Let's race all the way to dead man's curve

Is it just me or have the roads become markedly more angry in the last two months? Maybe I've just become much angrier myself or have become much more protective after a few incidents which have shaken me a bit.

I've had the motorcycle two weeks ago, Brixton Road bus lane, which clipped right by me, way too close to my assertive position in the center of the lane. When I gave him my what the f**k gesture in his mirror, he pointed me to the gutter. I feel slightly bad that I was then kind of happy when a car almost knocked him over about 20 seconds later. Karma.

Then last week was the minicab which nearly knocked me over twice in about 30 seconds. I never scream at motorists, but twice I was cursing and yelling at him. In hindsight, I'm a bit ashamed of that, especially since I didn't think to get his license plate number and report him to the police and the Public Carriage Office.

Then today, Brixton Road again, starting off at a stop light, bus stopped in the lane ahead, I pull out into traffic to go around it, back into the bus lane, and then about 15 seconds later, some woman in a car pulls up beside me and lays on her horn and then drives off. Huh? No idea what that was about. Maybe I slowed her down when I was passing the bus, I have no idea.

So, some tips for motorists. If you are going to shout abuse at me, make sure you do it well before you go past me. If you scream as you are going past, I'm only going to hear a few syllables and I'm not going to be amazed by all the work and effort you put into coming up with the absolutely perfect thing to shout at me. And honking, you know, I put myself in that position in the lane very deliberately, especially so that you can't just zoom past me with inches to spare, where me having to swerve to miss a pothole or you being distracted by talking on your mobile isn't going to end up with me being crushed. So, unless you sound especially homicidal with your honking, I'm not going to change my position. I think my safety is more important than inconveniencing you. Maybe you should plan your journeys a little better so that a 3 second delay isn't a life and death trauma for you.

But what is with the last two months, why does it seem to have hit a new level? Have I become increasingly paranoid and protective of myself because of all the incidents? Are people driving more angry now? I know the price of petrol has been skyrocking lately, when it ends up at 2 pounds per litre, are they going to be furious all the time? Is there just an upward trend of anger in general?

Fall on me (what is it up in the air for) - Lochs 'n' Trossachs Tour, Fearnan to Callander, Day 6, 15 May 2008

Pictures

Well, it is our last morning in the eco village. The whole place was just so well marked, maps of the place in every room, maps of the room you were in, lots of signs about recycling and everything else. It didn't have quite as many signs as Stella's in Bala, but it was pretty close. But since this was the last morning, Gary could take off the tags for the locks. Each of the rooms had an electronic lock on them, and then each of the rooms had a bunch of tags with the secret codes on them that you could wear around your neck, which Gary did every night. Although I'll let you in on a secret, once you crack the code, well, you could break into any room. Room 1 was 1234, room 2, 2345, etc. Pretty complicated, I know. And most of the time, the doors were propped open, so you didn't actually need the code.

This morning was one of great panic for me. In packing things in my bag and cleaning up the room, I couldn't find my glasses case. I went rushing past rationality and reasoning and ran headlong into full total panic and hysteria. Ok, that was probably a bit overboard, I could probably manage without it. It did have my contact lenses in it, so I would be stuck wearing my glasses for the rest of the trip. I did go through the entire few days of the Wild Wales Challenge two years ago without my contacts when they were acting up. It was bearable but it was a little annoying on the days it rained and my glasses were all dripping. But then the whole challenge was a bit much and painful.

But today, I lost my sanity for a bit and was digging through everything, emptying things, thinking back on where they could be. I knew that last night I took my lenses out at the pub just before dinner. After a day on the road, after loads of sunscreen start dripping into your eyes, then taking them out is such a pleasure. I even called the pub to see if they had found them but they weren't very helpful, but considering how they were during dinner, that wasn't a surprise. But I planned to drop by there on the way out, then Linda said she would drive by.

In my state, I didn't help with breakfast and just kind of stuffed down a bit of porridge and got my bike organized. Then Gary comes out, oh here they are, I found them in my handlebar bag. Huh? Wow, how did they get there. But I had them, things were ok then.

So then we hit the road, and then the road hits back. The south side of the loch is really pretty but the road, it was horrible. The funny thing is that there were lots of sections of the road that had been patched or even repaved, 50 meters of repaving or something like that. But I just couldn't reason out why that section was repaired but not the other parts. Were those repaired sections relally worse than the rest of it that they deserved special attention. Considering how difficult it was dodging potholes and the bumpiness of the rest of the road, I find it hard to believe it could really be any worse in those sections.

