Needs Must When the Devil Drives, or Biting off More than
You can Chew?
A tale of several parts, told in instalments
Part 1 - The Plan
The overall plan was to drive up to Cumbria where my parents
live, leaving my car there and taking their campervan to Ardrossan, a ferry
port just outside Glasgow. They would
then bum around for a couple of days while I island hop to Islay, spend a
couple of days on Islay including an annual group ride and a distillery tasting
session (Islay has 8 active distilleries and another being built right now), island
hop back to the main land, take three days to ride back down to my parents and
then drive back home in time for my wife to go on holiday the next day.
All this was to be fitted in from Thursday to Thursday, no
extensions possible. The ride back from Islay to Cumbria was a total of 160km,
140km and 100km legs. Ideally I’d have wanted an extra day, but I wasn’t in
charge of the timetable. Let’s see how
it all unfolded shall we?
Day 1 – Day 3 – Islay – Friday to Sunday
Thursday, absolutely uneventful, just the usual double and
triple checking I’d packed everything, bike shoes being the nightmare to forget,
but my checklists had done their trick.
It fits – the value of a landrover
Up bright and early on Friday for the hop across the border
to Scotland. Ardrossan is a long way from the main road, down small and quite
frankly poorly maintained Scottish roads, through some towns that looked quite
dismal in the drizzle – I wonder if they’d be any better in the sunshine? With a bathroom stop and sat-nav faffage thrown
in for good measure, the arrival at Ardrossan was pushing it for time, so while
I dashed into the ticket office, my dad unloaded the bike and luggage.
Friday was a day of three ferries, s the late Iain M Banks
would say, the three return tickets, costing the princely sum of £27.00. As a cyclist you pay the foot passenger price
and the bike goes free. Luggage was
hastily thrown onto the bike as boarding was called – to be sorted out later,
and that was it, I was off. Time to
relax, calm down and get into the ferry mindset, the timings for the ideal
linkage of the three were pretty tight, but there were always contingency plans
in reserve, let’s just see what happens?
So, to Friday’s rides, and the criticality of timings. Plan A requiring me to get out of the ferry
at Brodick, cycle 25km across Arran to Lochranza in under 1hr 15, and then from
Clonaig 10km across the Mull of Kintyre to Kennacraig with comfort. Plan B meant a nice easy connection at
Lochranza, but only 45 minutes from there to make the next leg.
Route profiles below – note the purple sections, purple =
pain, and remember on Monday, I’m coming back this way in the opposite
direction, so what I go down today, I’m coming up then.
1 – Brodick to Lochranza, Isle of Arran
2 – Clonaig to Kennacraig, Mull of Kintyre
In the event the purple section on Arran defeated me, I was
into the granny ring and spinning away, not by any means enjoying it, but
making progress nonetheless, until I hit a lump that threw me off course, I
lost traction in the purple section and that was it. No chance of restarting uphill, so about 4-500m
of walking while I got to a lower
gradient and climbed back on. Even
hitting 60km/h plus on the way down didn’t make up for that and I arrived at
Lochranza just as the ferry pulled out. Fuckit, another hour to wait!
Biding my time
Lochranza Castle
Here it comes
And just to prove it
Hustle off the next ferry, the 9-10km across the Mull of
Kintyre hits 14% in places, despite the route profile above. That hurt, and the hairpin in the middle on a
damp track produced some unnerving front wheel slip, but disaster was averted
and it was all ridden. What hurt even
more was arriving at Kennacraig just as the ferry shut its doors – 2 hours to
wait for the next one. Plan A was always quite ambitious, still at
least I could eat and have a beer on the ferry with a two hour journey.
Out of the ferry port at Port Askaig, only another 16km to
go to Bowmore and the hotel, only I hadn’t realised there was a 9% increasing
to 14% ramp out of the port onto the main road.
And this is only the first 50km of the holiday. Bowmore did indeed appear eventually, just as
the sun was setting. The Bowmore House
B&B, I’ll come back to at the end, but I cannot fault the hospitality and
greeting of Andrew, who turned out to be a Cumbrian expat.
Weather was pleasingly overcast and cool compared with the
raging heatwave in the east of the UK where I live, I was reminded what green
looks like again.
Saturday
Saturday was a day of very little planning. I had a whisky tasting at Bunnahabhain in the
afternoon, my favourite malt so that was always on the cards. There were several warning from others at the
B&B, also cyclists, about the quality of the final approach road to the
distillery as very narrow, and windy with lots of tourists not used to those
kind of roads. Otherwise it was going to be just a case of wander around
Bowmore in the morning and perhaps head over to the other side of the island to
an RSPB reserve to see if there was anything interesting happening.
After a cracking breakfast of very well cooked scrambled
eggs and smoked salmon, I wandered down the hill into Bowmore and back up the
hill to their famous little round church, which didn’t open until 9am. The sparrows were taking no notice of that
and were making the graveyard their own, apart from one human visitor talking
to his wife. Having been at my uncle’s funeral the previous Monday, that was
quite touching. A wander around the
graveyard showed how hard Island life must have been, and to a degree still is,
with lots of very short lives, and a reminder of the part played by the Islands
in WWII with two sections of naval and air force war graves. Most of the naval graves had no names, simply
“A Seaman of the Merchant Navy” and a date they were found, or something
similar. The church was a church,
interesting for being round, but that’s about it
Wooden gravemarkers
Early Sparrows
The rest of Bowmore didn’t take long to look around, it’s a
one distillery town, although tagged as the main town of the Island, when there
are only 3000 total native population, that doesn’t make for too big, but it
does have a hospital and a leisure centre with a pool heated by the waste heat
from the distillery. A cup of coffee
while looking out at the drizzle and my mind was made up, the RSPB reserve it
would be, with enough time to then head over to the other side of the island to
Bunnahabhain for the tasting in the afternoon.
