The penultimate day! Whiddon Down proved not to be the best place for meals, because breakfast, scheduled for 07:30, was delayed until 08:00 because the diner opened half an hour later on Sundays. (Fair enough, actually.) Les and I toddled over to the nearby garage to get coffee, and I bought two Boost bars, which rapidly turned into four Boost bars when the guy behind the till charged me for a Red Bull by accident, and it just seemed easier to buy two more Boosts than to get a refund. I gave one to Carl (who says he likes them), put one in my pocket, and saved two until tomorrow.

Once the diner had opened, breakfast was quick and efficient, although not terribly tasty—how can you mess up a bacon sandwich, that’s what I want to know. Anyway, we were soon out of Whiddon Down and on the road to Dartmoor. It was a road that after about four miles started to climb, quite steeply, and after passing a few baleful-looking cows, in my lowest gear of 34/32, we were on the moor. (Next time it’s a 34 in the rear cassette for me.)

The threshold to the National Park was marked by a cattle grid and a sign exhorting us not to exceed 40 mph. I was going to say fat chance, but it would have been quite easy to exceed that going downhill on the other side, had I been so minded. I didn’t, however, because there were more cows on the road, as well as sheep and ponies, and I didn’t want to kill or be killed. The ponies were, I must say, quite attractive, although one wanted to eat my rear brake lever.

The ride over the moor was another occasion when my school physical geography lessons kept coming back to me, and of course I was irresistibly reminded of The Hound of the Baskervilles as I cycled along. (I seem to make so many references to Holmes—I wonder if Arthur Conan Doyle ever cycled LEJOG or JOGLE.)

We came down from Dartmoor and into Tavistock, where we had coffee and cake at an excellent cyclists’ café in Church Lane. Talk turned to Eddington numbers (I think I have referred to these already) and Carl and I were delighted that (i) we had the same number, 52, and (ii) by the time we got to Land’s End we’d probably be up to 53. Here we are celebrating, with a bemused Amardeep between us.

Then we were into Cornwall, with yet more hills and what I think must have been tin mines.

We then skirted Bodmin Moor and had lunch (my first cheese and ham toastie of the trip) at a café in Minions—famous as a film, apparently, and as a portable DNA/RNA sequencing platform. On the way down the hill from Bodmin Moor we passed King Doniert’s stone, the only surviving examples of 9th-century stone crosses in Cornwall. Amazing.

And then it was into Lanlivery, and the 12th-century Crown Inn. This was one of the best hotels of the trip, with good food, a kindly landlord, and nicely quirky rooms. I had dinner with Amardeep, Carl, Jamie, John and Les. The conversation was about The End of a Holiday, as Fairport Convention would have it. It’ll be an interesting day tomorrow. What was particularly nice this evening was not having to wash my clothes on this last night! Instead I organised myself such that everything I would need to take home went in my main bag, and everything I could wait for, including bike bits and so on, went in my day bag. At the end of the ride this would go in my bike box, along with my shoes and helmet, lightening the load for the journey home.

Statistics: 55.1 miles, five hours 16 minutes moving time, and 6,115 feet of climbing. Average power was higher than usual at 121 Watts, average speed was 10.4 mph and maximum speed was 36.4 mph. I used 1,709 calories. And I get the slight sense that I am getting fitter. At last!

This is really late! I got so behind with my posts that eventually I accepted that I’d have to write about the final three rides, together with any addition pensées, once I got back to London. So here we are, on September 2, with me racking my brain trying to remember what happened on the last three days of the ride.

By day 13 we are getting close, and everyone, even my bike, is beginning to realise that there are but three days to go (it has a few creaks that it didn’t have before). There are senses of expectation, of tiredness, of ennui, of disappointment, of anxiety, and of the challenges of the return to normal life (whatever that is, these days). There was also a sense that Les and I looked like Jake and Elwood out of the Blues Bothers.

So it was that we set off. I had popped into a nearby Tesco to buy a couple of energy bars and some Savlon to treat a rather painful toenail injury (don’t ask) but even so I was first out of the blocks today, heading along a sun-dappled lane towards a pretty steep climb into the Quantock Hills, just west of Bridgwater. The climb was almost five miles, and it was not much fun immediately after breakfast, but it’s good to get some ascending out of the way as soon as possible, and I knew that what was left in terms of low-gear stuff for the day was just the final ascent into Whiddon Down.

Naturally enough, and what with there being a hill, my lead didn’t last long, and I was soon caught by Amardeep, Carl, Jamie, John and Les. I took the opportunity to take photos of some of them, and to check out the landscape, too.

The hill was followed by an amazing descent that I remembered in the other direction from four years ago (this was a really hard climb in the LEJOG direction!). The base of the hill took us over a bridge past Bishops Lydeard station, which I also remember from four years ago.

For some reason I can’t t remember anything about our coffee stop, but lunch was at Crediton, and we gathered in the town square looking for somewhere to eat. Alas, there wasn’t much, and in the end John and I had a piece of cake and coffee, which rather repeated (I assume) what we had at our earlier coffee break. As we set off I remember putting on my helmet and placing my (spare pair) of sunglasses in a plant pot for safe keeping while I did all the other things you do before you set off on a ride. Needless to say I forgot them. That’s two pairs of glasses lost now!

