Tour d'Ecosse Day 8 Ullapool to Gairloch Saturday 9th July 2016

Tour d'Ecosse Day 8 Ullapool to Gairloch 92km 1345m ascent

Cumulative: 677km 7186m ascent Ferries 9 Islands 13

I like Harris Gin too, served with a slice of grapefruit.

On your 28th wedding anniversary you go up lots of hills, eat some nice fruit cake and get very wet again after a dry start and finish with gin. Today's plan:
We can't believe our trip is half over already, although that's not to say it's downhill from now on. If anything we're more likely to have headwinds to cope with.

Today is our 28th wedding anniversary. Cue more slippery slopes downhill references, and "how many life sentences is that then?" Exactly four we decide, time for a 7 year itch! Well that was after I gave Steve my card with the gorgeous picture of Seilebost beach on Harris in the sun, and he twigged it must be our anniversary as my birthday is August sometime and we got married July sometime.

Another delicious breakfast, Waterside B&B certainly kept up it's superb impression with us. we had tasty Orkney smoked cheese, compote (which seems a competitive BnB thing with secret family recipes) to start and the oh so superb Stornoway Black Pudding as part of the inevitable "full Scottish" I rarely have the full fry up, I much prefer scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, or smoked haddock or kippers with lots of mushrooms. This is the bees knees champion of black pudding. we loved it. I think I may have had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs with mushrooms and black puddin'. I know I definitely had the latter! it wasn't all mixed together either.

Loch Broom towards Ullapool

We hauled our well fed bodies out of Ullapool on the main road alongside Loch Broom after absorbing the directions to the best coffee shop en route from our lovely landlord,  At the top of the loch was a chuffing hill, what a surprise! We carried on chuffing as we took a right onto a much quieter minor road and saw lots of 'slow down' signs for a sportive going in t'opposite direction. Oh yes, it's the normal world's weekend again.

The big hill after the main road wasn't as bad as we thought and we pulled over into a viewpoint, and admired the view of course, and probably ate  NAKD bar #31 and/or a banana #27 as was the norm by now.

Viewpoint after the climb up from Loch Broom. Quieter Gairloch road now. 

A nice dry bench!

It's positively sweltering this morning, we are only wearing arm warmers and gilet as extra layers with bare legs and it's dry. We descend, and as often seems the case, we can't believe how much ascent we have done and feel very sorry for all the sportive riders going the other way. We note the signs for Dundonnell and carefully ride all the way through the village and a couple of kilometres out the other side and as instructed, there was Maggie's coffee shop a little way past the village on the edge of Little Loch Broom.

It was a perfect stop. I think we had a toasted sandwich and home made soup then the fruit cake that hit the spot just perfectly. Lovely. The nice waitress enquired as to our route. She must have been a superb cyclist, apparently only one awful hill before Gairloch. One, she said...

Poolewe

There were five awful hills to Gairloch. We knew that really as we knew the stats, well over the 100m climbing per 10km that we class as a moderately uphill day. The rain set in and we were cold and wet by the time we reached Gairloch. The scenery was great though. We had to tour up and down a bit to find our BnB not at  the pretty end of town. It was OK, yes the pics on the website were accurate but a lot was missed out. Our room overlooked a garden of discarded junk, not the sea as you would presume. The owner and her family were nice enough, it was OK. But after a tough wet day it was just disappointing, Like being in someone's spare room with stuff stuffed in the wardrobe out of the way, and economy bottles of nearly finished shampoo. Sheets stinking of nasty fabric conditioner and slightly fusty. Not recommending this one!

Gairloch

Oh well, we showered, wrang out our kit, set the heater to high and went out to eat. Of course we hadn't factored in it being a Saturday, we hadn't booked. Back on the bikes and down the hill, we ended up on a nettley muddy track trying a short cut in our dry evening clothes. Turned away at the first suggestion and managed to beg our way to a table at The Shieling. Excellent Cullen Skink and steak saved the day, but served with just chips and onion rings. Please give us veg! Oh well, I fell in love with Harris gin served with grapefruit. That was fruit I think!

That is what you call a gin collection!

It was slightly drier as we puffed our way back up to the BnB and our room that was now doing impressions of a steamy hammam.

I'm so proud of Steve, we've had a tough few days with a few more to come and we are coping admirably, enjoying ourselves and appreciating Scotland's diversity in spite of the weather. Gairloch hasn't done it for us, but then again perhaps we didn't see the town at it's best. Most of the day was pretty good.

The chilly windswept palm trees in Gairloch

Touring Tips in Scotland

1 Do not believe the coffee shop assistant, however well meaning, as to how many hills you have to come until destination!

2 Arm warmers are your besties

3 After 28 years your husband still isn't going to remember your wedding anniversary!

Tour d'Ecosse quick links:

Planning
Day 1 Isle of Arran and a little Mull of Kintyre
Day 2 Inner Hebrides: Isles of Islay and Jura
Day 3 Inner Hebrides: Isle of Jura-Tayvallich to Oban
Day 4 Oban to Outer Hebrides: Barra and Vatersay
Day 5 Outer Hebrides: Isles of Barra Eriskay South Uist Benbecula Grimsay North Uist Beneray and Harris
Day 6 Outer Hebrides: Isles of Harris and Lewis to Callanish Stones
Day 7 Outer Hebrides: Butt of Ness to Stornoway and Ullapool
Day 8 Ullapool to Gairloch
Day 9 Gairloch to Shieldaig - Applecross Peninsula
Day 10 Bealach na Bà from Applecross to Plockton
Day 11 Plockton to Inner Hebrides: Isle of Skye Armadale
Day 12 Inner Hebrides: Isle of Skye Armadale to Ardnamurchan
Day 13 Ardnamurchan to Inner Hebrides: Isle of Mull to Oban to Loch Melfort
Day 14 Loch Melfort to Tarbert, Loch Fyne
Day 15 Tarbert Loch Fyne to Ardrossan THE END!

