Scotland Coast to Coast Day 3: Bealach na Ba & Applecross

21st September 2015

All too soon the next morning rolled around. Both me & Graeme were a bit apprehensive - today we'd be climbing Bealach na Ba - a winding, single track road that crosses the mountains of the Applecross Peninsula. At 10km in length, its the steepest and longest ascent of any road in the UK, and is the third highest road in Scotland. Neither of us had done as long a climb before, and I was having flashbacks to the Lecht wall of two days ago - what if it was worse than that?

Our B and B host added to our nerves by telling us horror stories of terrible weather conditions on the climb and other tales of woe. All we could do was wolf the breakfast, slurp the last of the tea & coffee and saddle up.

We set off, back down the road as far as Lochcarron, this time sans drunk driver in pickup. At Lochcarron, we turned off onto the A896 towards Applecross. There was a bit of a testing climb not long after, and, as we were going to be coming back this way later on, I decided to stash my panniers under a tree to save lugging them up the Bealach. Graeme opted to take the extra weight, probably for additional training benefits or something.

Warning sign. Note excessive panniers

Before long we reached the last junction before the Bealach na Ba began. There was an ominous sign warning of imminent dangers and other perils, so we took a photo and then set off. The climbing was gentle for the first couple of km, and I began to wonder what all the hype was about. But then, slowly things began to get steeper, as we got further up the valley. The craggy cliffs round about began to close in as the road climbed, and the low cloud threatened to block out the scenery below us.

You can't say we weren't warned!

The climb continued. Up ahead, I could see Graeme and his panniers making good headway. The long straight road eventually switched to the left, and I could see hairpins climbing into the clouds. We'd already decided that if either of us had to put our feet down, then the climb wouldn't count, and there was going to be zero tolerance of any attempts involving the walk of shame! I did discover that some of the passing places were wide enough to allow me to circle round for a while, which allowed a bit of break from the upwards grind. Luckily Graeme didn't notice, but hey, it wasn't like I put a foot down or anything!

Looking up the valley (this was taken on the way back down, as I couldn't stop for photos on the way up!

I may have done a few birlies in this passing place on the way up

Onwards and upwards! As I reached the start of the hairpins, I saw a rather large camper van coming down the road towards me! I had to keep going, and couldn't risk slowing up in case I had to stop for it. Luckily there was just room enough for me to squeeze past, and I could carry on to the top. The mist closed in before the summit, where I found Graeme waiting. We'd made it! But sadly there was no view and with the cold, damp mist swirling around, we pushed on down the other side, eager to get below the clouds and get some breakfast in at the Applecross Inn. The road surface on the way down was good, and with no traffic we were able to get a good pace up. The sun even came out as we dropped height, so we were quite warm as we dropped into Applecross.

Me approaching the summit through the mist - no panniers!

Dropping down towards Applecross - back into sunshine!

Outside the Applecross Inn - the egg rolls were great!

Tea, coffee and egg rolls were duly dispatched inside the Applecross Inn. I think its possible to stay here overnight, which would probably be a bad idea, with a whole bar full of ales and whiskies at your disposal! With a mid-afternoon train to catch, we didn't have much spare time to hang around, and all too soon, we were back on the bikes, retracing our route back over the mountains again. This time, I took frequent advantage of the many photo stop opportunities to get my breath back! Once again, Graeme was up ahead and didn't notice so all was good!

The return climb

Graeme adjusting his panniers at the top

The return climb didn't seem as steep as the way in (probably cos I kept stopping), but we still worked up a good sweat as we reached the top. The mist had lifted a bit, allowing good views down the Bealach back towards Lochcarron. I took a shot of Graeme as he dropped down the descent, and we both felt sorry for the one other biker coming up, walking...

Graeme descending the Bealach

Looking down the valley - no panniers!

The descent was great! Smooth surface and minimal traffic so we were able to fairly whizz all the way down to the start of the road. Up and over the smaller hill then, remembering to retrieve my  panniers, before raiding the garage in Lochcarron for recovery products and making the flattish run to Strathcarron station. We had a wee while to wait before the train, so got changed out of our cycling gear, which felt strange after being in it for the previous 3 days. Once aboard the train, we started consuming the gleaned recovery products and toasted our successful coast to coast attempt with a cheeky San Miguel or two. We'd had great weather on the whole, with little rain, great scenery, good food and fantastic day-long cycles! Marvellous altogether! As the train rolled towards Edinburgh, we were already plotting the next biking debacle!