It was a relatively short day, and the end of the ride marked our approach to Dartmoor (see the map below). The climb into Whiddon Down wasn’t as steep as I feared, and it wasn’t long before we rolled towards the Travelodge. The great thing about this hotel was that we could take our bikes into our rooms, and I was really pleased to take the opportunity to clean my machine up a bit. We had been given strict instructions by Rob not to take our bikes into the shower, so I resisted this temptation, but I did get through quite a lot of loo roll in getting rid of most of the accumulated mud and grime. The hotel was a Travelodge, with all that implies decor-wise, but it did have a rather nice retro bottle-opener attached to the desk (see below).

For dinner we went to a pub a couple of hundred yards down the road. I can say confidently that it was the slowest service I have ever experienced. We sat down just after 6:30, and I was still waiting for something to eat at 8:15. And I had to eat that quickly, because I had a phone call at 8:30. Oh well! At least there was a fan in my room to dry my clothes, and I was able to prepare myself in good time for the rigours of the 14th day, which looks like a tough one. At least, however, there’ll be no more washing of clothes. I can easily survive on what I have.

Statistics: I did 55.6 miles and climbed 5,715 feet, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t too bad. Here is a map and the elevation profile to show the two big hills of the day

My moving time was five hours and twelve minutes, and my weighted average power was 116 Watts (quite a lot compared with other days—must have been those hills). Average speed was 10.9 mph (hills again) and maximum 33.0 mph. I used 1,736 calories.

I was disappointed not to have spent more time in Chepstow; I had visited the castle whIle I was at school, as well as many other castles of the Welsh marches, including Grosmont, Skenfrith, White, Raglan, Usk, Monmouth, and so on. Chepstow is particularly interesting because of the way it stretches along a cliff on the river Wye, and because it has the oldest castle doors in Europe—tree-ring analysis says they date to the 1190s. The doors were covered in iron plates to prevent attackers burning them down, and on the inside the lattice framework has the earliest mortice-and-tenon joints known in Britain.

The weather was good as we set off, and it wasn’t long (after just a little bit of faffing as I tried to interpret my Wahoo, followed by extensive consultation with other members of the gang) before I was crossing the Severn and heading into England. This felt like a landmark of some sort, and I thought the sign marking the borderwas worth photographing. It didn’t inspire much confidence, unfortunately.

We cycled through Somerset and had coffee and cake at (I think) about 25 miles, but preying on everyone’s mind was the climb at about 37 miles, over the Mendips towards Cheddar Gorge. We had the impression from Rob and Andy (whose A5 sheets say the road climbs ‘very steeply’), and from our cycle computers, that this would be a very tough one. It was indeed tough, with gradients going up to 18%, but it was only tough for about a mile, with a much gentler gradient for the next mile or two. I must admit I had to stop once or twice in the steep section—once because of traffic and once because my legs were on fire—but it was nowhere near as bad as the Cumbria/Yorkshire/Lancashire section. (Was it really easier than Cumbria/Yorkshire/Lancashire, or am I getting fitter? It may be the latter; I am positively sailing up the steep hills at the moment.)

But boy! The decent through Cheshire Gorge was wonderful. Five miles, fast and awe-inspiring. The best descent I have ever done, I think. To say I ‘swept’ through the curves would be to over-romanticise a little, and to exaggerate my cycling ability, but I felt like I was going pretty fast, and it was super fun. I took a couple of photos, but mostly I was riding as quickly as I could.

Once in Cheddar centre ville I had hoped to bump into Rob or Andy in the van, but they were nowhere to be seen, so I passed through the crowded tourist area and managed to buy a pasty at a shop near the end of town. This quick meal meant I was ahead of the rest of the gang, and I crossed most of the Somerset levels in this position until I was joined by Amardeep, Carl, Les, Jamie and John. This was not the most pleasant part of the ride: the roads were not good, and they didn’t seem to represent the shortest route between two points: why would one go south, then west, and then north? Doesn’t make sense. For Les, I should say that I did see a sign for Glastonbury!

We went through Bridgwater, our nominal destination, and ended up in a nice enough hotel in North Petherton, a few miles to the south. A couple of beers, dinner, and I fell asleep over my laptop as I started typing this report.

Statistics!

We cycled 68.6 miles, with a moving time of 5hours and 40 minutes. We climbed only 3,310 feet (‘only’ because of the high drama of getting onto the Mendips), my weighted average power was 106 Watts, and my average speed was 12.1 mph. I used 1,662 calories (is this really right? It doesn’t seem enough.)

A long ride and a good day. It began when Rob, Andy and I went to the B&B which housed most of the rest of the gang and where we had breakfast. Our server was taciturn to say the least, but the food was good enough and there was enough of it. We set off for the ride in the usual order, but not before Rob had fixed Amardeep’s front disc brake. It seemed to have stuck ‘on’; I suspect this happens more frequently with cable disc brakes than with hydraulic brakes.

There had been much discussion about where we should stop for coffee and lunch, and the consensus in the end was that a coffee shop in Pembridge at 28 miles would do very well, and that lunch should be taken at about 61 miles at the post office that boasted a LEJOG/JOGLE sign (see below). With a ride as long as today’s these were at just the right distances.

The weather at the beginning of the ride was overcast but dry, and it was warm enough that I spent some time re-examining the excellent Hopton Castle (see my previous LEJOG blog).

It wasn’t too long before I reached the Pembridge coffee shop (fruit cake and an Americano) and caught up with the leading group of riders. The shop was very nice, and it was sad to hear from the woman working there that it would have to close in seven weeks unless a buyer were found.