One good thing about a small island is the roads are
quiet. One not quite so good thing is as
soon as you are off the main road, onto what used to be the main road, there is
a distinct lack of resurfacing going on, which is a bit teeth-rattling on a
non-suspended recumbent. Single track
roads with passing places are the norm, and I’m no stranger to those. On this road, the few drivers I encountered
seemed nicely patient to wait until I found a place to let them past, which was
a bonus.
All quiet at the reserve too, with some interesting
dragonflies, but not much in the way of birding activity going on, so off to
the distillery earlier than I had planned.
At the nature reserve
The road warnings were warranted, that last 5km off the main
road to the distillery were probably the most difficult I encountered on the
island, very twisty with short sharp up and downs, single track with passing
places, but full of tourists with no idea how to use them, necessitating one or
two very rapid stops. The final descent
down to the distillery was precipitous indeed with a nice tight hairpin that
was guaranteed fun on the way back up.
The Paps of Jura, modesty maintained
From the jetty at Bunnahabhain you had a great view of Jura,
but the Paps were still maintaining their modesty, with the peaks still cloud
shrouded. To top it all, I got to watch seals in the harbour while I
waited. The whisky tasting itself is
for another entry on its own, but I learned that al the product and raw
materials go down the same unclassified road I arrived on. The whisky tasting by the way was 5 whiskies
from the higher end of the range, some bottled at 58% abv. The ride back was interesting.
Bunnahabhain, note the ride out, on the right
An interesting tasting table
Today’s ride https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2919069439
, you can see the interesting elevation profile at the distillery.
Nice dinner at the Harbour Inn, good food, good wine but
surly waiter, literally slammed my main course down in front of me between my
hands as I was reading a book, without a word.
No tip obviously.
Distance today, 63km
Total so far 113km
Sunday – ROTFR
The day dawned nice and bright of course, if a little breezy,
later clearing to very good t-shirt weather.
Apologies were received later for the lack of appropriate weather. I’d decided just to do the half distance,
easy conversational ride as I had 50km back to the mainland plus 110km on the
mainland to look forward to on Monday.
A nice steady ride over with the organiser and a couple of
others to the start at Debbies Café, Bruchladdaich. Good coffee, I passed on the cakes. Seems as well as the two couples at the
hotel, there were a hell of a lot of others either creeping out of the woodwork
on the Island, or had made their way there just for this. I’d conservatively count 100+ cyclists
starting out, with a wide range of ages from 10 or 11 up to 70s/80s. Mine was the only recumbent I spotted, but
there were a few more funnies, with a crew of four chaps on Brommies. One chap commented to me mid ride that if
he’d know, he’d have bought his Metabike.
Some well placed reminders from the organiser that this was
not open roads and the rest of the islanders had to ride these roads all year,
plus tourists, plus not a race, so take it easy.
A common start out of the café towards Port Charlotte, with
a 180 for the easy riders and back past the start to Bridgend and then onto a
loop that I would describe as almost off road, the surface was that bad. Chatting to one of the locals, apparently
there is funding to repair it, but no activity yet. So far, the Cruzbike was behaving very well
in the bunch and not causing any difficulties in conversation either. It was certainly keeping up well on both flat
and hills. The next section was the high
road between Bowmore and Port Ellen, single lane with passing places and the
old main road on the Island. This was a
bit more heavily trafficked and at one point I ended up split off the front of
the bunch simply due to being at a passing place at the right time, and as we
were heading uphill wanted to maintain momentum so pressed on. I eased up and was caught up again in Port
Ellen before the final drag along to the Ardbeg distillery, the lunch stop and
halfway point. The smoked haddock
chowder was excellent, and went very well with the complimentary dram of Ardbeg
whisky.
As I was getting back on the bike to leave, I was collared
by a couple of visiting Aussies who took great interest in the bike, it’s
performance, how it rode etc, overall I’d have to day it was very well received
with lots of thumbs up from drivers, cyclists and mostly very good driver
behaviour.
On the way back I stopped at the Laphroaig distillery as
well; I’m a registered Friend of Laphroaig, so I printed out my certificate
with the location of my square foot of Islay, and picked up my annual ground
rent in the form of a miniature bottle of 10yo.
My square foot is somewhere out
there
Back along the low road this time, the new main road past
the airport, a nice steady rolling road with a good surface. I was back at Bowmore for mid afternoon, for
a nice walk on the beach, a cup of coffee and repacking before my departure
early on Monday.
My thoughts started turning to next year, with my host at
the B&B telling me that the Saturday would have the Islay Half Marathon
followed by the ride on the Sunday, perhaps a double would be in order. Perhaps not as a cycling tour though, maybe
use the car for a bit more island hopping and day rides, to allow more luxury
in the luggage department and the ability to carry a few bottles of samples
back home.
Distance today, 78km
Total so far 191km
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