Fond memories of tea-fuelled cycle from Caithness to Land's End
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OUT AND ABOUT WITH RAPLH: Taking a trip down memory lane with a look back at an end-to-end winter cycle
As the icy weather recedes into early spring, cyclists emerge again from hibernation.
I remember setting out 15 years ago on this very day for a bike ride down the country. My first day was over-ambitious, all the way to Bonar Bridge, imagining I was as fit as I’d been the previous summer.
It should have been a pleasant ride over the Loch Buidhe road from the Mound but I was already shattered, and that night had such heart palpitations I reckoned I’d have to call in at the Raigmore on the way past.
But the fibrillation went away and I only gave the big hospital a friendly wave as I peched up the long hills, eventually reaching Kincraig for my second night. The cycleway over Drumochter was still blocked by snow, forcing me onto the main road, but February traffic was light and I enjoyed the long downhills in sunshine with a following wind.
Bankfoot was my last overnight before stopping with my son in Edinburgh, then came a crossing of hauntingly empty Border country to Longtown in weather which had reverted to bitter east winds. Now, a bad cold emerged which dulled the next few days and I didn’t fully shake it off till back home.
A tour of Cumbrian villages brought me to my mum’s house near Kirkby Stephen and a day’s break from the ride.
It was snowing hard when I left but experience of cycling to Dounreay through all weathers stood me in good stead; after a slushy ride through traffic over Ash Fell it cleared to sunshine through Sedbergh and Lancaster but the icy wind rasped my throat. A pot of tea in a transport café, followed by a second pot – a free special offer – stays in my mind as one of my best ever café stops.
A big business hotel on a roundabout at Leyland gave me a cosy night as the snow fell outside. Slushy roads then led through the Lancashire villages to Liverpool, the ferry across the Mersey and a reunion with my wife who was in Hoylake for her mum’s 80th birthday.
That gave me another day off, then came a 100-mile ride through Chester and the borders into Wales and the rolling hills around Knighton.
Mid- and south Wales is soft country compared to the Highlands, but there are high hills and high roads, such as the romantic-sounding Gospel Pass which climbs to 1800 feet over the Black Mountains south of Hay-on-Wye. It was back up into the snow again, then down long narrow Welsh lanes through Llanthony and over more big hills to Chepstow.
The next morning gave snow even on the Severn Bridge cycleway. Another 100-mile ride, this was not my favourite part of the world and I just wanted to get through Avon and past Taunton to Exeter, which I reached after dark and then had to negotiate in heavy traffic to find the youth hostel.
Fortunately I was fitter now, for a hard ride over Dartmoor to Tavistock with the wind against me then a succession of huge hills by Gunnislake and Liskeard and Lostwithel to Golant Youth Hostel, overlooking the Fowey estuary. Indeed, all I remember of this latter stretch is counting off the climbs, as you do on our north coast, and then finding yet another big one ahead.
A lovely morning came but minor roads were icy so I kept on the busy A390, which was fine until funnelled near Truro into one of those narrow stretches between steep banks with heavy lorries thundering in both directions.
It was probably the most dangerous part of the whole trip. But the end was in sight… and that night I reached Penzance. All that remained the next day was an easy ride through the hilly Cornish lanes between fields of yellow daffodils to Land's End – which at the beginning of March was as deserted as John O'Groats, even the sands of Sennen Cove were empty.
I pottered back to Penzance then spent half an hour booking my trains and Sleeper home, deliberately choosing Wick rather than Thurso as a destination so I could make the longest possible train journey in the UK.
Arriving on an afternoon of strong headwinds and squally showers was now of little concern and I was back home some 17 days after setting out. It would take me twice as long now.
