Author: Paul

Alston again. Rested after taking my day off yesterday. Alston was full of C2C and Pennine Cycleway cyclists.

My friend John Lenton was riding with me for the morning. I rode the C2C with John in 2013. He was on a knobbly-tyred, Cube hybrid and worried he’d slow me down. I looked at his bike in all its luggage-free, low-geared glory and the hills ahead and wondered how on earth I was going to keep up.

We set off at ten to ten, climbing out of Alston. Three miles out the metalic twang of a spoke breaking in my rear wheel caused my heart to sink. I strapped the broken spoke to another, trued the wheel well enough to stop it rubbing against the frame and we were on our way again. I’d need to find a bike shop and get it fixed.

Chatting with John made the climb easier and in an hour we were at the top dodging the motorbikes who were out enjoying the roads to their fullest extent. The road is the third highest in England. The second ten miles, down into Teesdale, were quicker than the first.

We stopped at Bowlees visitor centre for coffee and cake. At Eggleston, shortly after Middleton-in-Teesdale, we thanked each other for the ride and John headed home.

Through Romaldkirk to Cotherstone and over the moors to Bowes for a stop at the Ancient Unicorn Hotel. The Dales Bike Centre near Reeth in the next Dale would be open ’til five, so I had just under three hours to cover 15 miles and 1,300ft of climbing. Lemon squeezy!

The climb towards Tan Hill was a tester. Two and a half of the six miles up were on a rough track over Sleightholme Moor. I was conscious that another mishap with the wheel would leave me walking to Reeth.

From the top of the climb, it wasn’t all downhill to Reeth, but I made i9t with an hour to spare. Ian at the Dales Bike Centre fixed the spoke while I had a sandwich in the wonderful on-site cafe.

Then over Whipperdale Bank to Leyburn and a gloriously flat final ten miles to Masham

68 miles; 3,888 ft of climbing

Dry and overcast through the station’s waiting room window. The promise of showers on my phone. I left Saughtree after accepting my hosts’ generous invitation to have a good look round the place and clamber on the engine and rolling stock.

A mile downhill is a good start for any day and the road stayed pretty much level for 10 miles. I crossed the border and found myself drinking an early coffee and watching osprey nests on cctv in the Forestry Commission’s centre at Kielder Castle.

I was finding it hard. The showers predicted were intermittent downpours. The spells between included bright warm sunshine. So I had to keep stopping to adjust my clothing to the conditions. The hills around Kielder were proving more challenging than my mind told me they should have been. I couldn’t find a rhythm and I was finding the whole thing a chore.

When pushing on doesn’t cure that, cake can, so I stopped in the Tower Knowe visitor centre to learn something about the reservoir and have an early lunch. My sandwich was great, but it took more nearly 40 minutes to arrive and was less enjoyable for that. My early lunch had turned into a standard lunch and with a look around the visotor centre it was gone 2pm and I’d done only a third of the day’s riding.

Quicker riding down the road to Bellingham, and my mojo made an aplearance for the first time in the day. I spied the signs for national cycle route 68 and started to follow them. I had to for a while and following the pointy, blue markers was easy thinking for a tired bloke.

Route 68 goes to Haltwhistle and Alston. I was headed to Haltwhistle, then Alston. I followed the signs, wondering why my planned route took me what seemed miles out of the way. An hour later, trudging up a pot-holed forest track, pushing the bike through puddles, I knew my planned route had, sensibly included roads.

Finally back on tarmac winding own through glorious countryside, I climbed asharp rise to coss Hadrian’s Wall. That was a welcome milestone.

There are better times to find your brakes aren’t working than when you’re tired and not reacting as quickly as you might. There are better places to find your brakes aren’t working than on the steep descent into Haltwhistle. I made it to the claimed Centre of Britain much faster and less elegantly than I’d have liked. But I was there!

So just the last leg of my long day’s cycling to go. 15 miles to Alston, whose claim to fame is… oh… it’s the highest market town in England. More hills, including the impresive Bellister Bank right out of Haltwhistle. National cycle route 68 goes all the way to Alston, but I didn’t fall for that again. Roads all the way for me.