Besides the road, it was really a pretty section. There were signs for red squirrels up, this being one of the few places they hang out. I didn't see any on this trip but Che says she saw one later this day. We ride along the south side of Loch Tey for quite some time, it doesn't really have an elevation change but it is fairly hilly, lots of ups and downs. After about 18 miles on this, dodging holes in the road and the hills, I start to lose it a little bit. I'm losing my patience with it all.

We stop on the side of the road on a side road turnoff and snack on a few things. It shouldn't be much longer now, it is just a few miles left to Killin and lunch and it should be mostly downhill to there now. We will be leaving the loch behind now too and I take a few last looks at it before heading on.

We are back in Killin again, had lunch there yesterday, and now a tea stop. We come in from a different direction, past the river and over the bridge. The river is incredibly rocky, very mountain stream looking. When we get to the cafe, I'm torn, it is nearly noon, so this could certainly be a lunch break but there is the burger van coming up. I settle for some nice cake instead, I guess I'll save myself.

We head off towards Glen Ogle, major A roads but NCR 7 takes us off road on gravel trails through the woods. It is pretty and a nice way to go, but Sustrans scientist and research labs have been hard at work on this route and it starts to show around here. It is supposed to be one of their showcase routes. It is pretty good but the cattle grids, well, I'll get there later.

And my trauma for the day, I can't remember now if this was before or after the burger van, perhaps my memory has obscured it for my own peace of mind. But we are off road, it is a rail line, very flat, pretty gravely, so I don't really want to go that fast in it and slip on the gravel. But there are four of us riding together, talking a bit, I'm in the back of that. Do you want to go past, no, I'm fine here. Are you sure you don't want to go past, no really, it is fine back here. Then the three of them stop in front of me, surely I must be wrong and wanted to go past. But as it turns out, I really didn't want to and also completely forgot how to get my feet out of my cleats and you know, when everybody stops in front of you and you can't figure out how to get your feet down, well, luckily the side of the road is pretty soft grass and it doesn't hurt too much when I topple over. I'm not hurt but I am decidedly grumpy with everybody for a good 20-30 minutes afterwards.

For now, we have a pretty easy climb up, through trees, a little off the busy road. This whole secton reminds me a lot of the cycle trail that goes along I70 from Copper Mountain to Vail. It makes me miss that part of the world a bit but I'm glad to be in something like that here. But then, there is the burger van. We have heard about it for so many days, how can you not be excited.

Although, it almost ends in tears. Everybody had venison burgers in mind, but when lots of us line up and start saying, yeah, I want one too, the lady running the stand looks a little worried. She only has like 4 of them left, we might need to share those or find something else to eat. The other guy running the van comes over and saves the day. He has more across the road in their house, he will run over and get them. It takes him a few minutes and in the meantime, she throws all her remaining ones on the grill and serves out those who got there first. They are pretty good, much better than the one I had yesterday. We sit at the picnic tables and eat our food.

Then past the burger van, we cross over the busy A road and continue down an old railway line. It heads over a large viaduct, with a great view of the valley, although it is a bit marred by the really busy road running through it. We stop and look and take pictures and John runs up and down the valley to take pictures of the group standing on the viaduct, running back and forth for everybody's cameras. Then the long straight high road turns into winding up and downs. Through it all, I think about Sustrans. This whole route seems to be a trail for all their latest technologies. There are bollards stuck in the middle of the path anywhere it gets vaguely steep. But the thing their research engineers in some secret lab somewhere hidden in Bristol, no doubt, ahh ha, we have come up with the most fiendish cattle grids ever. Let's roll them out to torture riders on NCR 7. I don't know how they did it, cattle grids, one of the most horrible things ever to somebody on a bike, somehow they made the like 200% worse, really narrow and seem even longer than normal. The first few almost get me.

We head down a few steep areas to the loch below, one heads straight down, just a few turns and filled with numerous bollards. I guess if you somehow end up going out of control down them, nothing will stop you faster than a gigantic piece of iron stuck in the middle of the path.

In another typical Sustrans routing, the main A road travels maybe 1/2 mile while our route follows quieter roads all the way around two lochs, probably about 12 miles out of the way. Although, it was well worth the diversion. We wander around the churchyard in Balquhidder and see Rob Roy's grave. The grave, well, it is fine and all. I'm not Scottish so I don't have any real feelings one way or the other about Rob Roy. The rest of the churchyard is pretty, a few ruins, enormous yew trees, and nicely set in a bit of rural Scotland, everything you would hope a churchyard could be.