Setting off from Pembridge I passed a fancy dovecot, and noticed a sign exhorting Dilwyn to drive carefully. I thought of texting this image to my friend Dilwyn Williams, father of my ex-PhD student Huw, but instead I sent it to Keith Peters. He would get the (rather weak) joke.

The weather was getting hotter, and around this point I took off my rain jacket. This led, as I discovered later, to the beginnings of a tan on my arms, and indeed I even have tan lines on the side of my face where my helmet straps have protected my cheeks. I should be more careful!

The views at this part of the ride were great and they were green—so different from the London I left. I must ask my son to send me a photo of the back garden, so that I can see what it’s like in London.

I got to our pre-arranged lunch stop at about 2:45, and bought some fruit, a flapjack and a sausage roll (I really must improve my diet!). Not too much, because I knew I’d be eating a lot in the evening. The post-office was on a route that is used by many LEJOG/JOGLE riders, and it features a sign with some rather inaccurate figures as to how far it is to the two villages. That’s my bike you see in front of the post.

The route from this point was essentially one road, up and down, towards Monmouth, Tintern, and then Chepstow. It was really green just before Monmouth, and with just a little damp on the road here and there it made one forget what London had been like throughout July and much of August.

And then it was full speed for Tintern and Chepstow. We stuck to the same road: smooth, with ups and downs, but nothing too steep. It was good cycling but for a driver in a Mercedes who came rather close to me. I thought they were supposed to leave a metre and a half!

I got to Tintern about 4:35, took the standard photo, and then (ahem) powered towards Chepstow. Rob had not yet arrived withe the bags, because the trailing group had had some mechanical difficulties, so I mooched around for a bit before beginning my now very familiar rituals. After a shower it was off to an Italian restaurant with Amardeep, Jamie and John, and then back to my room to write this and yesterday’s blogs. And now bed.

Here are my statistics.

I cycled 85.5 miles, and climbed 4,993 feet, with a weighted average power of 106 W and an average speed of 12.8 mph. I used 2,090 calories.

Herne Hill to Cork

Setting off

The next adventure. I was up at 5:00 am to shower and finish packing before the taxi arrived at the anticipated 6:00. I am always a nervous traveller, and I was anxious that the car I’d booked wouldn’t come, or that Addison Lee would send a Mercedes or some kind of limo rather than the people-carrier which was necessary to carry my bike as well as my person. And my fears were justified, because at 05:55 I got a text from Addison Lee to say that they were exceptionally busy, and my car would be allocated within 15 minutes. Nothing about when it would arrive—just that it would be allocated.

I waited until 6:15 and called them to learn that they might have allocated a car by 6:30. Yikes! I rather bad-temperedly cancelled the booking and installed the Gett app on my phone. This is the one that allows you to call a black cab. It’s utterly brilliant and I don’t know why I haven’t used it before. Within four minutes the charming Anthony had picked me up and we raced away to LHR T2. He took a brilliant route and we had a good chat about (obviously) Addison Lee, Anthony Joshua, cyclists and everything else under the sun. We left Herne Hill at 6:20 and were at Heathrow by 7:10. Fantastic.

I was really disappointed by Addison Lee! Some time ago daughter Kirsty introduced me to Not3s’s breakthrough song titled (rather improbably) Addison Lee. In rapping the company’s praises, Mr Not3s notes that Yeah I could’ve got an Uber/It might’ve been there sooner/It might’ve been way cheaper. He was dead right, and today Addison Lee were far from a peng ting.

Having arrived at Heathrow the next step was to check in and get my bike on the plane. I have never travelled by air with a bike before, so I was worried that (i) they wouldn’t take it; (ii) I’d never see it again; or (iii) it would be irreparably damaged by the baggage handlers. Even if the bike were superficially OK once it got to Cork, I was worried that the disc brake rotors would be bent, or the brake fluid would have leaked, or that the rear derailleur would be knocked out of shape.

Well, Aer Lingus were happy to take the bike, so that was good, and I did meet up with it again at Cork Airport (where Van Morrison’s Real Real Gone was playing over the PA). From there it was a short walk to the Cork Airport Hotel, where we were meeting to register, re-build our bikes, have dinner, and write our blogs. Bike assembly was fairly painless. Nothing was broken, although the front brake rubbed a bit and I have lost a retaining clip that keeps the front brake pads in place should a screw come undone. I fixed the brake rub, and I can keep an eye on the screw as I ride, so that won’t be a problem. I think I may have to re-index the gears, but let’s see how that goes.

We were also issued with our MizMal cycling jerseys, which we shall wear with trepidation tomorrow and with pride (I hope) in a week’s time.

And then to dinner. I had a portentous bottle of Howling Gale Irish Pale Ale and then soup and chicken. During the meal Paul Kennedy patiently explained how we are to meet for breakfast at 07:00 tomorrow, get our bags loaded, and then drive for over an hour to Mizen Head. Highlights will then include Fastnet Rock, Bantry Bay, Molls Gap, Black Valley, the Gap of Dunloe, and Kate Kearney’s Cottage. We cycle eighty four miles, starting at about 10:30 and finishing (probably) about 19:30. Watch this space. I can’t wait.

And in the end…

I hope it’s obvious that I had a great time on our LEJOG trip, and I am hugely grateful to the motley crew of cyclists you see below for helping make it such fun. One of the pleasures of the trip was that I was taken out of my biomedical bubble, and the motley nature of this band of brothers and sisters was a big part of what made it a success.

