OUT AND ABOUT WITH RALPH: Feeling like new on powered ride at Rumster and Camster
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Ten years ago, the heart surgeon who with his team saved my life with a massive operation, told me that my condition was completely curable. Which indeed it has been, except that a heart which has been taken apart and put together again with artificial valves just cannot be as strong.
I was never an athlete. I once, just, managed to cycle ten miles in 30 minutes. I could run a marathon but it would take me four or five hours. Since my operation my maximum power has been down by at least 30 per cent, which makes for slow cycling.
A lot of the enjoyment of covering longer distances had gone, too much time was spent slogging uphill and into the Caithness winds.
However, with a modern e-bike, I am back enjoying the kind of ride I did many years ago. You still get the exercise but can cover twice the distance, while hills and head-winds are of no concern at all.
So on a bright and breezy morning I set out to explore some routes in Rumster and Camster forests which I hadn’t taken for many years. I still haven’t got used to the way an e-bike makes light of steep hills like Dunn Brae.
You put the bike into "turbo" mode and pedal steadily up into the wind as if you were riding a level road. I tended also to avoid this route because of many memories of grinding slowly uphill into a headwind on the long curving miles to Mybster. With the e-bike I just enjoyed the fresh air and the views.
The Causewaymire was certainly to be avoided in a headwind with it’s long, sweeping stretches and no shelter at all. But once past that sea of migraine-inducing wind turbines, it’s now a fine road to ride with wide views over the Flow Country which you don’t appreciate in a car.
Turning off at Achavanich past Loch Stemster and the stone circle, I breezed up to the hill crest with its wide vistas of the landscape.
You can easily cycle right up to the base of the Rumster TV mast, look up and realise that the new wind turbines proposed near here and elsewhere will be as tall as that 220-metre mast!
A good cycling route carries on through the forest, joining a track which leads south past the the Rumster Outdoor Centre – it’s a nice location, I wish those working on a new building all the best.
My route took me on past Forse House, with a stop for coffee and cake at the tea-shop, then a ride of some eight miles up the main road to mid-Clyth. Often I’ve passed the old lighthouse by sea, now I detoured down the hill on the bike, knowing that the steep climb back up would be easy.
Looking out over the choppy waters to Skerry Mor I was glad, for once, not to be in the kayak.
The neolithic stone rows at Mid Clyth are well displayed, surrounded by magnificent purple heather. Ahead towered another wind farm, Burn of Whilk. I found that the old cycle trail to Camster had been replaced by new forest roads. Whoosh, whoosh, went the big turbines, one of them occasionally emitting a screech of tortured bearings audible over a mile away.
The forest had mostly been cleared, giving open views again, all the way down to the Camster road. It’s always worth visiting the 5000-year-old Grey Cairns of Camster, and braving at least one crawl into an inner burial chamber! Visit Orkney, and you’ll find little better.
With a strong following wind it was a fast ride northwards, past yet another huge wind farm, Camster, soon to be extended even further. The Causewaymire turbines had been turned off, there was no grid capacity, yet even more 220m turbines are proposed near Watten by the quiet Acharole Glen.
After 50 miles my battery expired, but I’d invested in a spare and so still had plenty of power to help me homeward through the country lanes.
The eastern end of Loch Watten is a great place for birdwatching or launching kayaks. A stupid sign has been erected, "No parking, fishers only". Ignore it. This car park was created and is maintained using public money. Can we not be more welcoming?
The last few miles of a bike ride were often tiring ones of failing energy, even when fully fit. Now there is always that "turbo-mode" to fall back on for the final hills, and I was home from a ride of nearly 70 miles feeling like my heart was almost as good as new!