The tea stop just down the road was even better. I got myself a really yummy cheese scone and ate some of Che's piece of chocolate cake, a generous sized one. Owen orders himself a cheese sandwich, they call it a Doorstop. When they bring it out, it is more like a half a loaf of bread with half a cheese wheel stuck between it. He took ages to gnaw his way through part of it and had to save the rest for later.

We finish our loop around the lochs and start heading south towards Callander again. We come to another steep section to Loch Lubnaig, this one is a little more picturesque, very tight zig zags through a field of bracken down to the level of the loch. A bit after this, the gravel paths must have finally taken their toll on Owen's new tires. He stops to change a puncture, and as with most punctures, lots of people gather around to watch and really contribute nothing terribly useful to the effort. I headed on, seems like more than enough help there. But I do hear later that once he got it pumped up again, the spare inner tubes he had been given with his brand new bike turned out to be used patched ones, and badly patched at that, he had to then fix the puncture he got seconds later.

The rest of the way to Callander is much the same, gravel roads, mostly flat, through woods and along a river. It is quite pleasant. For the last part, Crispin sends Gursh to try the mountain bike trail which he enjoys but he does take a fall. We emerge from the trail and the woods just a short distance from the pub and head down there to sample all their different varieties of cattle themed ale. They are quite nice and we empty the taps for at least two of the varieties. It is then only a short distance to the hostel, but they are somewhat tipsy.

What a funny idea for a hostel, or I guess it is technically a bunkhouse, measurement of kitchen space, common space per person, or something like that. There is a bike shop laid out in the front lawn as well as a showroom on the upper level of the building. I'm pretty excited by this, mostly because my rear mudguard was still driving around in the back of Linda's car and even though we had been pretty lucky so far with the weather, six days of no rain in Scotland, totally unheard of, the last thing I wanted was to be caught in a big rainstorm without my mudguard. The mechanic was quite busy selling lots of things to our group and looking after other things, so I couldn't get him to fix them for me. But there were lots of tools and a bike stand and after taking everything apart and putting it back together again, I finally got them back to where they were fine and not rubbing anymore. I was whole and complete now, and still hadn't had mechanical problems for a few days now. Excellent.

Dinner was a mass of Shepard's pie and cabbage and even though there were huge vats of all of it, nothing remained at the end. And there was still room for the crumble, which also didn't remain long. After dinner, we retired to the common room, which was a funny one. It was hexagonal, or some sort of shape like that, and had been set up for a conference with all the chairs up against the walls. Everybody would come in, one by one, look around and pick their seat. The pattern soon became apparent, nobody could sit next to anybody and each new person would pick the quarter of the room with the least amount of people. Every new person figured that out and followed accordingly. Except Che, who didn't want to play the game and ruined it.

We had split ourselves between the two rooms, one all boys and the other with boys and girls and the quiet less noisy ones at that. The bed was fine and it was a good nights sleep. 47 miles for the day and no lasting harm done by the fall.

Hey ho, let's go - Lochs 'n' Trossachs Tour, Fearnan to Fearnan, Day 5, 14 May 2008

Pictures

Today is probably my favorite day of the trip. We will be back to the same place that evening, so we only need to take what we need for the day, so some clothes and bike repair things and a few other things. We have a longer route planned with lots of hills, so having very little along today will make that much nicer.

I'm up early in the morning, I wander around outside for a bit, looking over the loch down across the fields, the small working farm, chickens and goats and things like that. The barn is pretty cool. It has like a whole caravan park parked in it and a funky stained glass window made out of old plastic bottles. That seems like a nice use for old 2 litre bottles. And the whole back wall of the barn is open, giving a nice view off over the fields and of the loch in the distance.

The bikes are there in the barn and both my tires are completely full of air. Yes. I have hope, maybe the mechanical difficulties have passed. I tell you, that would be so great, I would be able to love my bike again.

But breakfast, three pots of porridge made and eaten and then everybody organized and bikes out of the barn and ready to go. Everybody wanders around the farm and takes pictures of the chickens. Or considering the bulk of pictures of them, I assume everybody did.

We have a short ride out to our turn off to head up Glen Lyon. Crispin tells us it is the longest enclosed glen in Scotland, or something like that. This part of it isn't spectacular. It is nice but it is lots of farm land, which can be a bit dull after a while. When it gets hillier and goes along the river, it is a little nicer then. The road is fairly quiet so it is easier to chat with people as we are heading along. And we have a tea stop scheduled just a short distance up the road too.