 

(Motley is not to be interpreted here, as it sometimes is, in any pejorative sense! Here is what Wikipedia says of its etymology; it’s an interesting word.

Motley from 13th-century Middle English means composed of elements of diverse or varied character. In the 15–16th centuries came the “motley”, the official dress of the court jester. The jester was an important person in court circles, who could speak the truth without punishment even when it was contrary to the king’s or senior officials’ opinion. Their uniforms were generally lively and multi-coloured.)

I have covered our trip in some detail in my daily blogs, but one of the things that struck me quite forcibly, and James Briscoe said the same thing this afternoon, is how long we spent in Scotland.

Scotland

We got into Scotland on day 9 of our 15-day trip, having covered 588 miles out of a total of 1051. Thus, 44% of our time and of the distance we covered was north of the border. This is a lot, especially when you bear in mind that we were going north-east, rather than north, at the beginning of the ride. So the message is that Scotland is big! The map below, from the Bike Adventures web site, kind of makes this point, but it is still a little hard to credit.

There is a web site that discusses the size of Scotland and how it is depicted on maps. In agreement with my statement that Scotland is big, it makes the point that the land area of Scotland is 30,414 square miles, while that of England is 50,346. Along similar lines, it points out that Scotland is almost exactly a third of the area of the entire UK.

The site says that a few years ago the BBC weather map used to depict the UK as if from a wide-angle lens floating above northern France, and that this vantage point emphasised south-east England and diminished Scotland, both because of perspective and because of the curvature of the earth. This misrepresentation has now been fixed by the BBC, but it provides an example of the potential geopolitical effects of cartography. At the time, this was relevant to the referendum on Scottish independence. How could such an apparently small country make its own way in the world?

I had wondered in a previous blog whether the nature of the map projection—Mercator versus Gall-Peters—might influence the apparent sizes of Scotland and England. It doesn’t, significantly, but the use of the Mercator projection does exaggerate the size of the United States and countries in Europe and it under-sizes Africa, and this led to an earlier controversy about the political implications of map design.

Advice

Having got through Scotland, I’m back in one piece. We all love giving advice, so what advice would I give someone taking a supported tour of the kind Bike Adventures do?

The bike

• Do get some bike riding in before you go. This is partially for fitness, of course, and in my wisdom I would say you should, at the very least, be comfortable doing two 50-milers on consecutive days. But it is also to hone your bike-handling skills. Most of the accidents we had were from mistakes rather than outside agencies.
• Service your bike (or have it serviced) before you go. A bike in good condition should be able to handle a thousand miles easily enough.
• Stick to Shimano. You may love your Speedplay or Crank Brothers pedals, or your Campagnolo Chorus groupset, but if anything breaks you’ll find it much harder to find replacements or spare parts in provincial bicycle shops. All you’ll be able to do is get Wiggle to express something to your next hotel!
• If you insist on using something weird, take spares. I took spare spokes for my Hunt wheels, so naturally it turned out that I didn’t need them. And of course, take some spare inner tubes, a pump (or CO2 cartridges), tyre levers and a multi-tool.

Clothes

• Don’t take too much in the way of clothes, but make sure that what you do take is of good quality. Bike Adventures said I didn’t need more than two cycle jerseys, two pairs of shorts and two pairs of socks. They were right. But they do need to be good. My Rapha shorts, I have to say, were terrific. The same advice with respect to quality goes for arm-warmers, leg-warmers, shoes, over-shoes, gloves and a waterproof jacket. And a ‘base layer’ (vest).
• You don’t need much for the evenings. I wore a light T shirt, Ron Hill Tracksters and running shoes. In colder weather a sweatshirt would be useful. I am very fastidious, but even I felt the need to wash these only once every three days.

Food

• Eat well. Breakfast is the important meal. I found that as long as I had a good breakfast I could keep going with a light lunch and an energy bar or two and then really chow down again in the evenings.
• That said, do make sure you have some extra food with you in case you’re stuck in the back of beyond in the pouring rain for a few hours
• Make sure you have plenty of water, too. I added electrolyte tablets to my bidons, but more for the taste rather than for any concerns about hyponatremia.

General

• Keep a record. I persuaded myself to do so by writing this blog. I took a decent camera as well as an iPhone, so the photos are of high technical, if not aesthetic, quality. But the camera (a Sony RX100M6) doesn’t have GPS, so I don’t know exactly where I took the pictures, which is a pain. To overcome this I could have linked the camera to my iPhone, apparently, but this would have drained the iPhone battery. The alternatives are to use a notebook, get a camera with GPS, or just take photos with your phone. Or (complicated, this) I could have used the time at which the photo was taken in conjunction with my Garmin/Wahoo data to see how far along my course I was when I took the picture. First world problems…

In my end is my beginning

A crew less motley at the end of the trip…

What next?

I have caught the bug, and next on my list, if I can persuade Ian and Oli to join me in the Spring, is Mizen to Malim, the end-to-end of Ireland. It’s about half the length of LEJOG, but looks like great fun.

And then, in the Summer, to Europe. I quite fancy the Alps, and there is an interesting tour that takes in some of the classic cols, including Semnoz, Forclaz, Tamie, Madeline, Glandon, Croix de Fer, Mollard, Telegraph, Galibier and Alpe d’Huez. That’ll be a challenge!

