Sue4Don

Today my hostess was kind enough to cook me breakfast for 7 and I managed to pack my bike up beforehand, so I was on the road at 7:45 well dressed for the 4 degrees C. It was the nicest day so far weatherwise with blue skies and sunshine, no rain at all. Whilst sheilded by the mountains, there had been no wind, but all at once or was back in full force, sometimes as a headwind sometimes from the side. I don’t know which is worse, as I got the feeling I was being blown over with my bike in one occasion.

There were two really tough climbs, that looked vertical on the afternoon profile and i had to push a couple of times, very hard on Arms, back and shoulders with all the luggage.

It was an uneventful day with less stops for adjusting saddle and phone holder, but nonetheless I didn’t arrive at my accommodation in Edinburgh until about 6.

My host offered me use of a washing machine, so I rushed to put that on and have a shower before meeting a HYL colleague for dinner. We had a wonderful evening catching up on what we had been doing in the last 4 years since doing our training together.

Tour stats for the day:

102 km., 1089 m. climb. 9:09 bike time 10:08 total

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Today was wonderful – very little wind, not much sun, but NO RAIN. The first 30 k. Were uphill, but only 200 metres and NO WIND!!; Then the rest was all downhill apart from a few little climbs towards the end to relieve the boredom. The scenery was beautiful and etre.ely varied, reminding me of England,Germany AND Austria I saw lots of pheasants in addition to all the sheep and lambs.

I have had a problem with my saddle going down for ages, but this trip had proved even worse with me having to stop at least once an hour. Pitlochesee med like a bustling little town, but I didn’t set a bike shop. I was about to go into a café to ask, when I sae a sign for tourist information. They told me thr bike shop was 20 m. further on. They put me another kind of saddle holder on and all was well. My phone-holder had bern another reason for stopping, so I just used superglue. I hope it doesn’t have to come off!

Unfortunately I forgot ymto switch my bike computer on to record, but I only left the route for about 100 metres total, so I woll give you the planned stats:

90 Km. 877 m. climb. I know that it took me 9 hours total, so going on the previous legs, I eould say 8 hrs. Bike time.

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„Today is going to be an easy day“.

Well, it was shorter, but the part that looked all downhill had lots of ups and downs a d this wind!! There was less sunshine and more rain, albeit only brief showers but some quite heavy. I already had my rain jacket on as I had needed an extra layer in the morning. There was a biggish climb near the beginning, which proved easier than I expected with no wind. For that I took one layer off, but it had to go back on afterwards. I arrived here before 5 to enjoy a lovely hot bath and do my laundry.

I did a slight detour in the morning, as my host had recommended I go and see the loch. The othe photo os Loch Insh.

72,5 km.,759 m. climb, 6 hrs bike time, 7:06 total

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I awoke to a beautiful sunrise (view from my bedroom window). My hosts proved to be lovely people (i hadn’t met the lady the night before, as she was at church, when I arrived, going round the back to find her husband working in the garage) and the breakfast was wonderful.

The day started well, way off the main road, which had been getting busier and busier. It took me through quiet roads through the woods, all tarmacked, and down country lanes. I had chosen the national cycling route nr. 1 as opposed to my originally planned one, although I think it would have taken me a similar way. When I went over the bridge into Inverness I thought „only 20 kilometres to go!“ although I did know that most of that was uphill, but I was mentally prepared for that. Then i got to a busy roudabout (no way was i going to cycle on the road round that) and my sat-nav started sending me round in circles, not just round the roundabout, but fairly complicated, whete i always ended up back where i started. and I just didn’t know which way it was trying to send me. I decided to go back to routes 1 af 7, which were signposted and eventually gound a cyclist’s sighn saying „Tomatin“ which was the direction i wanted to go. In the meantime it was getting late and later. My sat-nav didn’t like the route I was taking, but I just told it to shut up! Then I came to a junction where the signs were all for places I didn’t want to go woth no mention of Tomatin, so it was back to sat-nav, which once again started sending me round in circles. I finally picked up the route it wanted, but by that time I hsd hoped to be at my accommodation and I still had the big climb. Well that proved even harder than I expected because it kept going down, when I knew I still haf yo go back up again! Also I could get no speed up on the downhill parts, due to the prevailing wind. I needed to rest, from the climb, but freewheeling got me nowhere, I just had to keep pedalling. I had to put my lights on, but it wasn’t QUITE dark, when I finally arrived St my destination at 8;30

91,9 km. (should have been 80), 1024 hm., 10:33 total, 8:04 bike-time.