Recovery starts here!

Love that profile!

Scotland Coast to Coast Day 2: Grantown to Ardaneaskan

20th September 2015

Up with the lark and after a grand but strict breakfast we loaded up the panniers and headed off. Should probably have stopped for a second breakfast at the Wee Puffin but alas it wasn't open yet! It was a grand morning with a light(ish) south westerly wind that wasn't giving any trouble as we headed towards Inverness. Before reaching the Big Smoke we called into Graeme's sister's for tea and cake, and then some more cake, after all, we had a long way to go!

The views from the Kessock Bridge were really good, as we trundled along the walkway, safely off the main road. After the bridge, we found a set of steps off the walkway, which led down to a much quieter road that ran westwards along the north shore of  the Beauly Firth, before the main road to Ullapool for a spell, prior to heading south-west (into the wind), and the long haul to Lochcarron.

Inverness from the Kessock Bridge

Beauly Firth from the Kessock Bridge

Ready

I have to admit I really struggled with the headwind. It wasn't particularly strong, but was enough to slow me up so that I couldn't get into the Big Ring and was left frailing and snailing along, whilst Graeme powered off into it. I could see him miles ahead as the the road ran along beside a river - at least it was flat! Eventually, he stopped to wait for me, and then had to put up with me whinging and complaining about how terrible it all was, while I horsed a mars bar. He then suggested that we try drafting and sharing the duties on the front. This was the first time I'd experienced drafting, as I mostly ride on my own, and what a difference it made - sitting on Graeme's wheel was soooo much easier, and he was good enough to keep checking his pace to make sure I didn't get dropped. I recovered enough to do a bit on the front too, and we fairly raced along the next section, eventually reaching the shelter of the trees and escaping the headwind section for the day.

Looking back north-east, after the long headwind slog

Before too much longer we reached Lochcarron, which was the last point where we could get food and recovery beers before reaching our B&B for the night. There was plenty of grub and a couple of pints slipped down easily. We figured we'd better not have any more till we reached the B&B, but each bought a couple of takeaway tinnies to see us off to sleep after another hard day.

View from the hotel

Recovery beers

Tennants Bidons

After the grub and the beers, the 10 km to the B&B flew past, with the last couple of kms proving very exciting, after i "accidently" flicked the V's at a pissed guy behind me in a pick-up who was trying to get by but needed me to stop to let him past. Eventually I waved him by, and then he stopped up ahead to "have a word" with me. I whizzed past him again, and soon reached the B&B, where I hid behind a large lorry. At that point, I also remembered Graeme was behind me - ooops! Yer man had stopped him, and was indeed very over the limit, but had been all smiles. No harm done, but a dodgy moment none the less!

In to meet our friendly hosts, and arrange breakfast, before necking the tinnies and crashing out. We'd made it across to the Atlantic side of Scotland in two days, and only had a short day still to go. It would be rather steep though, as we were heading up Beallach na Ba....

Scotland Coast to Coast Day 1: Aberdeen to Grantown

19th September 2015

I think it was on a train to Aberdeen prior to a birding holiday on Shetland, that I first discovered that Graeme was a bike nut like me. Although we'd known each other for years, since we were teenagers, this was the first I'd heard that he did a lot of cycling, and vice versa. We'd been fortunate to be able to get first class tickets for only a fiver more than the standard fare, and with the aid of some complimentary alcohol, and a few additional purchased tinnies, a plan was hatched to try to cycle from Aberdeen to the west coast of Scotland, taking in the infamous Beallach na Ba climb too.

And so it was that I flew into Edinburgh the following September, all set for the adventure to begin. Graeme collected me at the airport and we headed straight to Biketrax to pick up my Genesis hire bike so the fun could start. Somehow we managed to squeeze it into the back of his Polo and get it back to his house where it was swiftly reassembled for a test run. The rental road bike had no mounts for a rack, but I'd brought a seat post rack that I was hoping would be suitable for taking my fairly meagre baggage. We decided that augmenting this by attaching a longer old pannier rack of Graeme's using cable ties would give a more robust structure to hang the bags off, and stop them going into the spokes. It looked a bit shonky, but actually worked really well!