Or do we? Since every tour seems to need a tea stop that isn't a tea stop, well, we had Bridge of Balgie. It looks like a charming post office, very hunting lodge looking, deer antlers and everything, as well is supposed to be a nice tea room. But it is Tuesday, so it is closed. Sigh. That's disappointing. It seems to be fairly common, lots of places are only licensed to trade 5 days a week in Scotland, so they are closed a lot on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I mean who would want to have tea in this out of the way place on a Tuesday late morning. Well, I would but it wasn't going to happen.

So, we reach into our bags and drag out various bits of food and snack on that instead. Too bad we had our reduced load today, probably on a normal day with normal bags, we could have had a feast. There was a very cute chaffinch wandering around. There were a few different places where fairly tame birds would come near, sing a bit, and even though they weren't anything totally exciting like golden eagles, they were quite cool.

Our plans had to alter a bit then. Since there was no snack here, everybody had to head over the pass to the lunch stop in Killin instead of splitting up into short and long groups as we thought we might here. Not that it made so much difference to me, I went on the short ride yesterday so I was totally up for as much as Scotland could throw at me today.

This pass was really fantastic too, the Ben Lawers road. Most of the mornings this week had started out fairly cold and then it heated up later in the afternoon. It was still pleasantly cold, perfect for a hard climb up a pass, and it was misty and foggy and made the mountains look quite beautiful and mysterious. It is fantastic, nothing too steep, just a long way up over barren stark mountain tops. I'm totally in my favorite place here.

It levels out then as we come to the Ben Lawers Dam. The dam makes a perfect picture and I think everybody who goes past got the same one. The granite dam, the pretty lake nestled in the valley covered with a mist. And then we are heading downhill. And hour or so of climbing up to this height and probably less than 10 minutes to coast down. On these downhills all this week, I think a lot about the marvel of cycling. What a cool thing, coasting down a hill, being right out there in the air, balanced on two wheels, and just how it feels zooming down and going around the turns. Just a slight shift of your shoulders, a slight lean can change your direction so much. It is such a cool technical thing going down hills and a perfect way to cap off a long climb up.

Back in Killin, we came in the other direction yesterday, so I'm not completely sure of where to go, but I just keep going and eventually it all seems familiar. Back at the cafe, I have to make a choice, the pork burger or the venison one? Luckily I can share with Che and have both, which is the perfect solution. Although the venison seemed a little bit dry and wasn't all I hoped it would be. But maybe the venison burger tomorrow from the burger van (Crispin has been hyping this for a few days, so I'm ready for that one too) will be better.

Brenda has a train to catch back to London this afternoon. Luckily we all study some maps at lunch and she realizes that she had planned on going to the wrong station, since they have the same name. Although we hear later it probably doesn't matter so much since they were not very keen on taking her and her bike. But she has to leave and we all say our goodbyes.

We make our way up Glen Lochay, a bit of up and down. We are heading off the map soon and the road does start to get that feeling. It is slowly decaying as we go, we have to do a bit more weaving to avoid the holes in the road and the puddles. Soon, we hit the end of the road. Well, there is a road up there, not one that is on a map, but we can see it there, or at least the parts of it that are not obscured by switchbacks and that don't quickly disappear up over the hill. But a huge water pipe also heads that direction, if water can flow over it, then we can certainly ride over it.

The hills and the switchbacks are hard and challenging, but not quite as steep as the parts from a few days ago. On those I could stand up on the pedals and just barely maintain a walking pace. Here I can go just every so slightly faster. I do kind of love those hills though. It is such an accomplishment to see yourself rising up, every time you look behind you the valley is a little further down until you just feel totally impressed by how far up you have come. It might help too that I tend to take lots of pictures as I am riding up steep hills, kind of for the distraction, having something to occupy myself instead of thinking how tired my legs are getting. But I also keep hoping to capture the essence of the steepness and of the hill. I rarely seem to get that though, there is so much that doesn't come across in photographs, the angles, the steepness, and the rest of that. It is a little disappointing, so many of the pictures just look almost indistinguishable from pictures of flat roads.

Then again, it is funny how fast you can go down the other side. After like 40 minutes or so of slowly climbing up, the ride down can take just a few minutes, 5-10 at the most. This one is nice because there is no traffic, ok, just one, a Scottish Hydroelectric truck, but nobody else. The road is filled with lots of holes so it does require a bit of care to avoid those. Soon, I'm worried about getting stopped in time to cross the bridge at the bottom and so I can make the turns.

