that gave me a boost at times when I was really stuffed and struggling to keep going.

The middle area of the Mississippi river was very beautiful and I was lucky enough to be able to follow the river almost on the edge for 100s of kms. It has been the best part of the trek to date, wandering along the rivers edge through small little villages on the river – exactly how I had pictured the adventure from the beginning.

The people I have met and that have helped me out have been amazing. If had not met these people in my path I have no doubt that I would stil be 100 kms further north struggling with the cold weather. They really have been the best part of the whole experience so far, it’s amazing how many people you meet with a good heart.

I am now in a motel about a weeks walk from Memphis. I am in a motel as with today arrived the first day I have seen snow here since begining the trek. I am huddled up in my warm room tonight trying to enjoy it as much as possible as tomorrow I will be heading out into the snow and wind accompanied by the temperature of around -4c. Wish me luck…

Going walking by train is a great idea, especially as so many great walks can be found straight from railway stations. It’s good for the environment and is often faster than travelling by car. Arriving by train means you can take on a linear hike, and start and end at a different point – something very difficult if you’ve left your car 6 miles away! With even Government Ministers admitting train travel in Britain is expensive though, it’s more important than ever to ensure you get the cheapest train tickets possible. So here I’ve got some great ways to bag a bargain.

Book In Advance – The easiest way to get the cheapest deals is to avoid buying your train tickets on the day you travel. Rail companies dislike the so-called “Walk On” tickets, and although they have to provide them, they are much more expensive than buying your ticket in advance. If you can plan your trip before the day, you’ll get better discounts – even if you book up to 6pm the day before.

Get a Railcard – If you’re travelling often, see if you qualify for a Young Persons, Family and Friends or Senior Railcard – you’ll pay for a years’ card but then save a third on off-peak travel, so you’ll soon recoup that investment. There are other regional railcards too, the most popular being the Network Railcard in the South East – it costs £28 for the year and offers a third discount on off-peak travel for you and up to 3 others, and up to a 60% saving on the fares of up to 4 children travelling too. A brand new one being trialled in the West Midlands is the Two Together Railcard – where two people named on the card can travel off-peak and save a third. The card is again £28 for the year, and currently one of those named persons has to live in the West Midlands area.

Buy Singles – Once-upon a time, a return was cheaper than two singles. Now, with most long-distance train operators, it is actually cheaper to buy two singles. Check your prices online and don’t assume a return will always be the best bet.

Split your Tickets – Try splitting your journey up into shorter ones at a station in the middle to see if it saves you money – this is easier if you have to change during your journey. For example, an Off-Peak return from Doncaster (the home of Walks Around Britain) to Llandrindod is £71.80, changing at Stockport and Shrewsbury. Buy 3 separate returns for Doncaster to Stockport, Stockport to Shrewsbury and Shrewsbury to Llandrindod, and it costs £44.50. You can even try this if you don’t have to change trains – it’s ok so long as the train stops at the split station – although you might have to move seats as you’re not guaranteed to get the same seat for both tickets.

Avoid the Peaks – Unlike walking, where peaks are great, on the trains they are bad news! Travelling during peak times is very expensive and should be avoided. However, if you’re having a day trip walking you need to travel out in peak time, so here you should definitely split your tickets. Again, travelling from Doncaster at 7.55am for a walk in Telford costs an eye-watering £104 – but by splitting tickets and getting day returns between Doncaster & Derby, Derby & Birmingham and Birmingham & Telford cuts the cost down to £55.40.

Try the competition – On many long-distance routes, there are several train operators competing – and this is good for cheaper tickets. On the East Coast Mainline, for example for journeys between Doncaster and London Kings Cross, we could travel on either East Coast, Grand Central or First Hull Trains. On other routes, like Birmingham to London, there are rival operators travelling over different lines – Virgin Trains run fast from Brum New Street to London Euston, while Chiltern travel semi-fast between Snow Hill and London Marylebone. There can also be other operators with slower services too – London Midland operate stopping services between Brum and London which only cost £6.00 but take more than 2 hours. If you buy two singles, you could travel there and back with different operators to take advantage of the cheapest fare.