Nice Rack!

A quick test run and, satisfied that if I could make the roundabout at the bottom of the road and back whilst fully laden, I'd be grand on the C2C. We finished up for the day and retired to the beer garden for the evening, excitement building for the start of the trip!

The plan was to take an early train to Aberdeen, and then cycle down to the harbour, with the official start point being Girdleness Lighthouse. This meant an early departure from Graeme's, and a half hour cross-town cycle to the station, where we managed to find our alloted bike slot and seats - time to relax for a couple of hours before the real biking began!

Graeme preparing for the off

Me propping up the lighthouse compound wall

Before too long we were unloading our bikes off the train and heading down to Girdle. We'd both spent a lot of time birding there over the years, so it was fun to be cycling past some of the old haunts. We took a few photos at the lighthouse, with the North Sea at our backs, and then we had to get on with it! I think we'd only gone about 1.5 km before I suggested the first stop at a bakery in Torry, for the first macaroni pie of the trip - well, you have to get those carbs in on the big rides!

Breakfast of Champions!

Onwards and westwards into Deeside then, heading to our first official stop of the day - "lunch" at Fiona's. Another old birding friend from our Aberdeen Uni days, Fiona had toyed with the idea of joining us for a bit of the ride, but had decided we'd only have slowed her down. The kilometres rolled by and we reached Fi's house after a couple of hours of pedalling. She'd gone to a lot of trouble for us too, hand made hash browns, googling the recipe it seemes pretty complicated and involves wringing the liquid out of the spuds with a tea towel - I had imagined she'd just have bought them out of the supermarket freezer section when she'd asked if there were any specific dietery requirements for lunch!

Somewhere up Deeside!

Alas, all too soon, we had to get back on the road, as we had to get to Grantown on Spey by nightfall. Everything continued to go well until we rounded a corner and saw a vertical wall of road ahead of us - the start of the Lecht climb!

It was hideous! It felt almost vertical and I was quickly reduced to making zigzags across the road to make any upward headway! Inch by inch I somehow managed to get up that first wall (the Strava segment is encouragingly called Corgarf Killer Climb, and is apparently 13.5% on average). For the record, I currently hold the 2,173rd fastest time up it, out of 2,921 attempts. Somehow I got to the top and thought I'd better take some photographs to record the historic achievement. Up ahead, I could see Graeme in the distance working his way up the next incline. When I was finally able to breathe again, I gave it a go too! Mercifully, the second phase wasn't as bad, and eventually I found Graeme waiting for me at the top (pleasingly, still just inside the strava segment finish point, so we've similar times!) The decent was marvellous, although over rather too quickly.

Photo stop after the wall - Graeme is just visible racing up the second part of the climb

Me cresting the Lecht summit

I was hoping that was it for the serious stuff for Day One, but sadly there was another lungbuster to take in before we were done. The Bridge of Brown was another double figure percentage hill  mountain requiring maximum effort to haul myself over it, although I think Graeme found it not too bad!

The Scenery

After that, we didn't have too much further until we reached Grantown and our first nights accomodation in a seemingly rather strict b&b. We didn't care though - we'd conquered the Lecht, travelled some 141 km and 1,869 m of ascent from Aberdeen and, best of all, we managed to find The Wee Puffin restaurant selling excellent recovery craft beers plus large quantities of delicious burgers and chips to refuel us in Grantown. Day One was over and we were well on our way across Scotland!!

Monster burgers at the Wee Puffin, Grantown

Recovery beers!

Taking stock!

An overly long absence from the blog but thankfully not from the bike! I managed to finish the year with just over 6,000 km up, and a pretty good amount of climbing too. Also did all 12 of the monthly Strava fondoos too, which is the first time I've managed to do that.