I finished the day at the Alston station of the South Tynedale Heritage Railway, just a short hop from my hotel.

 

Peebles in the sunshine.  Wow! What a welcome to day seven. A thriving Borders town with so much history, they leave it lying about the place. The town’s war memorial is unlike any other I’ve seen.

I followed the signposted cycle route on back lanes tracking the Tweed downriver to Innerleithen and on to the confluence with Eltrick Water, then up river to Selkirk for lunch and a tour of Sir Walter Scott’s courthouse. I diligently locked my bike to a railing outside the Courthouse and recklessly lost the key. Lynnette from the courthouse came to my rescue, finding the key where I’d stopped to take a photo of Sir Walter’s statue in the town square.

Steep climb out of Selkirk to Midlem. Sunshine and clear skies making it thirsty work. My bottle was empty by the time I reached Hawick (That’s Haw-ick, or Hoik to the locals) another bustling mill town.

The last leg of the day was the hardest. 17 miles to Bonchester Bridge then up, up, up through the hills towards the border. At a little row of cottages in the middle of nowhere, a kind resident agreed to fill my empty bottle and wished me luck for the climb.

The road went up again. I passed an alpine centre! The views were glorious and the rain started as I began to drop to Saughtree. And what a gem Saughtree Station is. What a find. A restored former borders station where the owners run a B&B and their own train!

Warm and dry, knowing I was a spit from the border I settled in for my last night in Scotland.

55 miles; 3,813ft of hills

My second good night’s sleep and great breakfast in a row. Staying in castles, I could get used to this cycle-touring lark. I was feeling good when I pushed off at 9.30.  And half decent weather. All the ingredients for a good day riding. The Forth and Clyde Canal came first, then the Antonine Wall at Garnhall.

It would have been easy to drop down into Glasgow and follow the Clyde up to Lanark, so naturally I didn’t. I took the wild, exposed lanes across the moorland to the east of Motherwell and Hamilton, battling the short hills and incessant bluster of the headwind. Riding under the M8 marked an official passing into Southern Scotland and, to celebrate, it rained hard for an hour.

I reached Lanark as the rain eased up having had only one piece of cake all morning. The old Tollbooth has been turned into a vistor centre and gallery, I wandered in and a fabulous chap called Ian explained all about Lanark and let me charge my phone. There was no cake.

A short drop down the hill to New Lanark, the World Heritage Site on the bank of the Clyde. Truly stunning and I had to wrench myself away. I could have easily spent the day there. They make their own ice cream and cakes!

The first half of the twelve miles to Biggar were on the A73 with its unforgiving traffic trying to achieve teleportation speeds. The wind picked up, offering its more familiar challenge and I was reileved to see a cycle route sign for Biggar.

Final leg of the day, 17 miles to Peebles. Crossing from the Clyde Valley to the Tweed. There were hills, as you’d expect. In among the brightness and the dark clouds, and the promise of rain in the air, a rainbow climbed right out of the Tweed, decorating the valley ahead of me. I chased it, happily, all the way to Peebles.

Staying at The Park

65 miles, 4,086ft of hills. Five and a half hours of cycling.

I left Knock Castle at 10.15, after a great night’s sleep and slow breakfast. In town I was diverted by the visitor centre, the glass blowers, and – I kid ye not – Christmas! It was gone 11 when I got going properly.

Beautiful back lanes over to Cromlix, but the hills were steep and the nemesis of my tired legs, was back: that bloody headwind! Dunblane gave me a reason to stop and flex my tourism muscles. Then Bridge of Allan. Then Stirling.

Stirling has a wonderful community bike hub based at its busy railway station. I popped in to look at the maps and walked away with a new route. Emma in the hub was helping me choose a route to Hamilton, when she mentioned the “Tak-Ma-Doon Road” as the direct route. How could I resist that name? Ok, it’s steep, but these legs aren’t afraid of steep. The views are stunning, Emma showed me on her computer screen. Decision made, let’s go.

I wanted to push on with hope of still reaching Lanark, if weather and daylight permitted. The road from Bannockburn up past Loch Corran to Corran Bridge put paid to that. Before the Tak-Ma-Doon Road even started.

