The Home Run

The morning in Inverness at this time of year dawns at a startlingly early hour.   But fatigue caused, in the main I think, by errant weather meant we still didn't get moving until after 9.  Either that or the fantastic cooked breakfast at the B&B.  Whatever the cause though, it meant we missed the morning school run rush.

We cycled out of town across the firth tracking along side the busy main road north.  Only on patches did we brave the fast moving traffic.  Mercifully, for the first time in days we had dry weather for a few hours of cycling, which did much to lift the spirit.

We got caught on the Google car taking pictures for streetview in one town, so we'll be sure to look that up in a few weeks.  We're not going to tell you where though just in case the picture of us is less than flattering.

Just before lunch we met a French couple on another Tandem, they were heading up to Lairg for the night before pushing on to John O'Groats, and then randomly, less than an hour later we ran into another set of tandem end to enders who were from the Scottish Borders.  We rode with them for a bit, or at least hung onto their back wheel before pulling off for lunch in the town of Dornoch, after having been given the name of a B&B in Helmsdale where they were staying for the night.

We stayed slightly longer in Dornoch than we had planned.  The rain returned as we were parking the bike outside the pub, so we were forced to order desert while we waited for the main squall to pass.  But although wet it was relatively flat run to Helmsdale, once we'd plucked up the courage to brave the elements once again.

That evening we enjoyed a couple of beers with our tandeming friends and swapped stories of our different trips up the country.  Then it was on to the final day.  Good news, we had a strong tail wind, the bad news, that heavy showers were forcast. 

Out of Helmsdale we had a succession of moderate to steep climbs.  But climbs mean there have to be downhills and we reached a new record high speed for the trip of 55 mph.  My technique here was to adopt an aerodynamic crouch which meant that Den could not see her speedo or apply her brake.  Only two concerns for me were whether there was a cross wind as we broke cover onto a bridge and whether Den would be angry when she'd found out how fast it was we'd been going. 

As we got into the final half day, north of Wick, the tree and hedgerow cover thinned and we found ourselves increasingly exposed to the fierce wind in a real slog to the finish.  But then we were on the final downhill into John O'Groats.  We'd made it!  Just time for the obligatory photo with sign post before we rushed to the licenced cafe for a beer before it closed at 4pm. 

In the end we cycled 1130 miles, walked for 14 and a half hours and broken 7 spokes in our rear wheel.  No punctures though. 

So all that remains is to say a big thanks to everyone who supported us throughout our trip.  Especially to those of you who sponsored us. 

If you know of anyone who you think might like to make a donation to further support Maggie's please do forward this on, we and everyone who uses Maggies will be immensely grateful.

We don't need a bike, we need a boat!

Before we started climbing I thought it might be a good idea to not try to climb a snow clad moutain in a pair of trainers, so I thought I'd buy a new pair of proper walking boots.  But that done, there was nothing holding us back.

We had a slight improvement in the weather for yesterday's assault on Ben Nevis.  At least up to a point.  The climb follows a well trodden path and there were quite a number of other walkers heading up the mountain.  The gradient is constant and up to about 800 metres it was probably the easiest of the 3 peaks climbs.

Then the blizzard set in.  Snow in May.  We had a snowball fight, I thought about building a snowman.  But we had a mountain to climb so I thought better of it.  We got to the top after a little over 3 hours. Yay! Then back down for a well deserved pint.

Today, back on the bike from Fort William to Inverness.  70 miles broadly crossing Scotland from West to East.  It started raining as we rolled out of Fort William, and carried on at varing degrees of intensity until a few miles short of Inverness.  I wasn't having a huge amount of fun if I'm being honest.  But, hey, charity fundraising shouldn't be about enjoying yourself.

Is that all you've got???

Our shorter day of 40 miles yesterday, means that to get to Fort William ahead of our scheduled climb of Ben Nevis tomorrow we need to ride nearly 70 miles today.  The weather is forecast as a mixture of sunshine and heavy showers, and the riding is on the whole climbing over high moorland.