The year in summary

So what of 2018? Well, I'm going to keep trying to do the 100 km a week, plus a Strava fondoo a month, to give c500 km a month. Hopefully a couple of bigger months along the way will push the yearly tally up above 6,500km. I've already been doing some tentative planning for a September trip to the Sierra Nevada in Spain, which sounds amazing, and will hopefully come off. Plus maybe another mini bike break in Cork/Kerry in July if I can swing it - we'll have to see how it goes!

The art of bike maintenance

Tssssk, another month goes by and no posting - shoddy! Talking of shoddy, when I first started this whole bike thing, I didn't have a clue about bike maintenance. Three years later, I'm still not very good at it, but most jobs are reasonably easy, provided you've got three things....

1. A bike tool kit

A bike tool kit, yesterday

It doesn't need to cost very much - this one came from Planet X online shop I think, and cost around 30 euro. The tools may not be the best quality, but, for the most part, as you won't be using them all day, every day, they should be fine. Such kits should have the main tools needed for the main jobs, for instance with this kit I have changed the bottom bracket, the crankset, replaced chains, and headsets. Make sure the kit has a set of Allan keys as these will be essential.

If you're changing cables and cable housings, its also worth investing in a set of proper bike cable cutters. Otherwise you'll end up damaging cable and housing ends trying to cut them with pliers or other unsuitable tools. Again, the set I got cost about 25 euro, and they are fine. Not pro level, but then I'm certainly not a pro!

2. A bike maintenance manual

Well worth the money!

My brother in law got me this for my birthday, six months after I'd first got into cycling. I wasn't sure I'd need it at first, but after an unsatisfactory experience at a (since closed) local bike shop, I decided to put it to use. Its a good book as it explains pretty much every job, in good detail, although it can sometimes be hard to track down the right section containing the specific job you want to do. Its worth scrawling the page number of jobs you are likely to do regularly inside the front cover, to save you searching next time!

Finally, if you've got a bit stuck, and you're unsure quite how to proceed, you need:

3. Youtube

Yes indeed - there are YouTube videos of almost every bike job you can think of, and more. Some are better than others, but you'll most likely find a video to demonstrate exactly what you are looking for pretty quickly, so you can be back out on your recently successfully overhauled bike in no time!

Happy days!

Tour de Kilkenny 2017

Where did August go? Too many evenings spent watching La Vuelta and not enough time out on the bike! That said, I did complete the monthly strava Fondooo grand and early in the month, in the form of the Tour de Kilkenny. I was invited to partake by a friend Liam, who I'd first cycled with when I accompanied him from Clonakilty to Skibbereen, as part of his Wild Ireland Tour back in 2014. In fact, that was the first 100 km day I'd done. You can relive all of the Wild Ireland cycle tour here, it's well worth a look.

Anyway, Liam had suggested that we do the 160km route, as it would be a good challenge. But almost immediately after arriving chez liam, the excuses began to bubble up. There was talk of the 160 route being "a bit hilly" and "maybe we'll just take a right turn back to town before it gets difficult" and the like.

It was very tempting to sit and drink beer and talk bike nonsense long into the night, but we took the more sensible option and got an early night. Up at 7am for a good breakfast before heading in to the start of the day. The sun was shining and the forecast was good! I'd brought the Orbit as I always like to see how many retro steel bikes feature on days like these. As it was, I only saw one other vintage bike, a cracking looking old Mercier, ridden by a very definite audax rider! Shame I didn't get a chance to speak to him though.

Waiting for the off

The first 40 km were fairly swift, as we passed through rolling countryside with few hills. This was grand, but Liam assured me things would get harder after the first food stop. He was right too. The road kicked up quite savagely up Woodstock, and from then on it was up & down for the remainder of the day! It was a relief to get to the lunchstop, where plenty food was on offer by the friendly volunteers.

Onwards, and upwards after lunch, although Liam seemed to take the wrong way at the vital moment, heading right when the 160 sign was definately pointing left! Burning up Woodstock had taken too much out of him apparently. I pressed on anyway, climbing ahead of a club and up into the higher scenery.

Empty roads once the 110 lads all bailed out...

The kilometres slowly clicked by. Another roadside stop for melon and oaty bars, and then back to the grind. The next 20 km climbed slowly up and up, before the final steep but thankfully fairly short climb at about 150km. The last 10km was mostly downhill, which was a welcome relief by this stage of the day.

