The Highlands, Glens & Western Isles - Monday, July 21st 2014

[Hummers]

Back on topic again - is there a suggested debriefing session planned for those in London Village,?

H

[Dave_C]

.. some take a longer flatter route, not an option on this ride....

I did that, twice. From the turn off here [ http://goo.gl/maps/rK6Kp ] for Lochinver, 10 miles north of Ullapool, I carried on on the main road. I figured that the main road would be better surface and flatter. It was, but slightly longer. I'd just spent an hour truing a wheel which had thrown 3 spokes, in a layby.

I also did the same from Ballaulish. The suggested route took you over Rannoch Moor and down Glen Orchy. I chose a less climby route down to Connel Bridge, along the coast and then up to Loch Awe before rejoining the route. On this second 'long cut' I happened to over take a few riders whilst not knowing, so pushed on harder assuming in my near delerius state, I'd been left at the back of the feild.

please post reports in Arrivee

Err is this on this forum or in the Mag? I have a simple report but it needs work and I have no pictures.

[simonp]

I'm not convinced the Ullapool to Lochinver long-cut was faster. I hated the final 20km or so of the official route, though, it was very choppy terrain. Another long-cut that a couple of others took at Kyle of Lochalsh was clearly slower. I'm not sure I could have brought myself to miss out on Rannoch Moor and Glen Orchy, particularly since having put up with the A82 traffic as far as Ballachulish only to miss out the nice single track road up from Glencoe Village. Although it turned out the worst traffic of the whole ride was on the A83 after Inverary.

[marcusjb]

Back on topic again - is there a suggested debriefing session planned for those in London Village,?

H

A wise idea, I would be up for a bit of that. What are your movements into London in the coming weeks? We can work on making you very jealous for missing out.

[veloboy]

Back on topic again - is there a suggested debriefing session planned for those in London Village,?

H

A wise idea, I would be up for a bit of that. What are your movements into London in the coming weeks? We can work on making you very jealous for missing out.

+1 1 to that!

[Hummers]

A wise idea, I would be up for a bit of that. What are your movements into London in the coming weeks? We can work on making you very jealous for missing out.

+1 1 to that!

 

I am around on Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th but if that is too soon I can look at dates later in the month but it is likely to have to be a Monday/Tuesday night.

H

[Dave_C]

A wise idea, I would be up for a bit of that. What are your movements into London in the coming weeks? We can work on making you very jealous for missing out.

+1 1 to that!

 

I am around on Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th but if that is too soon I can look at dates later in the month but it is likely to have to be a Monday/Tuesday night.

H

Can we setup a Webex? ;O)

[Hummers]

A wise idea, I would be up for a bit of that. What are your movements into London in the coming weeks? We can work on making you very jealous for missing out.

+1 1 to that!

 

I am around on Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th but if that is too soon I can look at dates later in the month but it is likely to have to be a Monday/Tuesday night.

H

Can we setup a Webex? ;O)

If you are sat at home with a beer in your hand, it will feel just like you are there - until it is your round. 

H

[Dave_C]

I'm not convinced the Ullapool to Lochinver long-cut was faster.

It was more for saving my rear wheel as I had lost a spoke, re tensioned two which had popped out of their nipples and over tightened 4 more to compensate for the missing cassette side spoke!

I had a wee run in on the Loch Awe to inverary road. as I slowed ~5m from the traffic lights a D**k in an Alfa dived in front brakeing hard to stop at the lights and pulling in to squeeze me out of the road. I just pootled past in front of the cone and wait until the lights changed to green.

[simonp]

On the way to Dunoon from Inverary I had numerous incidents of poor driving. The worst was announced by screech of tyres behind as the car bailed from overtaking on a blind corner as a car appeared coming the other way. One thing notably absent from those roads: speed cameras.

[Exit Stage Left]

The bad blind summits all have enormous streaks of rubber where fish lorries have slammed the brakes on. The worst section is from Drumrunie Corner to Lochinver, which is why I'd take the back road. The improved roads are engineered for trucks to do 60, so it's pretty easy to find yourself doing 80 if you don't check the speedo.