Finally

Thanks to my fellow cyclists and to everyone who read and commented on this blog!

 

Bettyhill to John O’Groats

Avoiding tempting fate

I am writing this on the train home from Inverness, and there are two things I have not said until now for fear of tempting fate (I know this is not a very scientific approach to life, but it is a little-known fact that scientists are also human beings).

The first is that my bike has been brilliant. Others have had problems great and small, from punctures to pedals to spokes to cassettes and to derailleurs. My new Mason has been faultless, and I have not had a single puncture with my tubeless Schwalbe Pro One tyres.

The other concerns that part of my anatomy that contacts the saddle. The combination of my Brooks saddle and the frequent and liberal application of Assos chamois crème has, I am sure, made all the difference. I have used Brooks saddles for many years, but this is my first foray into chamois crème, and I am grateful from the bottom of my…well, bottom…to the person who gave me a tub.

Great stuff!

The ride

The first thing we all noticed when we woke up was the wind. It was strong and, to our relief, it was blowing from west to east. I can’t imagine how much more difficult our final day would have been had we been cycling into the wind rather than having it at our backs.

Our bikes had been held secure for the night in one of those containers that go on big ships, and it may have been that they were packed a little too snugly, because Andrew had a broken spoke, and Nigel B a recurrent puncture (as soon as you repaired it, it blew again). I didn’t realise this, and set off first, assuming everyone would follow in short order. Here is a photo taken as I climbed out of Bettyhill.

Beginning the final leg

As I cycled I got talking to George, who was doing the North Coast 500, and who had bivouacked overnight. In this weather, rather him than me.

I began to get suspicious that no one was following me when I was held up by a herd of cows coming down the hill in front of me. The farmer made it very clear that these animals were frisky, and that on no account should I try to speed past them. I moved to the grass by the side of the road, but rather than acknowledge my politeness with a grave raise of the hand, as do (some) motorists, they continued to bear down on me.

Are you looking for trouble?

Rather than go further down the valley to my left, I toughed it out, and eventually the animals saw sense and returned to the road. Some of them were pretty big!

A big cow

To my surprise, no one had caught me during this hold-up, but I carried on anyway, past the Dounreay nuclear power station, now long decommissioned and in the course of being cleaned up and demolished.

Dounreay

I would be letting the side down as a blogger with an eye for the ironic if I didn’t also show a photo of the nearby wind farm.

Wind farm

Eventually, at Thurso (at about 30 out of 58 miles), Rob caught me in his van. His hands were covered in grease and oil, and he summarised Andrew’s and Nigel’s woes. If we were all to arrive in John O’Groats at about the same time, it would be sensible for me to take a break! So Rob and I headed for the Café Tempest where I had a cheese scone and a coffee, and quite soon along came Max and Andrew (he of the broken spoke). Rob offered to have another go at Andrew’s spoke, but he was frustrated by not having a spare nipple and by not having a spare spoke of the right length. Even when he just tried swapping wheels, the spare could only hold ten cogs, and Andrew’s bike ran on eleven (or it may have been the other way round).

Nigel B, meanwhile, he of the recurrent puncture, was in better shape, because Rob had lent him his own bike.

While Rob and Andrew tried to fix Andrew’s wheel, Max and I set off for Dunnet Head—we had agreed that most of us would make a short detour to visit this most northerly point in mainland UK, and if Andrew were delayed too much, he would just skip it.

It was great cycling—the wind was behind us, and Max set a really good pace. It wasn’t long before we turned off north for Dunnet Head (see map below).

The route and the diversion to Dunnet Head

There were quite a few of us at various points on the ride to and from Dunnet Head. As well as me and Max, there were Allison, Dan, Jack, Karen, Lisa, Michael and Father Paul, and also the Whippets, by now well ahead of us all (and there may have been others as well). It was unbelievably windy! As we cycled north, we all had to lean far to our left to avoid being blown off course and off our bikes completely. And the other way round as we returned.

But it was worth the effort, and in fact I found Dunnet Head more fulfilling, in some way or another, than getting to John O’Groats. The power of the wind, and the view, made everything seem very elemental.

My bike at Dunnet Head

The lighthouse at Dunnet Head

Looking west from Dunnet Head

But enough of this romantic stuff. Having returned from Dunnet Head, and failed to find Andrew as arranged, it was full speed ahead for JOG, and I covered the remaining 10 miles or so in about 30 minutes, I think. On the way I passed Andrew, who wisely had been nursing his ailing rear wheel. I could see it oscillating quite dramatically as I approached him.

And then it was into John O’Groats. Photographs, congratulations, champagne, and more photographs.

Made it

We had coffee, and I took some photos of people who have not featured much in these blogs…

Ann and Justin

Pete

Jack, with Nigel behind

And roomies Allison and Lisa

Immediate aftermath

No sooner had we finished than we cycled the 400 yards to the hotel that most of us were staying in. Our bike boxes were produced, and it was pedals, saddles and front wheels off before we squeezed our machines into their boxes. I managed to add a few more bits and bobs too, to make my other bags that little bit lighter for the journey home. Most of us were staying in the John O’Groats Hotel (apparently the only licenced premises in the whole of JOG) but Andrew, Max and I were in a guest house another half-mile away, and very nice it was too.

We met for dinner, we had a few more drinks, and we went to bed. I, for one, was very tired.