I can’t quite believe this. I couldn’t have rested for 2,5 hours!!! I only had a half hour lunchbreak and went into a shop to buy cheese and anothe one to by a power bank, but I did have to keep stopping on the uphill parts…

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When I arrived at my prebooked accommodation it had been cancelled and there was noone there. Fortunately I found somewhere else fairly quickly, but then I had to rush to dinner and afterwards I was too tired to write.

It had bern such a wonderful day – although there was a steep climb – 13% with luggage is pretty tough – and I had to contend with strong winds hampering my progress, the beautiful scenery, mostly breathtaking views over the sea, made it all worthwhile. In fact I thought “Whatever happens, these two days have made it all worthwhile.”

Leider war ich zu müde zum schreiben, weil mein durch booking.com gebuchtes Zimmer kurzfristig vim Vermieter storniert wurde und ich ein anderes Zimmer suchen musste. Zu dem Zeitpunkt hatte ich mich so sehr auf einen Tee und eine heiße Dusche gefreut.

Der Tag war gutgelaufen. Ich hatte einen ziemlichen Anstieg – 13% mit Gepäck ist nicht ganz ohne – und auch gegen diedem ständigen Wind musste ich kämpfen, aber die Aussicht, meist übers Meer, war wunderschön. Ich dache sogar, allein wegen diesen beiden Tagen hatte sich alles gelohnt.

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Today was very tough: Strong winds, which made even downhill cycling hard work and there were plenty of uphill sections too. To make things worse my sat-nav kept sending me round in circles, so that I ended up doing 92 kilometres instead of the planned 80!

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I’ll tell you more tomorrow. I am in Tain.

89 Km. 1076 hm.6:46 bike time (7:46 total)

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Wie geplat war heute ein leichter Tag. Das Wetter war auch besser als erwartet, zwar kühl, aber kaum Regen und viel Sonne.

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I had planned a short day today, to acclimatise after yesterday’s long journey. The scenery was really beautiful. The weather was better than I expected, mostly sunny, some wind and nearly no rain. There was a little drizzle as I left the B&B, then a brief shower when I was in the town of Wick and could easily shelter. With only 3 kilometres left to go a heavy shower came and I got a bit wet, as it wasn’t worth putting raingear on.

I was very lucky today. I had taken the front wheel off yesterday and obviously not tightened it up properly. I felt the wobbling when I was on a flat bike path, having before just done a descent on a road! A bit later I thought I felt wobbling again, so I stopped in Wick to ask for a bike-shop, because tomorrow is Sunday and I’m out at the back of beyond a lot of the time. I thought maybe it had been damaged in transport. I was given instructions but told, “he usually closes early on Saturdays”. I said I’d try anyway. When I got to the bike-shop there was a notice saying “for bike spares and repairs, ask at the main shop on the corner.”, so I went there and it was a toyshop, with a sign saying OPEN and another one saying “for toys ask at the bakers next door”. The door was locked, but there was an old lady in there When I went into the bakers, the old woman came through a gap in the wall and I asked her if there was anyone there who repaired bikes. She replied “yes he’s here.” A customer who was waiting at the counter said, “he’s just gone to make up some rolls”!!! When it was my turn, I asked him “Are you the bike man?” and he said yes!!! He looked at my front wheel but said it’s OK.

54,2 Km., 403 metres climb, 4:54 total time, 3:51 bike time (the rest was spent taking photos – including at “the sign”, making adjustments’ etc.)

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