We get underway in the sunshine, but it doesn't last too long and the frist shower of the day hits us.  We met another cyclist from Germany, who's been on the road for six weeks and had lunch with him at the Green Welly Boot fuel stop.  He was heading off to Oban, so we parted ways and headed up the climb to Glencoe. 

As we climbed the showers got heavier and the wind whipped up.  We ran into a cyclist who'd lost a rear pannier to the weather and been taken off the road twice on the road that we were headed.

Unfortunately, when we arrived on the hills the wind was driving hail across the hillside.  I ended up with sunglasses on as it was the only way I could cycle without the hail stones stinging my eyes.  Our bike was lent over by about 15 degrees to counter the force of the wind, there was snow on the mountain tops and at one point we came across a motor home that had been blown clean off the road and into a ditch.  Hard going.

From Glencoe it's all downhill, but because of the headwind we are still having to pedal.  We saw another tandem team cycling up the Glen.  I hope they are not planning to go all the way over the top this evening!  We press on.  Over a bridge, the wind driving hard into our left side.  Then round a corner in the road.  The wind is finally behind us.  Eight miles to run into Fort William.  A B&B and a burger for tea. 

It's starting to get a bit testing

The weather forecast for the next week north of the border was growing more depressing everytime we saw it.  The last time we camped was back in Builth Wells.  It doesn't appear like we'll be putting that to rights anytime soon.

Yesterday, we had a change to our original plan, which was to take the ferry over to the Isle of Arran, cycle to the north of the island and then catch another ferry back onto the mainland and to follow the road up to Oban from there.  The weather forecast was promising gales and heavy rains, which meant there was a possibility that some or all of our ferries would be cancelled, so we opted to stay on the mainland and run up to Glasgow and around Loch Lomond.  The main issue with our change of route meant that we might have to run the gauntlet of heavy traffic around Glasgow. 

So, through occasional showers we made good going, 70 miles, to end up for the evening in a Travelodge at Glasgow airport.  Not glamourous but it brought us back on track to make Ben Nevis for Wednesday.  Unfortunately, the weather forecast was worsening.

We got up this morning with promises of 70 mile an hour winds and heavy rain.  In cycling terms, it's like the reverse of Christmas day.  But we got our head down and made it across the Clyde on the Erskine Bridge in relatively good time.  From there it was onto Dumbarton and north along the shore of Loch Lomond.  As we rode, the wind started to build.  As the wind built, the more branches and trees fell to block our progress.

By the time we got to Tarbet, the wind was positively dangerous, we had resorted to cycling the main A82 road as the cycle path was constantly causing us to divert around fallen trees.  We were running the risk of being blown into the path of overtaking cars, so we decided to call it a night and seek out a B&B.

Currently writing this in the middle of a power cut.  It seems that the high winds have done for the local electricity grid so our washing we put in the machine earlier is now being held hostage and all we've had for dinner is a cold sandwich.  Still, the couple that own the B&B are lovely and tomorrow can't possibly get any worse than this can it?

More rain, more broken spokes and finally we make it to Scotland

We stayed at a lovely B&B on the square in Broughton and had an outstanding meal at one of the local pubs.  So in a way I was glad that the broken spokes had given us the opportunity to spend a little time in a village that otherwise we would have passed by.  More importantly for our timetable we saw an advert for a mobile cycle repair man.

Jon, who runs Cyclewright South Lakes, came out first thing the following morning and although he didn't have any of the special short spokes required on our wheel, he managed to get us on the road again.  We jumped on the bike and bashed out the 17 miles or so to Wasdale Youth Hostel, where we dropped off most of our gear and then headed up the valley to climb Scafell Pike.  Up and down in under four hours, with the sun out, and a well deserved beer afterwards.