Just in time to explore the Northwest Territories. There is a large mound by the side of the road with a cairn marker at the top, so what else can you do, you have to climb to the top of it and sit on it and take pictures. The sign at the bottom said it was some memorial to somebody who explored the Yukon or blah blah blah. The view from the top was nice and it was a nice sunny warm day at this point. The rest of the way down the valley was mostly downhill and we make good time. Past the closed tea stop in Bridge of Balgie, which is still closed, and soon to the Yew Tree Hotel where we sit in the garden and wait for dinner.

Dinner was rather annoying. Sitting in the garden was really nice, it was sunny and we were tired and it was good to relax, but they were out of the Yew Tree ale and they were a bit snotty with us and the food was kind of mediocre, especially for the price. After a long day and 64 miles, then you put that little tiny bit of food in front of me. Fussy food but not all that great. We had to order extra chips to fill up. And the service sucked. No tip for them. I head back then the few miles to the bunkhouse feeling really annoyed, ready for a shower and bed.

The bunkhouse people had said they were having a bonfire that night in the barn, one of their volunteers was leaving and they were seeing him off with fire and ceremony. I peeked in for a minute or so that evening, but was too tired to stay much longer.

This time you're sixteen again

Just back from seeing Joy Division. Not Control, which I saw last year and liked, but just the one called Joy Division. Wow.

Yes, I am pretty much unable to make any sort of critical judgment when it comes to Joy Division, heck, I even really love the Warsaw stuff and so much of that is just tragically awful. I probably would have been happy in the film if they had just played Unknown Pleasures and Closer back to back with an image of the spinning disc. (Maybe a bit like the Replacements refused to make a proper music video for Alex Chilton, put a record on, lie on the couch, and take it off at the end.)

But I probably liked it a lot better than Closer. It was nice to see what things probably were like all acted out, and the musicians they got for that were really spot on at being Joy Division. But the actual music, big larger than life images (even if they were sometimes really grainy Super 8 footage), and just it being loud, that's just great.

Just how much of this is in my head all the time, for so many years, what has it done to me? How much time did I spend in my room as a teenager listening to it all. It was a little freaky, they would play a clip from a concert and I would be thinking, hmm, that sounds like the Eindhoven show. And it was.

But I think I'm going to go sit in the dark for a bit, listening to a few of the discs really loud and consider why after so many years, it all still feels so disturbing yet uplifting at the same time. Maybe I need to finally do that tour of Manchester too. I should have some time here in a few weeks see some of those places in the UK I haven't made it to yet.

EXCLUSIVE photos show Betty Swallocks' award hopes crushed

Friday June 20, 2008

Betty Swallocks is in seclusion, a source close to the celebrity confirms to THWheelersMagazine.com.

She briefly left a London clinic this morning to call her PR agent, her rep tells Us.

"Yes, that's true," the rep says.

A source told reporters, "Betty showed up to the Glamour Ride thinking she totally had the best dressed award sewed up," funny, considering our EXCLUSIVE photos showed Betty sewed to her bike.

Her rep confirmed, "Betty was disappointed with the results." But stopped short of claiming that jealousy had anything to do with the decision, a deliberate snub. It is never a good idea to upstage the fashion judge.

The so called Glamour Ride is an annual event of the Tower Hamlets Wheelers, a local borough group of the London Cycling Campaign. It is an effort to bring much needed glamour and fun to cycling.

Betty was later seen with numerous glasses of champaign, said a number of witnesses, possibly to drown the disappointment.

"It is all sour grapes", said another source. They went on to say that the ride is all about fun and it was an honor to be part of the event. THWheelersMagazine can confirm this person only won a crappy postcard in the awards ceremony.

Organizers tell us that next year will be even bigger and more spectacular.