Be the Wild Rover – If you’re on a holiday in a region and want to get out and explore, try a Rover or a Ranger ticket. They offer unlimited travel in a certain region for a set length of time and provide great value for money. For example, the North Country Rover offers travel on any 4 days in an 8 day period and costs £76 – just making two day trips from York to Carlisle and another to Settle costs £72.80 making the other 2 days travel only £3.20… If you’re feeling really adventurous, try the All-Line Rail Rover. This is a gem of a ticket offering 7 or 14 days rail travel across Britain – for £430 for 7 days or £650 for 14 days. It sounds a lot, but when you consider you only have to make trips costing £62 a day to break even, it’s actually a good buy. Couple that with a lightweight tent and backpack, and you’re ready for a trip around Britain’s countryside by rail!

Form a group – Just travelling in groups as small as 3 or 4 can get you discounts. For example, the Small Group Day ticket from some operators offers groups of between 3 and 9 people 25% discount on a day ticket. But remember, to get any group discount you’ve got to travel together for the whole journey – no breaking off early or the whole ticket won’t be valid.

Use their own website – Often, particular train operators discount their own tickets if they are bought on their own website – so it’s worth buying different tickets on different websites for the biggest savings. East Coast, for example, offer up to a 10% discount on their own tickets when bought on their website – so book with them direct for any part of your journey involving their trains.

You can catch up with Andy on you tube where he has a fab list of walking videos and inspiration for your next trip out and about. For more information on cheap train tickets Martin’s Money has got a fab guide to saving some dosh on the tracks as well.

If you have any top tips for saving dosh on the trains, do let us know in the comments below.

Christmas? Game on!

Sadly there is no “wonder insulation” that’s going to keep you warm, be breathable, pack down small, deal with snow & rain, save you from an avalanche and make you a cup of tea in the morning. We think it’s a horses for courses approach for your insulating layers, get the right thing for the right situation. So without further ado, let’s take a look at the three main types you can choose.

DOWN: Natures warmth, the fluffy stuff underneath a birds feathers.

SYNTHETIC: Synthetic fibres woven together to trap air and keep you toasty.

FLEECE: Another synthetic option that’s a fabric in it’s own right (rather than fibres that you put in to a jacket)

Now we’ve sorted out what we’re going to take a look at, let’s dive in and take a quick look at the good and the bad of our contestants.

Down Jackets & Vests

GOOD STUFF: The highest Warmth to Weight ratio of all the options here, goose down is fabulous stuff for trapping air and keeping you warm. It feels seriously sexy to wear, is incredibly lightweight, and packs down smaller than any of the other options here. Great to pull on after a hard day on the mountain, or when wandering out and about.

NOT SO GOOD STUFF: If down gets wet it doesn’t work, so it’s really important to keep it dry at all times. We reckon it works best in cold, snowy climates, or where you bring along a waterproof to stop it getting damp. A little more expensive than some of the other options and maybe too hot if you are doing energetic activities.

STUFF TO LOOK OUT FOR. Without boring you, down is graded according to fill power, e.g how much space a load of down takes up by weight, the range goes from 450 through to 900 odd, the higher the number, the warmer (and lighter) the down.

Synthetic Jackets

GOOD STUFF: Synthetic Insulation is best known with examples such as Primaloft or own brand examples like The North Face’s Heatseeker. Water resistant, it retains a lot of it’s insulating properties even if soaked through, and it’s less expensive than down.

NOT SO GOOD STUFF: It has a greater bulk and weight than down and is less breathable.

STUFF TO LOOK OUT FOR: A favourite with climbers and those who use their insulation out and about. It works best in wet environments, which apparently we get rather a lot of here in the UK!

Fleece Jackets & Vests

GOOD STUFF: Fleece has amazing breathability, and is an awesome choice if you are doing blood pumping activities in the cold. Fleece is water resistant, drys quickly and is great value for money.

NOT SO GOOD STUFF: Fleece is not usually windproof so unless you have some sort of shell layer over the top, the cold wind is going to go whistling through you and take that trapped air and heat away. Relatively heavy and bulky compared to some of the other options.

STUFF TO LOOK OUT FOR: The best known fleece fabric is Polartec, but there are many other own brand examples out there too. Fleece comes in a variety of different flavours e.g. lightweight, midweight & heavyweight.

