Holiday Cycle Epic – Part I

Holidays are amazing!

Everyone loves a holiday: time off from work, quality time with the family, long lies and relaxing, eating and drinking, 4am alarm and hundreds of miles on the bike…

What? OK, maybe not everyone enjoys that last one. Maybe it’s just me, but I had been planning this holiday cycle trip for months.

We normally go to visit family on the Isle of Lewis every year and my good wife gave me permission to cycle up to our destination. After checking timings and ferry schedules I decided on making it a 2 day journey.

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Day 1 would leave Livingston, catch a ferry in Oban (112 miles) and spend the night on the Isle of Barra. Day 2 would then see me cycle through Barra, catch a ferry to Eriskay, cycle through Uist, catch another ferry to Harris and then cycle through there and Lewis (120 miles).

There were a few things that could go wrong and leave me needing to make alternative arrangements. I thought I had thought of them all. However, I was soon to find out that I hadn’t…

Final Preparations

The last month has seen me getting my Boardman bike tuned up and running smoothly with this trip in mind. I just managed to catch my bike shop before he closed for his summer holidays and got him to tighten up the spokes on my rear wheel. This left me 3 days of commuting to make sure it was all running well. I decided to use my saddle pack on these days instead of the rucksack as this would be coming with me on the journey. A few days use on a familiar route would be good as it does make the handling feel quite different.

It was all going so well… until I started coming home on Monday afternoon. My right pedal began to feel very wobbly and my shoe kept on detaching itself from the pedal. This was not going to be any good, especially with some very large hills coming up! I would need to try and get the pedals removed and swap them with one from another bike.

It sounded simple enough, but in practice proved anything but. The axle on the pedal had split in the hex corners and my tools couldn’t make them budge. My only hope was to take it to a bike shop near work on Tue and see what he could do.

After leaving it with him on Tue lunchtime I got the bad news that they couldn’t be saved and I needed to order a new crankset and pedals. The rings were starting to get a bit worn anyway, but given I was supposed to be leaving on Fri it didn’t leave long to get it fixed and returned.

I spent the next 2 days worrying if I would get it back. Finally the phone call came on Thursday afternoon saying that it was ready! Phew, cutting it fine but at least it was ready!

I got it home, loaded it up with what I would need and went for a test ride around the block.

Alarm Bells

The next challenge for me was to wake up early enough to get going and catch the Oban ferry. There is only one sailing per day so if I missed it I would be stranded. This meant I wanted to be on the road by 4am so I set 3 alarms hoping that even if I slept through them, at least my wife would hear them and kick me out. In fact, I was awake before the first of them and managed to get everything ready to leave the house at 3:40. It must have been the excitement! It was going to be a good day!

Leaving at that time was strange as I needed to use lights again. However the peacefulness was beautiful and I was able to enjoy miles and miles of deserted roads as the sun started to rise.

The weather was kind to me: mostly clear skies, mild temperatures and only a small headwind. I knocked the miles off without too much trouble and before I knew it my first scheduled stop at Callander was approaching. This was at 40 miles and just in time to top up my water (I tried to drink 1 x 700ml bottle every 20 miles).

Breakfast was next, and I think you’d struggle to find many nicer spots to have it than here. I pulled into a picnic area on the banks of Loch Lubnaig, tucked into a couple of sausage rolls and yum yums, whilst surveying the glorious scenery around me.

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Setting off after breakfast I felt well prepared for the day’s main climb, which would be coming up just after 50 miles. I was well on schedule and had no worries about catching the ferry.

The climb coming up was through Glen Ogle, just out of Lochearnhead. I have done it once before and remember it being a really enjoyable effort. That time was on a misty day though so I wasn’t quite prepared for how spectacular it was going to be today. As I made my way up the lush, green hillside I couldn’t prevent myself from gazing from side to side. The gradient never gets overly steep so you can really enjoy the splendour of this climb. It was undoubtedly a highlight of the day!

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Stopping at the top (a nice round 60 miles of my journey) I phoned home to update them with my progress. This was when things started to take a drastic change from my original plans. My mum had sent a message that she had heard there was a problem with the ferry I was due to catch. Sure enough, checking the website revealed there was a technical problem and there might be delays.

Oh well, I decided to carry on to my next stop which was a lovely cafe at Tyndrum and would mark 77 miles of my journey. I travelled the next 17 miles whilst pondering what options were available to me. It felt kind of strange as I was getting further away from home, but didn’t know at this stage where I would be ending up.

The cafe was a welcome stop as I was getting hungry now, so ordered a full fried breakfast and mug of coffee. Feeling this would help me make plans I got the phone out and started looking at my options. Firstly, I looked at the ferry website and sure enough, due to technical issues it would not be sailing today.

This left me either faced with the prospect of returning home and joining my wife (she was due to leave for Inverness in the evening), finding accommodation at the last minute somewhere unknown, or making my own way to Inverness and joining the rest of the family there. Returning home was not attractive as it felt like it would have been a failure. Organising accommodation seemed difficult as I didn’t know where to go and would have needed to arrange a different route and ferries the next day. This left the option of making my way to Inverness…

From Tyndrum to Inverness would take me through Glen Coe and add a further 110 miles to my current 77. Instead of nearing the end of my day, I now had almost as much to go as I originally expected at the start. However, the sun was shining and my legs felt good so I looked forward to the challenge!

(Check back later for Part II of the journey)