[Collonach]

Hi folks
just a big thank you to all those I met on the road on this momentous ride
I am still coming down, slowly, ticks now removed, sensory feeling returning to left hand - I had to operate front changer with RH challenging in last half day
bucket loads of memorable experiences which I will try to articulate later
Perhaps the patron's comment at the Ardrossan chipper at friday2240 was most appropriate:
when I protested that there was a double lot of fish there for £5.40, he said
'you've been cycling, you need it'
little did he know...
C u on the road

Those who by-passed the Aird of Coigach on the way to Lochinver missed out on one of my top ten spectacular experiences
rounding the corner to find a lochan full of water lilies in flower, etc
and for the cultural link see the scottish country dance:
http://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/video/aird-of-coigach.html
or
http://my.strathspey.org/dd/dance/54/
with links to better audio recordings [I hope that Adventure Scotland may find the music useful]
On one of my previous visits to the Aird, on tour four years ago in May, following sunshine it started to snow,
and my freewheel ratchets failed to engage, leaving my feet spinning round to no avail.
Left colleagues to go on, stuck out thumb, and immediately found a lift to Inverness 

PS missing: specs in translucent spec case and hearing aid. Any suggestions? Gairloch syha or Trantlebeg?

[mattc]

I'm not convinced the Ullapool to Lochinver long-cut was faster. I hated the final 20km or so of the official route, though, it was very choppy terrain. Another long-cut that a couple of others took at Kyle of Lochalsh was clearly slower. I'm not sure I could have brought myself to miss out on Rannoch Moor and Glen Orchy, particularly since having put up with the A82 traffic as far as Ballachulish only to miss out the nice single track road up from Glencoe Village. Although it turned out the worst traffic of the whole ride was on the A83 after Inverary.

I loved that 20km! But it was technical and fiddly, so not ideal for a sun-baked Scotsman ;-)

I had thought the long-cut was slower, but knowing how long Dave's spoke stop was ... Well who knows. But anyway, the back way to Lochinvar was the prettiest bit of the ride. Unmissable.
The Glen Coe climb is perhaps the most dramatic of the ride. Glen Ocry great too, as was the sticky toffee pudding at the Orchy hotel. These things more than compensated for the draggy/busy Rannoch section.

A83? Yeah, bit busy, but we caught the end of the rush-hour. Probably the only rush-hour in a populated area all week! (And you were possibly an hour ahead of us there?)
That gentle rolling stuff to the ferry was great once it got quieter. Would have made the best end to an event ever ever ever

[Grampa]

Hi folks
just a big thank you to all those I met on the road on this momentous ride
I am still coming down, slowly, ticks now removed, sensory feeling returning to left hand

PS missing: specs in translucent spec case and hearing aid.

Collonach, this did not look like a pensioner's run out to me but you continue to redefine the age thing. Admiration, respect and envy! 

[Exit Stage Left]

It occurs to me that the reports of poor service in cafes and restaurants may have been caused by the desire of of some the brightest young people in Europe to finish their shifts promptly, in order to get down to some of the best beaches in the world for a party.

Twilit nights spent putting the world to rights, while the seals, otters and dolphins poke their curious heads out of the crystal waters following a superb sunset, tend to outweigh being attentive to sweaty cyclists.

[marcusjb]

A wise idea, I would be up for a bit of that. What are your movements into London in the coming weeks? We can work on making you very jealous for missing out.

+1 1 to that!

 

I am around on Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th but if that is too soon I can look at dates later in the month but it is likely to have to be a Monday/Tuesday night.

H

Mondays and Tuesdays are generally pretty quiet days in my packed social diary (who am I kidding!).

I guess a few folks will be on holidays etc. through August, but that only means one thing; there would have to be another debrief/end of season recap in the autumn.

Suggest some dates Mr H! 

[zigzag]

debrief after the saturday's straight outta hackney audax? i know quite a few will be riding it

[Euan Uzami]

debrief after the saturday's straight outta hackney audax? i know quite a few will be riding it

freaky - I had a weird dream the other night that it was much later on in the year and some major audax event was being organised, like possibly the AGM, and people were in a flap that it couldn't go ahead because some vital participants were apparently still up there in scotland riding the HGWI, after months and months.

[Dave_C]

The ride was ACE. At the time I may have had differing thoughts, but on the whole it was a fantastic week. The weather helped and hindered but generally was positive. It wasn't windy and stayed dry - but at times I was drinking a bottle of water every couple of hours and finding refils was difficult to find. The heat was oppressive and had me hiding in shade where ever I could. I used 2 new tubes of High 5 Zeros tables in 4 days! It was a really great experience though. At times I was slightly exhaughsted and my head would spin in the heat, but there were lovely periods where I could just take in the scenery as it passed by. I saw lots of Intrusions, where molten rock is squeezed up through cracks in the rock above. It cools and when cut through leaves beatiful differing colour rock threading through the rock base. The waters off the coast near Glenfinnan are spectacular! I have visited and dived off Norway where the vertical rock faces rise straight out of the sea for over a kilometre (and are equally as deep) but the seas and, although not as massive, the rockscape off the west coast, rivals that in many ways. The terrain was rolling and climbing at the same time. I remember looking at a map of the north west of Scotland years ago and seeing thousands of tiny lochs, and imagining a flatter boggier landscape but in real life its just a huge rockery, with water trapped in the bowls created by the strata. The road from Ullapool to Durness is just one huge rollercoaster as the tarmac climbs out of sea level the rises over the high rocks to then drop straight back down to the next sea loch.