Tak-Ma-Doon went up steeply. Then up. Then up steeply. A routine it had obviously practiced, because it did it well. Then it went down. But not really down, just teasy down, straight ahead was another steep up. And at the bottom of the down, right before the up, was a slippery, momentum-sapping, stone-lined ford with a six-foot wide torrent of run-off pelting across. Wet feet, or ride through? Ride through. I slipped, but didn’t fall! Then more ups. I don’t know if each one got steeper. It felt like it.

From the top, the view stretches to the Forth Bridges and beyond, to the Pentland Hills, and the outskirts of Glasgow. Worth every turn of the pedals! A steep, steep down all the way into Kilsyth. I’m just glad I didn’t have to go up it that way.

My day was done and with the help of Mission Control, I booked into the Glenskirlie Castle hotel, just up the road from Kilsyth.

41 miles, 3,019 ft of hills

Rain.

It was raining hard when I woke up. It was raining hard when I went for breakfast. It didn’t ease up while I was getting ready. And I took a long time to get ready. The hostel manager virtually had to kick me out.

I slept badly and felt every ounce of the tiredness I carted down from Dalwhinnie last night. And my knee was still sore. I’d got a two-litre bottle of lemonade at the shop last night to use as a makeshift foam roller and it worked wonders. But 30 minutes after setting off for Tunmel Bridge, the pain in my knee was scorching.

Reluctantly, I had to admit my knee wasn’t going to get me over The Schiehallion and I headed back to Pitlochry for a cake to lift the spirits, regroup and replan. Crieff was the goal. I went another way. Following the valley down to Dunkeld, first on Route 7, then on Route 77.

What a wonder Dunkeld is! It’s glorious. And they do very good cake.

22 miles to Crieff on the A822, stopping for a few minutes every few miles to rest my knee and take in the views. Scotland does these mountain roads so well, suceeding somehow in adding to the drama of the landscape around by taming these narrow strips of it.

The climb teased me a few times with false summits. Then it surprised me by having all the rain, all of it, every drop in the world stored upon the other side of the mountain waiting for me. Descending the mountain was like dropping into a pool of water. I would not have been any wetter, had I fallen in the river.

I felt I’d earned a decent hotel hotel for the night and booked myself into the Knock Castle Hotel in Crieff.

48 miles and 3,131ft of hills

Dry and cool as I set off from Carr Bridge. Perfect cycling weather. The road descended gently, which was as unexpected as it was welcome. In Boat of Garten, I stopped to stretch out in the hope of easing pressure on my sore left knee.

I followed the Spey on a gently rising road up to Aviemore and had a look around the bustling little place. The signs say it’s a village. There aren’t many villages that can lay claim to an Intercity railway station and such an impressive array of shops.

Route 7 climbed steeply onwards throught the forests, dropping occasionally only to climb again. It levelled to a more gentle climb on winding roads through more open, rough-grazed farmland, before eventually reaching Kingussie.

Kingussie, Newtonmore, Dalwhinnie. Each higher than the last. Dealing with the climb wasn’t as hard as dealing with the headwind. I stopped in them all. At Dalwhinnie I clocked up 50 miles, still with 30 to do.

A few miles after Dalwhinnie I reached the summit of the pass, but the glorious 25-mile descent to Pitlochry I had imagined with each skyward turn of the pedals, was spoiled by the crap surface on the cycle path. The last few miles were faster on sections of the abandoned old A9.

I arrived in Pitlochry 79 miles, 3,439ft of hills, and ten whole hours after leaving Carr Bridge.

I woke at six, after sleeping the sleep of a touring cyclist. For a short moment, I considered agreeing to the third rack of toast I was offered, but I could see the future and it had tarmac passing under my tyres. Who am I to argue with destiny?

It rained while I loaded the bike and said goodbye to my hosts. It had stopped by Bonar Bridge, 4 miles down the road. In the Shin, scores of people stood up to the belly of their waders fishing for salmon. On the banks others were trudging catch-in-hand back to their 4x4s.

Past Ardgay (I chuckled a little chuckle to myself making up my own jokes, when the train went through here on Thursday, I’m over it now) and took the Stuie Road over the top to Ardrossan. It’s 800ft of climbing I wouldn’t have to do, if I followed the firth down and round, but the climb saved me ten miles.

