Glenfinnan

I've got an internet connection... but not much of a one. Not enough to upload any photos or work out any maps. Nor do I really have time.

So I'll just say that last night's gig - in a 32 seat, railway dining car was one of the loveliest night's of my professional life. It had a unique atmosphere and worked against all the odds. I can't quite believe it happened.

I'll update more fully another time.

The Westernmost Point!

I'm really very, very happy right now. I've finally made it to the westernmost point: Ardnamurchan.

I met my Human Sat Nav, Scot, this morning at Fired Art in Fort William, the starting point for Day 27:


The nature of my journey - between the four corners - means that sometimes I have no choice but to retread some parts of it. This morning was a great example because I had to start by heading south on the A82, the same road that had carried me north the day before.

But it took us down to the Corran Ferry and a trip across Loch Linnhe. Scot was an amazing guide - he's a marine biologist, so knows his wildlife and was able to point out all sorts of creatures and geological features along the way. We saw porpoises playing in the water before the ferry journey. Ace.



The landscape on the headland was so varied as we scooted around the edge of the sea loch, Loch Sunart. As was the weather. It was hot and humid, cold and rainy, windswept and everything in between.



Our first tea stop came in Strontian, courtesy of Olivia, Scot's wife who caught up with us in their campervan. Ace fruit cake too.

I think this was one of the toughest rides of the lot. As well as some stiff climbs...

we also seemed to be heading into an energy sapping headwind for huge chunks of the ride.
By the time we made it to a great little visitor centre (with a grape vine sprouting out of the floor and all over the window) we were in dire need of some calories.



The hills kept on coming and the wind kept on hurting us but eventually we passed the Sonachan Hotel - and the barn out the back which would be my venue for the night - and continued for another three miles out to the westernmost point and the Ardnamurchan Lighthouse.

Here I am with Scot...

and here I am with my bike as far west as it was possible to put it...


I wish the day's cycling had ended there but of course we had to go back over those last three miles to get back to the venue where our journey ended some eight and a quarter hours after it had begun...


It meant I was arriving at the venue at 6.30 and with this one being an earlier-than-normal 7.30 show there was very little time to prepare... but, I managed to do an interview for Radio 4' Front Row, shower, change and eat before hitting the stage on time. I don't think I've ever played a barn before but I'm very glad to have done so tonight.



I can't believe I've got this far. It's been an incident packed 28 days that have taken me from the southernmost point to the easternmost point to the westernmost... and now the end is in sight. Just 5 more shows and 6 more rides and I'll be at the northernmost point.

I hope tomorrow's guide is as good as today's. Oh, hang on. It will be. Scot's taking me to Glenfinnan as well...

Day 25 & 26... To Ardlui & Fort William.

There was an imbalance between these two days. The first of them was an easy, flat 30 mile ride while the second was a rugged 60 miles with plenty of climbing and effort required. If I was setting this up again knowing what I know now I'd have probably done things differently and stopped at Tyndrum instead of Ardlui making it two rides of roughly the same difference.

Oh well. Live and learn.

Here I am at the start of Day 25 in Dumbarton. The chap on the left is Chris - he was my Human Sat Nav for the day. The other chap is Mark. He was in the audience the night before. We chatted after the show and he decided to come along too.


I was quietly dreading this ride because it looked to me like I'd end up having to cycle most of the way on the A82. It's a busy road and traffic makes any ride less fun. But as it was, between them, Chris and Mark showed me a network of cycle paths that took us all the way to Tarbet... so we only ended up doing the last section on the 82.


As you can see, much of it was hugging the bank of Loch Lomond... which means we were pretty flat too.


Ardlui is a strange place. In that it's not really a place. There's a hotel there... and that's pretty much it. There isn't anything resembling an actual village that I could see. Quite how it's got a place name all to itself I dont really know... still the gig wound up being fun.


We made a couple of stops, including one in Luss...
and somehow every stop seemed to work to our advantage weatherwise. We saw a lot of rain but I didn't really get wet much. We also saw patches of sunshine and because there was a bit of everything that means we also saw quite a few rainbows. There were at least four along the way. They seemed so vivid in real life... they definitely lose something in a photo.



