Scotland on a bike? 14 12 3 (15) 25 1 22
After being in work for a year my brother Jim and I
followed up our cycling tour of Devon and Cornwall the previous year by tandem, with
our second visit to Scotland only now we each had new singles and though
second-hand, they were fitted with all the latest racing cyclist's equipment:
at least my L.H. Brooks framed bike was, with new wheels and new Campagnolo
gear set on a block of 5 in the rear hub, whilst Jim's bike was the standard F
W Holdsworth from a few years before he bought it fully equipped for touring.
I recall visiting this old couple Joe and Ev in the Clarion Road Club to discuss our route to the north of Scotland, via the west coast which in those days was not fitted with all the roads and bridges you have there today. There were still ferries in many places like between Ballachulish South and Ballachulish North and ferries at Kyle of Lochalsh, Strome and Loch Broom, plus the ones you still have today at Corran and Mallaig for example. But there was no road round Loch Torridon where a ferry operated to take one across the loch, or alternatively there was dirt track through the forest on its south side. Joe and Ev rode a tandem as did Joe's brother Sam and his wife Ida: people in their late 50s or sixties and the backbone of our cycling club who over the years must have cycled everywhere throughout the British Isles.
When the day came to depart we had an impressive schedule to follow: Bury to
Carlisle over the notorious Shap Pass in the northern Pennines, a stiff climb
on push bikes, a distance altogether on our first day of 118 miles 186 km. On
our return after 2 weeks away we would cycle back from Edinburgh in 2 days a
total distance of 211 miles around 340 km, so that we could maximise the time
we spent in Scotland. Our route north after Carlisle took us through the Lead
Hills to East Kilbride thence north to Crianlarich, staying at pre-booked youth
hostels along the way once more, cycling along Loch Lomond's west bank thence
over Rannoch Moor to Fort William where we stayed beneath the mighty Ben Nevis Britain's
highest mountain. From there we took the road to the Isles via Glenfinnan and
the Bonny Prince Charlie monument and on to Mallaig where we caught the ferry
to Armadale on the Isle of Skye, before spending that night at the youth hostel
in Broadford. The next days we wended our way further northwards staying at
Kishorn then the old hostel on the northern banks of Loch Torridon after
finding our way round the loch through the forest, to the hostel remarkable for being our first one without a live-in warden:
who only visited every once in a while to take visitors' over-night charges, the
hostel standing beneath the foot of Ben Alligan, one of the three towering
Torridonian sandstone masses in this part of the country, and reputed to be the
biggest pile of what was once sand to be found anywhere in the world...little knowing
at the time that a few years down the road I would devote the bulk of the years
of the rest of my life scaling these giants plus all the other Scottish peaks
with heights greater than 3000 ft 914 metres, the so-called Munro hills, all
282.
To say my love affair with Scotland was given a
fresh injection of blood during this cycling holiday, is perhaps to understate
the case, a love affair which must have begun during an earlier visit we made
with our mother during WW ll to visit our father, a Royal Marine Engineer, who at
the time was stationed just north of the city of Oban, but with a further 45
peaks I have added to my lists of climbed hills in the past 2 years, the love
affair continues it would appear unabated..?
LH Brooks pic courtesy of Keith Hellon, FW Holdsworth courtesy of Neile Elder whilst Ballachulish and Strome Ferry pics are of unknown copyright if such exists, see Google for more information please...
Last pic taken 2014 5 27 at 10 13 on my return to Mallaig from Inverie Ferry out of Knoydart during my second last visit...
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