So there you have our quick guide to insulation. We reckon you need to balance your budget, activity and whether you are wearing it during the day or at journeys end. If you are a backpacker for example, weight is perhaps the most important thing to consider. If you need to get warm at camp at the end of the day, we would suggest grabbing a down vest or jacket. Down is also great if you are just taking the dog out for a quick walk. Climbing and need a belay piece? It has to be Synthetic. Running or walking out in the cold? Grab a fleece to wear underneath your windshirt or waterproof.

What’s your favourite insulation piece when the cold come round?

Should you catch the MTB (mountain biking) bug then there are a few things that, in my opinion, you should look out for. Well, these are the things that have caught me out so far and it’s only been a few months so I hope that they might help prepare you for what may arise.

Choosing your bike.

Possibly one of the most exciting hurdles to hop over is the choice of bike. One of the things that hit me was the sheer volume of bikes that are available. There are hundreds of brands and then within the brands there are tens of styles and so on and so on. You get the picture.

Once you’ve decided to take the plunge and buy a bike, choose a top line price that you’ll be willing to pay. I say this because some bikes can cost as much as a brand new car. One thing I still find amusing is the amount of old bangers that you see being driven around with some top class bikes being proudly presented on the roof rack. Generally the bikes are worth a lot  more than the car, and also looked after much better! Don’t be alarmed if you see on a bike website that someone is willing to swap their bike for a car or vice versa. Pretty standard apparently.

Mountain biking covers quite a large area and within this are areas like downhill, cross country (XC), and all mountain. Each discipline now has a type of bike which is suited best for your choice activity. What you need to do is lay down what it is that you’re going to be doing most of the time and then choose a bike which is best suited to you. Don’t freak out if your bike says that it’s best suited to single track trails because I’m sure that if you want to ride it to the shops it’ll cope just fine.

Size

This took me by surprise. Bikes come in different sizes. They come as either XS to XL or they come sized in inches. This is the size of the frame and it relates to how tall you are. I know it makes perfect, logical sense, however it completely threw me off as when I was growing up it didn’t matter. As far as I was concerned bigger was better. I’m now 6ft and ride an 18 inch or a large frame and I’ve tried riding a smaller and larger frame but after a while you get pain in your legs and shoulders where you’re either over stretched or cramped up. Having the wrong size frame also ruins your energy efficiency making life rather tough when it should be fun.

Pedals

I thought there were pedals and that was that, you just hopped on the bike and off you went. No, there are different types of pedals and scarily enough there are ones which you can clip into. My advice would be to start on normal pedals, sometimes referred to as flatties, and then once you get used to your bike and your confidence grows, move onto SPD’s. SPD’s are pedals that you clip your shoes into, like the Tour de France riders. There are special MTB shoes and cleets which are more hard wearing and protective as you’re more likely to encounter mud and stones. SPD’s are beneficial because you gain more purchase and feel for the bike. It means that instead of only being able to pedal on the down you can push and pull to get more power and steam past others.

Pressure

In the UK it’s wet most of the time and so this means that tyre pressure plays quite a large part on how much grip you have while off road. If you have too much pressure then you’ll find that there’s less rubber hitting the ground which means less friction and more skidding around. I find that somewhere around 50 to 60 psi does the job perfectly when it’s a bit wet and of course if its dry then add a little more to decrease the friction and let you go a bit faster.

Chat to other enthusiasts

One thing that’s invaluable is other people and their input and experience. There’s a whole other world and dictionary for cycle chat, therefore finding out what other people use and think can save you some serious time and money. Recently I’ve had a few problems with my bike so I chatted to a few guys from work who helped me out and gave me some advice. I then went to the local bike shop to see what they would say and I came out flabbergasted at what they wanted to charge for what was to be a 10 minute job. Lesson learned though, chat to others before hand. Everyone is more than happy to share their knowledge, but of course remember to build your own knowledge base up because not everyone has the same wants and needs.

Fun

Fun, above all, is the reason to get on your bike. So get out, get muddy and as our developer Tim says, ‘look out for bears, you should always look out for bears.’