Day 10 - Real men eat mountains

From: Lanark
To: Inverarnan
Miles today: 90
Miles – running total: 786


Another day, another eternity in the saddle and no porridge or brown bread for breakfast. You’d think if you could get porridge anywhere, it would be here in Scotland where it is supposedly a national dish up their with other culinary delicacies like haggis and mince and tatties.

We climbed on board with slightly heavy hearts and headed up the hill. This was going to be our main day in the Highlands. The cloud was heavy and the hills shrouded in mist. We got into a steady rhythm and with a reasonably gentle incline soon found ourselves in the village of Tyndrum, which had a certain Canadian village in the middle of nowhere feel about it.

After Tyndrum there was more climbing followed by a long flat section through the valley, a meandering river off to our right. Along this stretch we came across our largest roadkill to date, a red deer, the first of two we saw by the side of the road. Another climb out of the valley pushed us a little harder, but the chill from the lack of sunshine meant we were glad of the warmth from the higher work rate. By now we were reasonably high and officially in the Highlands, as confirmed by the road sign. We skimmed across Rannoch Moor, apparently the largest wilderness in the UK and what a desolate place it was. Small ponds of water were all about, with a mass of dead tree roots which, I am reliably informed, date from thousands of years ago.

Caption competition: What is Alastair saying? (Answers in comments, please)

We ploughed on and suddenly the hills turned to mountains. We passed by Glencoe ski resort, which is not exactly Zermatt or Verbier. The roads were long straight and mostly flat. Our days are fairly pressed given the mileage and today would be the highest yet. As it is we have refuelling breaks, lunch breaks, puncture stops, wee stops and occasionally mid afternoon onwards bottom stops. There is therefore a paucity of time and while the scenery was again spectacular, I didn’t feel I could halt progress for the sake of another snap. I have therefore had to become adept at retrieving my camera from pocket on my back, getting it out of its case, switching it on and setting up the shot whilst still pedalling. This is a fairly precarious process since it requires two hands. I then have to move out to the middle of the road in order to get the other three guys in the shot. This is not something Health & Safety would endorse, nor something I would advise trying at home - especially if you live in London. At one point on this straight road today, a female passenger in an on-coming vehicle put her hands over her eyes as I fiddled with the camera. One has to suffer for one’s art.

There is a benefit to all this climbing and the descent down to Glencoe (the village rather than the resort) was taken at a modest 25mph although we could have tanked it at 40mph had our conservative other selves got the better of us. The run down was great and I only regret that I didn’t video it.

Back in the valley and Fort William was our next target, 14 miles away. The prospect of lunch at Morrisons, the supermarket, was enough to spur us on and less than an hour later we were queuing up for a wide selection of food, all of which had been fried. None of us had had the benefit of eating at Morrisons before and what a treat it proved to be, so much so that Stephen planned to text Mandy, his PA, to see if there was one in the City that he could take clients to for lunch, while Alastair thought it might be a cost effective venue for his private equity firm’s Christmas lunch. I would have followed suit had my own firm not suffered the misfortune of already having booked the Bleeding Heart.

We consumed our chips or mince and tatties in the lee of Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain. Only 31 miles to do after lunch and we got back on board and headed for Fort Augustus, our target for the day. Along the way there were more lochs, more mountain streams, more local wildlife, some of it still alive and a total absence of sun. No matter, it didn’t rain. We still have had not a drop. The odds on getting from Land’s End to the middle of the Highlands on bikes over ten days and not being rained on must be about as likely as Labour winning the next election or England winning the World Cup. Or both. On the same day.

Exciting news on the puncture front. We thought we had a puncture free day yesterday but alas no. This morning Nick’s tyre was flat, which counted as a puncture. Then he had another flat in the hills and this evening another rear puncture. He is now uncontested leader:


Nick 5
Tim 3
Stephen 2
Alastair 0

Quite how Alastair has escaped beggars belief and is certainly no result of his cycle craft. Tonight I have to report that we are sharing our hotel with a group of Harley Davidson bikers. There are eight of them and five of us, but Stephen is still insisting that we can “take them”. I have my doubts since in weight alone each of them seems to weigh twice as much as us. And that’s just the women in the group. For the result of this showdown of the bikers, don’t miss tomorrow’s exciting penultimate instalment. We’re getting close, only 160 miles to go.