The climb is a good one and I was down to my granny gears before I crossed the bridge over a dramatic Strathrory River. The view over the Durnoch Firth was stunning. Another ten miles over the top, gently descending and 21 miles into my day, I plonked into Alness for coffee and a bite.

The next 20 miles getting into Inverness were much more pedestrian. Roadside cycle paths next to urban highways, ducking under flyovers and popping out of hidden entrances to forgotten backroads.

Inverness is a great city, but there were no immediately apparent places to stop, so I headed for the station, grabbed a coffee and some water for my bottles. And sat there for a while. 45 miles done. 26 to go.

I turned the next 26 miles into 31 by following my nose, rather than the map. The climbs into the Cairngorms were horrible. The scenery stunning. That five-and-a-half of the last six miles to my bed at the Cairn Hotel in Carr-Bridge were significantly downhill will not have me writing letters of complaint.

75 miles 4,846 ft of hills.

I reached Strathy Point lighthouse at 10.30, about an hour later than I’d wanted to, because Captain Procrastinate came to visit while I packed. I had to wrench myself away from the hotel.

As I started my adventure, it started raining. Hard and heavy, nothing like the light rain forecast by the BBC app, making the first 12 miles a hard, wet slog. I was drenched and stopped in Bettyhill for a look at the Strathnaver Museum  and the chance to dry off. There was a cafe next door. It would have been rude not to.

Strathnaver is beautiful. It took me two hours to make the gentle climb up the valley to Loch Naven into a driving headwind that was making real surf on the loch. Thankfully the rain stayed away.

There was nothing out there. I passed no shops, pubs or cafes. A tuck shop at the Caravan Club’s Altnahara site came to my rescue with a packet of Eccles cakes.

From Altnahara the road rises quickly to the top of the Crask Inn pass. Around a 1,000ft in seven miles. The wind made it feel like 20 miles and 10,000ft. And it sapped the joy from what should have been my valedictory roll down to Lairg and Invershin.

I arrived at the Invershin Hotel and Bunkhouse with a booking for the Bunkhouse and was upgraded to the hotel. A smart single room with a view over the railway viaduct to the castle. Dinner was fabulous and live music in the bar made for a wonderful evening.
67 miles in 9.5hrs. The forecast for tomorrow is a 5mph tailwind. That should make a difference.

If there were any doubt in my mind about the size of the task I’ve set myself for this next week, it evaporated in the mountain views that passed my train window over ten and a half hours.

The 07.24 from Durham due, after 3 changes, to arrive in Thurso at 17.50. For those of you who think Durham is in the far north, there’s an awful lot of north north of Durham. In fact, there’s more North north of Durham, than there is South south of it.

In Edinburgh, there was a recumbent bike taking the whole of a space meant for two bikes, so mine spent the journey to Perth getting eveyone’s way. The recumbant’s owner, a really pleasant guy called Rad from Leith, was was travelling to Wick for the start of a week-long ride back home.

Recumbent bikes fascinate me. I love that I’ve found a sport that means I can sit down until I reach cake; these guys get to lie down on the way there and back.

Rad is as enthusiastic about these bikes as every recumbent cyclist. He was great company and we exhanged stories for the entire journey.

The train didn’t arrive in Thurso. At Dunrobin Castle, we were told passengers for Thurso had to get a bus. I had 2 stops to get changed into cycling gear and load the bike. Rad helped and we wished each other a good ride. He stayed on the train for Wick.

It turns out a coach ride where the driver has instructions that passengers are late for a ferry they need to catch, an hour away on narrow, windy roads, is going to be a memorable experience. It’ll certainly have you reaching for a seatbelt.

I had just 90 minutes to make it the 20 miles from Thurso to Strathy, if I wanted dinner. With headwind and hills, I just made it.

Let me recommend the Strathy Inn to you all. Heather and Craig run a fabulously friendly little pub with rooms and serve fabulous food.

Today has been an intro, a prelude, or prologue. Strathy point is three miles away. That’s where I’m heading after breakfast to start this adventure properly.