On the way back from the climb, despite Jon's best efforts, the wheel had developed a severe wobble.  The plan from here was to carry on along our route while Jon waited for new spokes to be delivered so that he could rebuild the wheel.  So come the morning Captain Cowboy here decided to have a go at strightening the wheel himself.  20 minutes of bodging later and we were ready to head off.  I was fully confident that my repair would probably last all the way to John O'Groats, Den was less so.

So just under 20 miles later we pulled over having broken 3 spokes, likely caused by my over tensioning them and sat down for lunch.  Fortunately, Jon phoned 5 minutes later to say that the spokes had arrived and he would be over to do a proper repair. 

It took about 3 hours to completely rebuild the wheel with new spokes, so we were a little behind schedule, so we pressed on.  By the evening we had got as far as Cockermouth YHA.  We had supposed to be at Carlisle, so only a few miles behind plan.

This morning we had a fairly early start,  and headed North as quickly as we could as we were playing catch up.  We made it over the border and into Gretna, where we posted a pile of our used maps home in order to save some wait.  Pedalled for a few miles more and stopped for lunch at a pub.  The landlord remarked that we'd be likely to get a soaking in the afternoon, and was quickly proved right as we headed further into Dumfries and Galloway.  By the time we'd clocked up 75 miles we were both very wet indeed and decided that now was a good time to look for a place to stay for the night.  A few miles later a B&B sign hoved into sight through the lashing rain.  So now for a nice warm shower.

The sun exists - we've seen it!!

We managed to find a bike shop that was able to repair our wheel quickly so today we were keen to hit the road early.  Our aim was to make Wasdale YHA for the evening, which was 85 miles away.  To start we headed up the A6 towards Lancaster, which is just over 20 miles of flat fast going.

Unfortunately, Rachel's knee was causing her lots of pain once more, so despite her valiant effort we dropped her off at the station to catch the train home... again.  This time, however, the fare to Swansea was an exhorbitant £90, coutesy of Virgin Rail.   And many thanks to the ticketing jobsworth who wasn't any help at all in trying to get a cheaper fare.   In the end Rachel managed to get a tenner off by buying individual tickets for each leg of the journey, rather than one straight through ticket. 

From Lancaster we turned off and headed North again until we turned off towards the lakes.  The sun even came out for a while, and Den and I celebrated by (quite unnecessarily) breaking out our sun glasses.  We just didn't want to think that we had carried them all the way across the UK for no reason.

Anyhow, that sunny patch was short lived and a quick stop to put our waterproofs back led to the discovery of another broken spoke, but with nowhere to get it repaired we carried on.  We stopped in Broughton in Furness for an afternoon choc ice, and cycling up the hill out of town  I noticed a pronounced wobble coming from the rear wheel.  We'd lost two more spokes. 

Something was not right with the wheel.  With 17 miles to go over high exposed moorland, we made the decision to stop in Broughton for the night, rather than press on and risk mechanical breakdown in the middle of no where.  So instead of climbing tomorrow morning it looks like I'm going to have to spend time repairing the wheel.   Let's hope we can get this repaired quickly as we can't afford to fall too far behind schedule.

Final Team Photo

...and she's off to the train

Rain, rain, rain and a broken spoke

One of the big choices for anyone embarking on an end to end attempt it where to cross heavily built up area stretching from Liverpool to Manchester.  We chose to catch the ferry over the Mersey into Liverpool and then to head North towards Preston.

So from Flint, we headed onto the Wirral.  Enduring the heavy traffic on the main roads as there didn't seem to be a viable alternative.  It was slow going as we had lots of navigation and we made it to the ferry just after one o'clock. 

When we disembarked at Liverpool docks the rain started falling almost immediately and disdn't let up for the rest of the day, so our crawl out of Liverpool, although with lighter traffic was certainly harder going that on the way in.  Where's all the nice weather gone?

To make matters worse, we found we had broken a spoke on the back wheel of the tandem.  This seems to be an increasingly common and frustrating experience, but at least tomorrow we will have a rest day while we get it repaired.