First road sign showing John O’Groats! If only distances were in binary . . .
Month: May 2009
Inverness
New breakfast record today – muslei, porridge, cooked breakfast and 4 bits of toast. Where does it all go?!
The Perfect Downhill
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two weeks figuring out what the perfect downhill would be. It would start out high up, obviously. But if it descends too quickly, it’s wasted – you end up on the brakes in case it gets bumpy or gravelly. So you want a steady gentle slope where you can get up to 30mph or so and glide along. However, if it’s just a constant slope then you kinda get acclimatised to it, so it’s much more fun to have a bit of a descent, then a bit of flat, then a bit more descent, and so on. And, although curves are fun, a straight road has to be top choice for a purist’s perfect descent – get into an aerodynamic tuck, stay there and fly.
So it was an unexpected and pleasant suprise to find that this hill actually exists, on the east side of Loch Ness . The sting is that you have do the brutal, unrelenting 400m ascent from Fort Augustus to get there. The climb is too steep to spin up in my lowest gear, so I stood up in second gear most of the way, punching out a steady rhythm on the pedals and concentrating to keep on a sustainable pace. For some reason, the song ‘you will have a fishy on a little dishy’ keeps coming into my head on these steep climbs – must be the right tempo! It’s the kind of climb where the car drivers coming in the other direction give you incredulous looks. Anyhow, once you are at the summit (the real one, not the two or three false summits on the way there) you are rewarded by the sight of the road leading off towards the horizon in a series of gentle undulations. It brought a smile to my face, despite the rain that made a brief appearance at the summit – you can see how much fun it’s going to be.
On the way down, I think probably i travelled nearly 2 miles without pedalling a single time. It goes on for long enough that you have time to wonder if this is some kind of crazy cycling dream from which you’ll soon wake. But it’s not. It’s real. It’s just well guarded – by the most killer ascent i’ve seen on this LEJOG ride. Awesome! Diem carpe’d 🙂
Loch Ness
In which I find more adjectives to describe hills.
Who moved my road?
After crossing three of there swing bridges, one of them finally swung. Oh well, time for an early lunch in Fort Augustus anyway since there won’t be anything on the east side of Loch Ness.
Scotland
Looking back towards Fort William. Fast and flat today. Enjoyed blasting up Loch Lochy. Feeling a bit tired today, hopefully just after effects of yesterdays efforts.
Random
To me, today was one of the ‘big challenge’ days. I kinda expected the lousy weather, but i also know how exposed the route is and approached it with due respect.
Getting out of Loch Lomond early was a good plan. The road surface isn’t great and you have to be pretty bolshy to manage the traffic safely on the windy road – by manage i mean, positioning yourself assertively so that people don’t have the option of squeezing by if you don’t think it’s safe.
The next section to Crianlarich is wide and safe, largely an uphill gradient. Crianlarich to Tyndrum is more exciting, particularly the last few windy corners, where visibility isn’t great and it’s uphill.
North of Tyndrum is fun. A long steady climb followed by a very long steady descent. You glide along for miles at speed!
Then on to the serious stuff. A big sweeping switchback after a bridge marks the start of a long climb up into the elements to about 350m and across the moor. After that, the remaining climb into Glencoe feels pretty minor, and the descent through Glencoe is very enjoyable, fast and sweeping.
I stopped before the descent to adjust clothing. By that point, i was a walking advert for Sealskinz clothes, with socks, hat and gloves all coming from them! But it’s all good stuff – doesn’t matter if the outside is wet so long as you’re warm on the inside.
I had a lot of food with me today, and ate it all. My favourite food is random flapjacks – the ones with icing or jam centre. Good mix of short and long term energy, robust in the panniers, and easy to eat. I had a massive dinner last night, big breakfast and regular snacks throughout the day. I can definitely feel the benefit when i’m more careful about managing my energy levels. Some days it’s fine to pootle along, but on days like today I need to know I have the fuel to cycle hard for hours on end.
Ballachulish
Some video during a break in the rain. It did dry out after this. In fact, I was nearly getting dry as i reached the 40mph limit for Fort William. But it’s a long way into town from there, and a further deluge let rip for the last 10 minutes leaving me soaked again. Still, bnb has electric heater and forecast for tomorrow is good. Three days left! Eep!
Trials
What do you least want when you’re cycling in the rain across a barren moor, and have just climbed up to about 350m? Answer, to stop for several minutes at traffic lights! Just long enough so that you stop generating all that lovely heat. Just long enough for the wind to start chilling your soaking wet rain gear. And just long enough that blood in your extremeties gets a bit chilled, so that when you start pedalling again, you sent a cold chill into your core. No other options except to crank a big gear hard until you get some heat going again.
Loch BÃ
I always think this place should be the dictionary definition of ‘desolate’. Loch BÃ is just north of the big switchback climb in Rannoch Moor. It’s like some place out of Lord of the Rings, I think. If the weather was nicer, I would’ve tried to see if Gollum lived here. But it wasn’t nice and so the hobbitsies got back on their bicycles and cycled on, my precious.