Dinner

And this morning, Sunday, we set off for home!

Alness (roughly) to Bettyhill

The ride

The penultimate day of our ride. As I said yesterday, we didn’t stay in Alness but in Evanston, so to get onto the official route we couldn’t just use our Garmin/Wahoos, we actually had to listen to instructions and obey them. The instructions were simple enough: turn left out of the hotel, turn left at the T junction, and then you’ll be fine. I did manage this, but when it’s two miles to the T junction, and then two miles (at least) before you pick up the route, and it’s a bit hilly (downhill, so if you’re wrong you have to go back uphill), you do begin to doubt yourself.

Fortunately, Dan was behind me and, with the confidence of youth, reassured me, and we did soon get on the right track.

We started by cycling through Ardross and climbing towards a beautiful view over Dornoch Firth. Here is a view from the climb.

Climbing up to see Dornoch Firth

And here is me at the top, taken by a German tourist (I have met lots of German tourists in Scotland; I hope they continue to come in the future).

Jim turning his back on Dornoch Firth

I have been conscious throughout the ride that I am clad mostly in black, either in black cycle shirts or in the rain jacket you see here. The rain jacket, apparently, is like the Ford Model T—any colour you like, so long as it’s black. According to Cycling Weekly “the highly sophisticated Active Gore-Tex fabric can actually only be manufactured in black”. This is why I bought the helmet light that you can see in some photos, which I kept on during the day, and it’s why I think I’ll get some daytime running lights. There is a very persuasive Global Cycling Network (GCN) video about these.

A view of the Firth

The benefit of all climbs is the descent afterwards, and the following ride down to the Bonar Bridge was brilliant. Here is a view from the bottom of the descent, at three different focal lengths.

24 mm equivalent focal length (EFL)

About 50 mm EFL, in black and white

About 200 mm EFL. The little white arc in the middle of the hill is the road we came down

So far so good, and we headed towards Lairg. On the way we all stopped for coffee at the Falls of Shin, an amazing sight. The great thing at this time of year is to spot salmon heading up the falls, and we all congregated to see what we could see.

The Falls of Shin

Salmon watching…

Salmon leaping?

And we did see some! Karen saw three, I think, and I definitely saw two and maybe a third. It was hard to believe that any fish could have made it up past the falls, but I guess many do. We tried really hard to get a photo or video, and Dan captured one on his iPhone. As for me…see above.

As a scientist, I want to make it perfectly clear that the image above has been Photoshopped, deliberately badly, for comedic effect. Max and some other cycling chums will appreciate the significance of the joke.

The river was really impressive, and provided great photo opportunities.

Photography

And then it was north again, through rather bleak and desolate open moorland and young forest. It wasn’t clear where the road was going or even why it was going there. But we were heading for the Crask Inn, perhaps Scotland’s most isolated Inn, a place that gets great reviews, and where tradition has it that Bike Adventures customers take lunch. By the time we got to the Inn the weather had turned again, and it was raining pretty hard.

The road to nowhere, but which leads to the Crask Inn

I took a photo of Father Paul, and he asked me to take a photo of his soup (what?). Here it is, Paul.

Father Paul in the Crask Inn

Paul’s soup

We left the Inn in the rain, and I was keen to get shifting. I met Jack and Pete at a photography pointJack and Pete

And then, for the last 20-odd miles I went as fast as I could for Bettyhill. As I have said before, I like the run-in to our destination, and I find I can get up quite a speed, so I really enjoyed this last part of the ride, especially as it was drying out by now. Although during this last section I didn’t increase my maximum speed, I did manage to increase my maximum average speed for a day, up to 15.8 mph. You can see from the stats below that my heart rate was increasing quite a bit during this period, and especially at the very end, during the steep-ish hill up to Bettyhill. (I realise this is of interest only to me!)

Stats. Note increasing heart rate towards the end

The route and the profile. You can just see the climb into Bettyhill at the end

Bettyhill is a beautiful place at the mouth of the River Naver, made more beautiful by the fact that it is so close to John O’Groats…

Getting there!

Here are a couple of views from the Bettyhill Hotel, where we stayed.

Bettyhill from our hotel

Bettyhill from our hotel, zoomed out

After a shower and my usual clothes-washing rituals I settled into the bar to finish yesterday’s blog, and enjoyed a large Highland Park. The mobile cinema was in town tonight, showing (I think) Mamma Mia. I was surprised, but nevertheless pleased, that in these days of YouTube and Netflix there is still a place for mobile cinemas. We had dinner in the hotel itself, perhaps the best food of the trip so far.

Bettyhill (and another excursion into etymology)

As for Bettyhill itself, the orginal village in this area was Farr, about a mile to the east; Bettyhill was only built between 1811 and 1821 and came about as a direct result of the Highland Clearances. The Strathnavar valley to the south of Bettyhill formed part of the one-and-a-half million acre estate of Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, Countess of Sutherland, and her husband, the Marquess of Stafford. During the Clearances, the by-then Duke and Duchess of Sutherland employed Patrick Sellar as a ‘factor’ (a trader who receives and sells goods on commission). Sellar cleared 15,000 people from the area as he forcibly replaced the old-style crofting communities with a much smaller number of sheep farmers. This accrued much higher rents, and at the same time greatly reduced the estate’s administrative burden.

In response, and ususually, the Countess Elizabeth had a replacement village built for the displaced crofters, on a hill at the mouth of the Naver. Hence Bettyhill.