The rolling Kilkenny countryside

Liam was still waiting for me when I finally crawled over the finish line! The big finish banner was gone so I guess I must have been quite slow, though the average speed of over 24km/h was pretty good for me! All in all, a great day out, in a part of Ireland I hadn't ridden in before. The day was well organised with plenty food and its a great route! Refreshingly well priced too, at only €25 for an early bird booking. Half the price of many other such days. Well worth a go next year if you get the chance!

Audax part II

We rejoin our Audax coverage as the road turns north, and the wind turns tail...

A massive relief to get out of the wind for the next while! Although there was a planned checkpoint and food stop coming up, I took the chance to stock up on a pie or two in the Leverburgh village store, served by the slowest man in the world. I know the audax is not a race but still - hurry it up a little, fella!

Back on the road and it wasn't long before I breezed up to the Temple Cafe to get my audax card stamped. There was quite a queue, and I quickly abandoned plans to get some grub, as it was clearly going to take a while. I got stamped and saddled up, leapfrogging a few of the guys who'd been ahead of me up till now (its not a race though).

Back to the main road and northward, up the hill and back towards Tarbert, followed by the reverse nightmare of getting across the Clishim again - the rain recommenced as I slowly climbed up into the clouds before turning to hail on the northern descent - painful on the eyes!

A steady northward slog, eagerly anticipating the next food stop where soup and a sandwich were being laid on. A couple of guys overtook me just before the turn-off to the Loch Erisort Inn, but I managed to stick with them for the last little bit before grub. Inside into the welcome warmth, and there's David sitting by the fire, coffee in hand. "What took you?" he said, while my soup was served up.

A short while later, we had to force ourselves back outside and back onto the bikes. I managed to stick with David for a bit, before his pace proved too high and I dropped back. But we were getting up the island quite well now. We retraced our route back to the Leurbost turning, where a sneaky right turn would have brought us home several hours early, but where the left turn waited to lead us to Callanish and then further north. I was quite puggled again by the time we reached the next control point at the Visitor Centre cafe at Callinish, but the tea and cake break was very welcome. David had another coffee, before trying to push some performance enhancing drugs my way. "Ibuprofen & caffiene is the job", he declared. I wavered for a while, and then necked two Ibu tabs when no-one was looking. Marginal gains indeed! How easy it is to get sucked into the seedy underbelly of (non) competitive cycling!

Back on the road, and the drugs began to kick in. Or was it the impromptu tuna sandwich I horsed into after raiding the garage at Barvas? We fairly flew north, the wind having picked up a bit, blowing us up the road to the Butt. I heard my first corncrakes of the summer as we neared Ness, but there was no stopping us as we headed up the lighthouse road to the most northerly audax control. A quick chat with the control invigilator, but the lure of beans on toast in the nearby sports centre was too much to ignore. What a life saver! Washed down with lashings of tea, it really began to feel like we were on the home stretch. It was just after 8pm. There were probably about 2 hours left of the days ride. We were nearly there! Just the Barvas moor crossing to go!

A tired & blurry shot of the lighthouse

And what an endless crossing it was! Mile upon mile of barren moor, and that southerly headwind was back! Its always a headwind across the moor apparently, no matter what direction you are going! I spent an age watching the minutes tick by on the computer clock - interspersed with looking ahead to David's luminescent yellow jacket in the distance, and then behind to check for pursuants (its not a race though).

And then finally the road dipped slightly, and I could see a bit of Stornoway - I really was nearly back! I picked up the pace, buoyed up by the thought of a chilled beer or two, and being able to stop pedalling soon! I fairly raced down the hill off the moor, back into civilisation, back across town and into the carpark of the hall we'd set off from all those months previously. "Well done" said Ian Gilbert as he stamped my card for the final time. It was 10.20 pm. I'd been riding for over 14 hours - 308 km and umpteen hills! No wonder I was a small bit tired!

We loaded the bikes onto the car rack and headed back down the road to Leurbost, both figuring that it would be best to be home before we fell asleep. Beers, food, showers and then bed! What a day!