John O'Groats to Lands End

This morning we were driven the 100 miles from Inverness to John O’Groats.  A couple of photos and we were off on our trip, biking the short distance to our first B&B, passing herds of wild haggis roaming across the coastal plains of Scotland, and with Margaret flying the flags of Scotland, Canada and BC from the back of her bike.

Just arrived in the nick of time, the heavens opening up 5 minutes after we got in.   Forecast is for torrential rain with a few sunny breaks in late October.   Good thing our bike shoes have fins.

Thinking back to yesterday, 5:00 pm, with Tony  on the phone to the folks who should have received  our box of bike gear but didn’t…they were supposed to email us if it came in.  They hadn’t.  It wasn’t a showstopper but it was certainly going to complicate things.  Within about 15 seconds into the call he was bouncing about doing a Scottish jig and making haggis jokes. The box had arrived just minutes before the call.

We Easyjetted it Inverness and were reunited with our bikes and box.  The Ticket To Ride folks were so happy too.  The website says ‘No bikes or luggage ever lost” .  Still a true story…at least not lost for good!  They had worked very hard to find it.  We catch a van to John O’Groats tomorrow and the cycling begins in earnest on Monday.

Inverness was stunning in the glorious sun! Followed by torrential rain, thunder and lightning, and glorious sun!  I think we are going to get wet…

No sign of Nessy.

No Scottish fiddle music tonight.  Instead we happened upon the University of Glasgow – Kelvin Chamber Orchestra at the Catholic Cathedral. 42 students playing Schubert, Mendelssohn, Rossini and Beethoven. It was incredibly well played. It made us both wish we’d started on fiddle and cello much sooner.

M.

 

 

The good news is that our bikes made it to Inverness and are being transformed from box shaped back to bike shaped.    The bad news is that the box with all our cycling stuff hasn’t arrived so far.   Fingers crossed it will turn up.   Otherwise we’ll be on a shopping spree in Inverness on Saturday.   We arrive Saturday morning via Easyjet, then get transport up to JOG on Sunday.

In the meantime, we’ve been to the pub 🙂

Lots of men (and some women) dressed in funny clothes with hankies, garlands and sticks, and dancing in public with accompaniment from squeezeboxes, fiddles and flutes.    Must be Morris dancers.   Which means we must be at an English folk festival.   We were assured by a woman in a health foods shop that the Chippenham Folk Festival is the largest in the country.    It didn’t seem all that big, but there were lots of happy folk types all over the place, and we did see an excellent fiddle player and singer named Nancy Kerr in the evening.

On cycling matters, our bikes made it to Chippenham with us, and have now been dispatched to Scotland by courier.    Very exciting.

 

Time to stuff the bikes into their boxes for the big trip.      Our local bike shop gave us the boxes and we studiously watched a video showing how to disassemble the bikes and get them ready to travel.    Looked dead easy.   Piece of cake.    The man on the video appeared to take less than 8 minutes to do the whole thing.

So this morning we got started in the drive way unscrewing things, taking off bits, twisting things around, pulling things out, zip-tying things to other things, and generally making the bikes less bike shaped and more box shaped.

The general idea is that the front wheel and handle bars are taken off and jammed against the frame.    Also, you have to take off the pedals, seat, and any other sticky-out bits.

After an hour I was about ready to neatly drop my bike into its box and retire for a well-earned cup of coffee.     Unfortunately I discovered that the bike was still too long, wide and tall.    Those boxes really don’t leave much any wiggle room.    So it was back to disconnecting, rearranging, twisting, imploring and cajoling.    Second time around, the bike went in the box, but the rack stuck out of the top.    Off came the rack, which I zip tied under one of the wheels.    Third time lucky, and in went the bike.

Margaret had even more trouble than me, so in the end it took us over 3 hours to stuff the bikes into their boxes, ready for their excellent adventure.

I really hope that next time we see them, they’ll still be recognizable as bikes and able to be reassembled.

 

Initially we were going to do the route south to north (LEJOG), but ended up choosing JOGLE because it’s easier to say and it’s downhill it was easier to organize.    (If anything JOGLE is supposedly a bit harder because the prevailing winds go south to north.   But, both of us being weedy, we think we’ll offer only a slim wind profile.)

We thought about renting bikes, buying bikes, 3D printing bikes, but in the end decided it best (and almost cheapest) to take our own bikes.

So, the game plan is as follows:

• We’ll box our bikes (a non-trivial task) for the flight to England
• They’ll be couriered from Chippenham up to Inverness, where they’ll be reassembled.    The move will take about 5 days, during which time we’ll be diligently carb-loading in The Quarrymans Arms.
• We’ll take Easyjet to Inverness and be reunited with our bikes.    We’ll then take a bike transport service up to JOG to start our trip.

At least, that’s the plan right now.

 

We’ve planned our nominal route using a combination of the National Cycle Network (NCN) routes, Royston Wood’s Safe Cycle Route (SCR) and cycle.travel – an excellent bike route planning web site.

I’ll use my phone as a Satnav, using the LocusMap Pro app.     This is a great app, with loads (too many?) features.    I have all the NCN and SCR routes stored in the app as GPX files, plus if we need, we can use cycle.travel while on the go to generate a good bike-friendly route.

We’re staying in B&Bs most of the time, and have booked the first and last few days of the trip, but left the route from west of Glasgow south open for now so that we can change routes easily if we want.

Tony

My bike is a Trek 520 (with a classic Brook’s B17 leather saddle added) and Margaret’s is a Specialized AWOL Elite. Both are designed for touring – stable with a long wheel base and built to take loads. The frames are steel, which is a bit heavier and not as stiff as aluminium, but doesn’t transmit road vibration as much.    Both have mechanical disk brakes and puncture resistant tyres.

Margaret had her bike modified to a 3-ring front chain set and a rear cassette with lower gearing.   We’re really happy with both bikes – very comfortable to ride.

Tony

 

Our current plan is to cycle from JOG to Chippenham in Wilts in 22 days, averaging 45 to 50 miles per day.    (The actual route is longer than shown on these Google maps.)   We’ll have a week’s break to attend a wedding, then will head from Chippenham to Lands End, taking a leisurely 8 to 10 days.    We’ll be keeping off main roads and using National Cycle Network (NCN) routes as much as we can, plus we have the Safe Route guide.

Here’s our approximate route from JOG to Chippenham.     We plan to take the inland route to Inverness, then Fort William and down to the Kintyre peninsula, then a ferry to west of Glasgow and down the west coast through Ayr and Stranraer (NCN 7).    From there it’s to Carlisle from where we hope to pick up NCN 68, the Pennine Cycle Way (which we understand is challenging, but worth it).   Then down through the Yorkshire Dales and on through the Peak District.    Then picking up NCN 55 and NCN 45 to come through Stoke-on-Trent, Worcester, Gloucester, Tewkesbury and the Cotswolds down to Chippenham.

Our route from Chippenham goes past Bath to Wells and Glastonbury, then Taunton to pick up NCN 3.    We take a detour to Polzeath for a day or so, and then take NCN 32 to rejoin NCN 3, which will take us to Truro, St Ives, Penzance and Lands End.