Fort William to Alness (nearly)

I first heard the expression “If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes” when I was a postdoc at Harvard Medical School. The person I was speaking to attributed the remark to Mark Twain (most bon mots are attributed to Mark Twain or to Oscar Wilde, in my experience). It turns out that there is rather little evidence that Mark Twain did actually say this, and indeed many US states seem to have appropriated the expression to suit their own needs. Will Rogers, for example, is said to have said “If you don’t like the weather in Oklahoma, wait a minute and it’ll change”.

Anyway, whoever said it, and about where, it’s certainly true of the Highlands of Scotland. We had breakfast at 07:30 in the Wetherspoons beneath our hotel, and on my way inside I had to sprint the 10 yards from the hotel to the door of the bar to avoid getting drenched. After an overly hearty breakfast, Rob assembled us outside at 08:15 for our morning briefing (below), and by this time things weren’t too bad, although you can see we were prepared for it to be cold and wet. I felt snug enough in (i) arm warmers; (ii) over-shoes; (iii) Rapha Pro team winter hat; (iv) clear shades; and (v) (a new one this) my Rapha base layer, worn beneath my cycle shirt. The last of these is what my mum would have called a vest, but that’s a bit prosaic for the 21st century cyclist.

Morning briefing

We rolled out at about 08:30, following a slightly complicated route to get us eventually onto the A82 to Inverness. We went alongside the railway and here is a photo of the bridge, with moody clouds in the background.

Railway bridge

It struck me as we were leaving (this is a slightly extended and muddled metaphor, so forgive me) that we slightly resembled a mutlicoloured train, a little like Lance Armstrong’s Blue Train. If this were right, Tim would be the caboose, who would sweep up members of the autobus, or gruppetto, who found it impossible to continue. (Not that anyone is allowed not to finish in our adventure!)

So onward and upward in our journey. After a few miles we were on the open road, heading east. That’s Lisa and Allison putting the hammer down.

After two or three miles. Weather not too bad

It wasn’t long before we were cycling along the Caledonian Canal, parallel to the River Lochy, and we quickly made a right turn and a left to follow the eastern bank of Loch Lochy. And it started to rain. It rained buckets. It rained, to borrow an expression from Levon Helm, speaking about The Band’s concert at Watkins Glen, like a cow pissing on a flat rock. My jacket did its job pretty well, but my hands were cold and wet and my feet shipped water from below, up through where you screw in the cleats, and from above, with moisture seeping down my legs and into my over-shoes. I have no photos of these weather conditions, because my camera was misbehaving, and I didn’t want to exacerbate things by getting it wet. And because I didn’t want to stop.

But then, suddenly, the rain did stop, and as I cycled I could feel the water evaporating from my body rather than accumulating on it. I can’t remember distances or times, but I felt a strong need for a cup of coffee after about 25 miles, and found a hotel which didn’t mind my leaving the bike in their entrance and having a sopping wet cyclist sullying their sophisticated decor. As I sipped I saw The Whippets go by (one of them had had a puncture) and then I saw the main peloton, so after a few minutes I jumped on my bike and headed up the hill behind them. I didn’t want to join the autobus.

Cycling relatively quickly I came to the cycle path along the Caledonian Canal. This was excellent riding. The surface could have been smoother, but it was so tranquil I had no desire to go terribly fast. Besides, there were walkers and cyclists coming the other way, and there was a speed limit of 15 mph. Here is the beginning of the path. You can see that it’s still a bit overcast, but it brightened up very quickly.

Caledonian Canal cycle path (1)

And here is a photo taken further down.

Caledonian Canal cycle path (2)

From here it was an easy ride, past an old bridge, through some beautiful weather on the banks of Loch Ness (no, I didn’t see it), past Urquhart Castle, and into Drumnadrochit.

Bridge

Weather on Loch Ness—how it changes

Drumnadrochit is a rather undistinguished village, but it makes the most of its proximity to the Highlands, to Urquhart Castle, and (especially) to Loch Ness.

Nessieland. Give me strength

But then! It was The Climb Of The Day. You can see it on the profile below, at 55 miles. The profile is slightly exaggerated—it’s not quite straight up—but it’s 15% or so for 1.6 miles, and it’s no joke.

Today’s ride, with profile

I was determined not to walk up this hill, and I succeeded, although I did have to stop at one point. At the top I took a break to take a photograph, of course.

The view from the top of the climb

Nigel soon joined me, saying that the other Whippets were on the way. And then a very nice woman in a very nice car stopped and said that if we were waiting for our friends we’d have to wait a while, because they were walking. I have no further comment to make.

I continued, adopting my usual strategy of going faster at the end of the ride (I don’t know why I do this). I did stop to take a photo of a Highland Cow.

Highland cow

And later we passed Conan road and rail bridges.

Conan Bridges

And then the Cromarty Firth and the very impressive Cromarty Bridge.

Cromarty Firth

Cromarty Bridge

We were supposed to go to a hotel in Alness, but there was some sort of misunderstanding about accommodation, so we ended up in Evanston. As the end approaches, we are having more and more fun at dinner…

Allison

Father Paul

It was a long day but a good one.

Getting fit

Rob says quite frequently that by the end of LEJOG we cope with hills much more easily, or begin to look at a ride of 75 miles as routine, because we are getting fitter. Is this right? Can we really get fitter in, say, ten days?