Here we all are at the end of the ride:


I was there again for the start of Day 26:


As you can see... I was on my own. This was the first day that I didn't have a Human Sat Nav. I can see why... I mean, nobody actually seems to live in Ardlui so how was I ever going to find a local to guide me. Not that I needed guiding... there is only one way from Ardlui to Fort William. The A82.


As you can see, it involved some climbing:


It was a wet and wild day... especially once I'd climbed up on to Rannoch Moor...




You'd think the downhill that followed would be really exciting... and in good weather it might well have been. As it was the wind was so strong that I could't really freewheel as I came down into Glencoe. Oh well. Here's what most of today looked like:


The finishing line:

Day 24 -> Dumbarton

A quick glance at the uppity-downity chart shows you just how easy the day's ride has been...
It's been about as flat as it could be... and I've only cycled 18 and a half miles. It felt like a day off.

Here I am at the start of the journey, outside the Pavilion with my Human Sat Nav, Carol.
The urban sprawl spreads all the way from Glasgow to Dumbarton but we hardly saw any of it because we followed a ribbon like path of green, through a big park, along a canal towpath and eventually on to a cycle path that threaded its way between the mountains and the river, the road and the railway.

There were showers, there was sunshine, there was a howling gale... and there was a big bike...

It wasn't all plain sailing. After yesterday's ride-of-many-punctures for Tony it was my turn today.
I'm not a slick puncture-repairman... it took me far longer than it ought to. But I didn't want to suffer the same fate as Tony so I made sure I scoured the inside of my tyre for debris. I think I found the culprit. This tiny fragment of glass:
It delayed us, but it didn't stop us. Here we are at the end of the ride.
1141 miles and counting...

Days 22 & 23... to Cumnock and Glasgow...

Here I am on the morning of Day 22 in Dumfries ready to leave with my Sat Nav, Steve.


The start of this ride made me very aware of how much my fitness has improved. We were climbing for quite a while and I wasn't really aware of it. Granted it wasn't a very steep climb but even so... I know I would have felt it so much more a few weeks ago. After yesterday's drizzle I was expecting the weather to get worse from here on in but as it was it was a little crisp and cold but with mainly clear blue skies and amazing views.




and a few dangerous hills...
But we got to see some cycling history along the way. Here I am outside the smithy where the first ever pedal driven bicycle was built by Kirkpatrick MacMillan...



...and later we visited the Scottish Cycle Museum where there's a replica of the bike he built...




Steve's done some amazing cycling on that bike of his - he's travelled through India and (I think) the Himalayas on it... it's an indestructible, expedition bike. It's also bloody heavy. Which made Steve a lot slower than me on my lightweight Boardman. And the ride turned out to be a bit longer than expected... which meant that there came a time when Steve decided to cut me free in order to ensure I got to the show on time. Here we are just before we went our separate ways...


Not that Steve stopped being my Human Sat Nav... he and his girlfriend Kerry drove ahead and parked up at every junction to wave me down the correct route to Cumnock.



A nice route. At 53 miles it was longer than many of my recent runs and there was quite a lot of climbing too...




now... Day 23... is when the weather really turned. It was horrible.

Here I am at Cumnock Town Hall with my Human Sat Nav, Mark and his friend Tony:


As you can see, hi-vis waterproofs were the order of the day.

We must have taken a bit of a detour... because here I am in Moscow...


But the day was dominated by the bad weather and bad fortune. There were punctures aplenty. Five of them in total. All for Tony. It was the first time I can remember being cold on a bicycle. But once we'd stopped to deal with the first puncture, the wind and the rain got to me and I never successfully warmed up from there. I was hoping for a hill in order to warm myself up with some work... but when they came, they didn't do enough.

This is largely what the day looked like:



43 miles. Up and down. With my toes squelching around in wet socks and my knees knocking with the cold.



Tony had no choice but to give the day up as a bad lot eventually which means it was only Mark and I who made it to the finishing line:


But make it to the finishing line we did... and that's the important thing...