January and February 2016 Audacious Audax - Jack and Grace Cotton Audax and Flapjack Audax

The audax, pronounced "or-dax" as opposed to "oh-dax", is not a cycling race, nor is it a cycling sportive (these have higher entry fees, generally commercial or for charity and will provide mechanical and broom wagon support, feed stations and physical route marking) It took me quite a while to work out the audax, more of a philosophy than anything else. From the Audax UK website "Audax" is Latin for 'bold', and was first used in the context of endurance sports towards the end of the 19th century." An organiser designs a course, with checkpoints that are generally welcoming cafés, village halls and pubs that put on suitable food." Really it's all about the cake, and beans on toast! Generally events are 200-600km or even 1000km. The audaxer needs to complete the audax in the specified time that is usually measured at around 15km/h. However, stopping and break down times need to be allowed for so really you need to ride around 20 km/h. They are relaxed, audaxers are a friendly bunch and not turning up with the latest kit or team clothing is the norm. There are also many "beginner" audax (plural of audax is also audax) of around 100km. Extra "points" are scored for audax with more than 1000m ascent too. There is the fun of getting your brevet card stamped and answering questions at various points to make sure you didn't shave off a few km or miss a hill out! After all, you are only cheating yourself.

I kicked off with the Jack and Grace Cotton Audax on Saturday 23rd January 2016. Last year was horrendous apparently. Ice rink, and many fell and at least one friend broke bones. Many were very wary but weather was a dry and balmy for January, temperatures almost in double figures.

I knew some members of my club (BRCC) were riding, and their friends but I decided to drive up to Aztec West as I hadn't done enough miles to cycle up to North Bristol and back and guarantee to get round the 100km, like most did. I had had a new Garmin GPS for Christmas so route finding on my own was to be a test to see if I could be properly self sufficient.

I unloaded my bike, and went to check in and get my brevet card. My phone rang and it turns out Pete and Andre had just arrived, and I went along with them, initially on the main road north but quickly ducking off to the quiet lanes of South Gloucestershire. Through Olveston and the first control (aka quiz question) was at Littleton.  Through Berkeley where there is a fabulous tea shop that was hard to ride past but our stop for refreshments was at the pub in Epney that had efficiently made several choices of rolls and steaming mugs of tea and coffee. Pete and I were a little slower than the others and Pete entertained me saying where all the black ice was last year, who fell off where and stories of the other years he had ridden the Jack and Grace.

Then we looped back down towards Stonehouse, skirting Gloucester, and up and down the vicious lumpy bits on the edge of the Cotswolds through Stichcombe and . The Farmer's Table at Tortworth was tea and cake stop and we had just 20km more to go when disaster struck. Poor Pete had two punctures in quick succession and we used both inner tubes and gas cannisters we were carrying. Unfortunately the tyre exploded in Pete's face and the shock was horrible. Fortunately Pete was unharmed and only a little deafer than before but he had to abandon and we phoned Andre who kindly came to pick him up whilst I went on to find the Old Swan at Almondsbury for my final stamp and then got a  little lost in the urban jungle of Aztec West to find the car at the starting point. A great day out, great company, thanks Pete,sorry it ended a bit rubbish for you!

Pete mending his second puncture, seconds later his tyre  exploded. Thankfully he survived to tell the tale.

Sat 23rd January 100km Jack and Grace Cotton Memorial Audax 104km to blow away the winter cobwebs from North Bristol and the Severn Vale

COMPLETED 109km Ascent 906m Fiona


Given that Audax is all about the cake and some cycling to burn off the calories, and given the awesome stories I had heard the next 100km several of us entered was The Flapjack Audax on Sunday 14th February 2016 that started from Chippenham and was a big loop round the southern Cotswolds. Again we were very fortunate with the weather. Andre kindly gave Pete and I a lift and we arrived in Chippenham to start at 9am. We headed off into the wolds and rewarded with refreshments of flapjack and cake at Brinkworth at only 28km. Today was bad luck day for Andre, his gearing gave up the ghost, pretty bad as it had just come back from a full service. Fortunately he and his bike got a lift back to the start and Pete and I continued planning to catch the train home later.

We clocked up Kemble and then Siddington and I must have been annoying as we used to live in the area, but I didn't know the cycling back lanes and connections to familiar places in an unfamiliar direction. Crossing roads I did know Id realise where I was every now and then. My sense of direction is awful! Thank goodness for Pete's directional instincts. Again he had ridden the event before so had many interesting tales of years gone past. Spectacular scenery of course and we rocked up in Sherston for the perfect audax meal of beans on toast. The organisation is incredible, all volunteers. We had paid an entry fee of £7 I think that included route and free refreshments aka masses of cake and flapjack and beans on toast. On reaching a control we had our card stamped and were given a raffle ticket and before we found a bench seat our beans on toast was delivered by a smiling waiter. More tea and flapjack. Perfect fuel.

Audax Lunch Beans on Toast Perfect!

The last bit of the route was idyllic, if a little hilly. I have never been to Castle Coombe before. after a little bit more sweat and the odd rude word we came into the finish to be met by Andre. The heroic guy had driven back home and then driven back out to give us a lift home so we didn't have to wait for chugging Sunday Train services. What a guy!

Sun 14th February 100km Flapjack Audax Circular route looping north from Chippenham in Wilts through the Cotswolds, eating more cake than calories burned!

COMPLETED 102km Ascent 631m Fiona


Question is am I prepared for The Big One. 150km Gospel Pass Audax in March, rumour has it that it usually snows on this one being the highest road pass in Wales.

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