I’m not sure we can, and indeed my sense is that after ten days the ravages of cycling LEJOG—shoulder and back pain, numbness in the hands and fingers, knee trouble, saddle sores—make us less able, physically, to cope with the challenges of long rides.

However, I confess I don’t have much real data about how long it takes to get fit, beyond personal experience (marathon training, for example), a scan of the internet (for example, this), and the understanding that what counts in getting fit is rest days, when the body can recover (we have had no rest days on our trip). Maybe Bike Adventures should collaborate with a sports science department to take measurements from its customers every day, to find out what the truth is. I’m sure there is some excellent science to be done.

For what it’s worth, I think it’s all in the mind. I don’t feel much fitter, and I am so tired by the evenings that even writing this blog is sometimes beyond me (I am writing this part of the blog the morning after our Fort William to Alness ride the afternoon after our ride to Bettyhill because I fell asleep with my laptop on my lap and had to go to bed). I don’t think I have lost any weight, and I certainly don’t have muscles like steel hawsers. But I do know I can do long rides now, and I do know I can get up some steep hills, and I do know that I can hold a particular level of intensity for a particular time, and I think it is that knowledge that keeps me going.

If anyone reads this I’d be interested to know what they think.

Stats

Here are my data. Top speed of the trip so far, at 42.5 mph.

My data

Inveraray to Fort William

We are on the home straight now. Here is what we did today (in red), with our next destinations marked: Alness, Bettyhill and John O’Groats. A casual glance would suggest that tomorrow is a long ride, and the casual glance would be correct. It’ll be our longest yet, at 84 miles with 4209 feet of climbing. Friday and Saturday come in at 74 and 58 miles respectively.

What’s left

Today was another wet day, but not as bad as Tuesday. It started with a long cold climb (see profile below), but I am getting used to long cold climbs now, so I wasn’t phased, especially because the descent was pretty fast and fun. At first the route took us along the banks of Loch Awe, and the views were as wonderful as always, if you like moody images of clouds hanging over the tops of hills and mountains.

The profile of today’s ride

A moody view over Loch Awe

As I went round the head of the loch (I was riding alone today) I crossed the famous Bridge of Awe. The original bridge, completed in 1779, was destroyed in floods in 1992, and I rode over the concrete replacement, built in 1938. It was a sad day when the old bridge was lost. I understand from Wikipedia that it featured in the 1959 film The Bridal Path with George (‘Minder’) Cole and Gordon (‘too many films to mention’) Jackson. Actually, I will mention some of Gordon Jackson’s films and TV appearances, because they were so great. His films included Whisky Galore, The Navy Lark, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Great Escape, The Ipcress File, Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; his TV work included Upstairs Downstairs and The Professionals. Here is a photo from the 1938 bridge.

From the bridge of Awe

As I went on, I reached Connel, where we had a family holiday two years ago. We stayed in one of the cottages on the right-hand-side, looking over the estuary.

Holiday destination, August 2016

It was pretty gloomy today, but the photos below, from 2016, show that the sun does shine sometimes.

A view from the cottage

A sunny holiday panorama

I met fellow cyclist Jack here; he was hurrying to get to Fort William before 17:00, when the bike shop closed. The hub on his rear wheel was giving him serious trouble and I think he’ll have to get a complete new wheel. I’ll find out at breakfast tomorrow.

From this point I was following Sustrans Route 78, the Caledonia Way. Sustrans do a great job—everyone should support them. Here is a typical view of the cycle path. It’s such a good way to see parts of the country you’d never otherwise see.

Typical section of cycle path

I soon reached Appin, and the remnants of its railway station, a victim of the Beeching cuts.

Appin used to have a railway station

But the great thing about Appin is Castle Stalker, known to Monty Python fans as the Castle of Aaargh. You just can’t take a bad photo of Castle Stalker (well, you can…). Here it is with a wide-angle lens and then zoomed in.

Wide angle

Zoomed in

The weather was getting grim again, so I took one more moody shot of clouds over hills, and with 25 miles to go I put the hammer down/dug deep into the suitcase of courage/got on the rivet/went as fast as I could (choose your own description) to get to Fort William.

Final moody photograph

Most of the ride was on the Sustrans route, and very nice it was too, but there were a few points where I felt distinctly uncomfortable. The first was crossing a road bridge—I have no idea where it was because I was going so fast (for me) and because I was concentrating so hard on the road immediately ahead. The cycle path was narrow enough that a wobble to my left would have taken me into the path of oncoming traffic, and a wobble to the right would have brought me very close to the edge of the bridge and a watery grave. The path was similarly narrow at other points on the way to Fort William, and it was all a bit scary.

Not as scary as when the cycle path ran out, however, and we were sharing a narrow two-lane road with lorries and trucks and fast cars. My tactic was to try to minimise the difference in velocity between me and the cars by going as fast as I could, but it really wouldn’t have mattered if I had been doing 10 mph or 25 mph; being hit by a lorry doing 60 mph would have been curtains.

Anyway, I made it early into Fort William, and went immediately to the bike shop. Waterproof over-shoes, a helmet light that flashes to front and rear, and some gels and energy bars to see me through the next few days. Fort William is an interesting place—it’s clearly the hiking centre of Scotland, if attire is anything to go by. If you’re not in Jack Wolfskin or North Face, you’re in Berghaus or Craghopper.

And now, as soon as I post my stats, I’m off to see what food it can offer.

My stats