[Exit Stage Left]

You would have been very close to seeing this exposure, which features on geology courses around the world, you find it on Chinese websites.



http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~oesis/nws/loc-laxford.html

It would be easy to write a book about the route you took. By not turning left at Drumrunie Corner, you then passed Knockan Crag, essentially the birthplace of plate tectonics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knockan_Crag

The weather is so unpredictable in that part of the world that you can't guarantee that you'll ever see it look like that again. We had a similar experience in Ireland a month before, I know I can never repeat it, and I wish I'd known more before I went.

It's fascinating to envisage the way the film crews will have tackled the same problems we faced in Ireland. We had the reverse of what they faced, with lots of controls and just one crew. They had four crews and only one manned control to make the riders regroup. I could also envisage every possible shot, and also the problems they'd face in parking, and keeping their vehicles out of the picture. With a motorbike you just drop the pillion off and make yourself scarce. Passing riders is also a lot easier.

I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with. The usual fault is to cover the first half well, but mess up the ending as the crew tire. I looked at the route and that seemed a distinct possibility.

[Dave_C]

Cheers ESL, I was asked about Knockan Crag by a friend this morning. I can't find its location so don't know if I did pass it. I saw plenty of intrusions though, and thought of an old Geology friend who showed me intrusions on Blaven on Skye 14 years ago, sadly now no longer with us.

EDIT: Yes I think I saw this or something similar as I recall thinking someone had cut the lines out as they were improving the road!

Your idea about the end not being well cover was quite true. I saw a camera at Drumadrochet and then at the end. We had hoped to catch them at Fort William as we caught a couple of hours kip, but pushed on not stopping for a sleep. Then we took an alternate route to Inverary and over took half the pack and the crew. I recall meeting a camera crew before Dingwall around 8pm Thursday eve. They couldn't stop for long as they had to book into the Clackaig Inn in Glencoe before 11pm so shot off. I called the camera crew who had filmed me in Drumnadrochet around 1am later around 07:30am on Friday morning to tell them we were leaving Balahulish, only to wake them up from their slumber :O) They must have been driving 15 - 18 hours a day to keep up with the spread out group, when we were riding near 22 hours a day just to make the ~300km daily target we'd set ourselves.

[Dave_C]

North of Ullapool I lost one spoke, cassette side at the bend, and nearly two nipple side as they popped out. I was able to re tensions the spokes but not get to the broken spoke as I had not tool for removing my cassette. I spend an hour or more here:

http://goo.gl/maps/YXkIe

and when Mark hagger came up (he was the one sleeping by the road side - which had scared two campervan drivers to stop by me to warn him about his dangerous position) he got me to take a photo of him looking at the mountina in the back ground. Apparently its in some poem? or Scottich music song? Looks loke its Stac Pollaidh.

[Exit Stage Left]

The North West Highlands Geopark is a good start to understanding the structure of the area.
http://www.nwhgeopark.com/

John O' Sullivan did a grand job in interpreting the Mile Failte ride, this is one day's info. But that was the flagship ride of a whole country.
http://mf1200.com/MFMain/index.php/description/day-three

[Exit Stage Left]

I spend an hour or more here:

http://goo.gl/maps/YXkIe

and when Mark hagger came up (he was the one sleeping by the road side - which had scared two campervan drivers to stop by me to warn him about his dangerous position) he got me to take a photo of him looking at the mountina in the back ground. Apparently its in some poem? or Scottich music song? Looks loke its Stac Pollaidh.

Stac Pollaidh is the pointy one on its own. I spent a fortnight in 1982 putting up the Northern part of the deer fence in the picture. That new fence is an extension of the exclosure built to protect trees.

Knockan Crag is about a mile North of there.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/corner+market+st+and+ladysmith+st/@58.034709,-5.071325,3a,73.6y,90.79h,95.92t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sbCkwHb-o88hnRoftZbdlyA!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x488e48260353e365:0xa62974d51d1c0202?hl=en

[Dave_C]

Cheers, I certainly did cycle past there. It was down hill and I was following a flatbed 6 wheel HGV which had just over taken me. It had a long ratchet strap trailing behind, hanging out of an open locker on the rear passenger side. It grew longer as it drove on. I eventually passed the strap (and hook) in the road, along with a few others as I made my way up the A835 and then A837. I remember thinking, he'll get to his destination and have no bloody straps to fasten down his load! Eejit!