A trip to The Western Isles

[el]

In the early days of Covid I rushed out and bought of of the few remaining smart trainers. After all the  routes were completed and workouts started, cycling inspiration was drawn from exotic locations from Youtube. Further inspiration from family holidays long ago, this forum and on the internet led me to think about a trip to the Hebrides. What could be a better escape than beaches, boat trips and a maybe even a bit of cycling too.

My guidebook stated:" I have met numerous cyclists in the hotel bars of Tarbert who set out to ride the length of the Western Isles but curtailed their journey to return southwards. Typically they end up going back down to Lochboisdale to catch the ferry to Oban and are somewhat disheartened by their perceived failure to achieve their original aim of cycling the length of the western Isles. Chatting to them often reveals they have either overestimated their fitness or more typically, have not done sufficient planning." Cycling in the Hebrides A Cicerone Guide.

Well that certainly wouldn't be me. How hard can sitting on a ferry or a stroll on the beach possibly be?   The plan was to take the train to Oban. A ferry to Barra would then mean I could ride up the Western Isles over causeways and using a couple of ferries. Vatersay, Barra, Eriskay, South Uist, Benbecula, Grimsay, North Uist, Berneray, Harris, Skye and train home from Mallaig.

To be continued...

[Lightning Phil]

Have fun as you idle northwards

[yoav]

That sort of happened to me and my missus 3 years ago, but not necessarily for the reasons the guide book implies. We knew that the Hebrides are fairly flat from Barra up to Harris where it gets hilly, but what we didn't count on was the hurricanes that decided to inflict themselves on the islands in the week we were there. After 4 continuous days of heavy rain and winds, we'd had enough and backed out. We have unfinished business with those islands.

[Wowbagger]

We rode them in June 2012. We had no rain, not a lot of wind, and mostly sunny days.

I'm utterly shocked that people have experienced challenging weather conditions whilst cycling in Western Scotland!

[yoav]

This was September 2018. There’s challenging weather and there’s 2 named storms that came through the U.K. within 2 days of each other.

Ok, I’ll admit it, we’re wimps.

[bhoot]

We had a similar storm experience in the Hebrides in 2015, visiting a friend who had moved there. No cycling (it was November) but we flew out to Benbecula just as the first named storm Abigail was gathering, and tried to come back in Barney, resulting in a day's delay. While we were there we had 48 hours without power in her house. All good fun.
Many years previously we tried to cycle south and gave up from North to South Uist, putting our bikes on the bus instead (when they still had big buses there) which was an interesting experience.

[el]

Thanks for your responses!
I soon discovered I wasn't a fan of oatcakes- unlike BillPlumtree- but I was a fan of so much these islands offer.
I'm not much of a gardener but I know what an iris is and have even bought some in a shop. They were growing everywhere in these islands- not the purple/blue ones but magnificent groves of yellow flowers.
iris by Norman Ton, on Flickr
The beaches took my breath away. Empty, pristine white sand contrasting against the turquoise sea and often a new more incredible one around the corner. So life giving.
whitesand by Norman Ton, on Flickr
The long days meant it hardly got dark at all - as in the photo below at around midnight.  midnight on Barra by Norman Ton, on Flickr
Apart from that - there was the wildlife. Deer appearing out of teh gloom and drizzle early in the morning, stags silhouetted on the hill, eagles flying overhead. oh dear by Norman Ton, on Flickr Another lesser known species- cyclists were spotted everywhere: waiting for ferries, in bus shelters, overtaking me. Overloaded Bromptons, new his and hers matching bikes, Surleys, Salsas, vintage Raleighs ridden from the South of England, local day trippers. Thank you for your welcome. Thank you for telling me where you thought the next open shop to be!
The Stanading Stones of Callanish were spectacular and well worth a visit and looked like there was space to camp too.  standing stones by Norman Ton, on Flickr

[el]

The first campsite had a shower- so I decided to get my money's worth and had a looooooong shower. Unfortunately I forgot to take off my watch.  This resulted in a soggy, dead watch. AS I normally rely on my watch it meant I was quite disorientated for the rest of the trip.

Knowing that my bike would be transported on trains and ferries I decided to to a mountainbike. Furthermore, not wishing to spend any more money, I decided to leave on the knobbly tyres. Maybe a good choice for riding over the beach- but a terrible choice for riding along the roads.  It was during the journey that I noticed they were showing signs of perishing.
tyres by Norman Ton, on Flickr
I've never found attaching that klickfix wire attachment to the handlebars easy. Too high, too low... I decided it would be a good thing to have a bar bag for this trip. Perhaps due to the small diameter of the bars the  attachment rotated resulting in the bag dropping down further. No problem a roadside fix cannot solve. Until descending the Harris hills the bar bag takes flight and hits the road in the path of an on coming car. That's when I realised I have more that one bar bag and more that one attachment. Perhaps, just perhaps they are not  completely compatible.
handlebarbag by Norman Ton, on Flickr
Shortly after staring the journey on Vatersay there is a memorial to those who crashed in a Catalina flying boat. The wreckage is still there and the names of those who died are written on a plaque. I thought it would be good to park up the bike and take a look. Unfortunately my parking technique was  sub-optimal which resulted in a broken attachment point of my saddlebag. \it was a bad thing- easily overcome with a bungee strap. The story ends well because Carridice fixed it for the cost of postage.  Bad news good news!
broken attachment by Norman Ton, on Flickr