>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> TO: EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD
> FROM: THE SPIN DOCTORS OF BETTY SWALLOCKS
>
> LONDON, 20TH JUNE 2008
>
> [LONDON, NEW YORK, PARIS, MILAN, TOWER HAMLETS.... even HACKNEY]
>
> THE world of high fashion took London by storm yesterday in what is
> now a MUST attend for anyone who is anyone in the glamourista cycling
> scene.
>
> SEQUINS are definitely back in force this season, as are sheer tights, big
> hair and knitwear for bikes which is bound to catch on, making its premier
> outing, exclusive range of designer bike knitwear from ANEETA, and the award
> for the best legs going to Rachel. (Judges to release the official list of
> winners shortly, because frankly there were so many prizes and I was too
> sozzled to be paying much attention.)
>
> London didn't know what had hit it as the 20+ strong troupe of fabulous
> glamourists took to the streets on their bikes to show the world how it's
> done. The ride, which is now in its third year, which has to be the best
> yet, set off from Mile End, down to the South Bank with lots of media
> attention and blatant self-publicity.
>
> The competition then got seriously serious with the prize-giving by top
> glamour cycling judge SISTER SLATER, who stepped in at the last moment when
> regular judge LOVELY LEIGH was unable to decide what to wear in a freak
> wardrobe emergency and had to pull out. "I'm gutted" sobbed Leigh. "I just
> can't make anything go with ANYTHING! And what possessed me to buy those
> shoes? It's terrible....!" Has the pressure got too much for Leigh? Will she
> have decided what to wear by next yet? Only time will tell.
>
> It is rumoured that SLATER had turned down at least 8 other engagements to
> make this top event.
>
> All bets were off though, as SISTER SLATER delivered the awards to some
> surprising, and frankly we thought, quite cheap, candidates. Definitely
> appreciated were real glamour, understated and sophisticated look for 2008.
>
> It was nearly handbags and glitter flying when BETTY SWOLLOCKS, who was
> tipped to clean-up the awards ceremony (rubber gloves at the ready!) "I
> can't believe it." sobbed SWOLLOCKS. "I was sure I'd win every prize going.
> How COULD they? What is the judge thinking? Sister Slater is clearly out of
> her mind! (maybe we are all out of our minds?)"
>
> SWOLLOCKS, whose look some had likened to Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von
> Habsburg-Lothringen (November 2, 1755 - October 16, 1793), known to history
> as Marie Antoinette, "or possibly just some old slapper on a bike" commented
> one fashionista, was almost inconsolable, until finally she was awarded a
> prize, a box of thin air from South London.
>
> There were rumours abound that SWALLOCKS' tits are not real. "Of course they
> are real" commented her agent and boob and costume hire shop.
>
> SWALLOCKS later hit the mobile champagne bar. "It's all okay now. I've had a
> drink or three. Of course I accepted the thin air, but I exhaled it quietly
> when nobody was looking. Cheap!" "Tell me honestly" added SWALLOCKS between
> sips of champagne - "It's too fussy isn't it? Too fussy? It's too much,
> isn't it? And my bum looks massive in this dress. I told the designer I
> wasn't convinced. But you have to take a risk occasionally. That's glamour
> for you! So fickle." There's always next year.
>
> The competition is getting serious now. What will the GLAMOUR RIDE deliver
> next year? It can only get bigger, bolder and better. Will London cope?
> Event organisers refused to comment amid rumours that the glamour ride could
> soon be going global. "How did you know about that? That's all strictly
> under wraps" commented one organiser, although we have secretly suspected
> for some time they just make it up as they go.
>
> - ENDS -
>
>

I have no place to run and hide - or Bike week Wheelers first timers eXtreme ride - 15 June 2008

Pictures

Bike week starts off with a bang. 14 on Green Bridge on Sunday to challenge themselves against the road, against the elements, against their own bikes, and against the fearsome mud and water. The Wheelers go eXtreme.

Oh, it starts out gentle enough, a leisurely ride up the Lea Valley to a tea stop at Springfield Marina. The first major test comes in the form of a four foot clearance under a bridge, which, ok, doesn't harm anybody and I guess isn't that eXtreme. But four feet, that's tiny, really.

And next, miles off road over some eXtremely long grass, bumpy ground and long and, ok, nobody fell off there and it would have been a rather soft gentle fall, but still. There is plenty of nettle, that's totally eXtreme.

Then it starts, the first big test, through Epping Forest. The Tutors used to hunt there, that's totally hard core. You can just hear the screams as everybody rolls over the hills and dirt and get their bikes all mucky. And everybody is getting rather hungry. We head to the heights of High Beach and start ordering roast dinners left and right and then we are ready.

Epping Forest, here we come, we are going to circle around a few times until it takes a toll. The mud reaches out and sucks one into its depths. Well, ok, a few tissues cleans the mud off fairly well. But then the hill claims a rear derailure and wraps it around a spoke. Only Owen's valiant effort disassembling it and reassembling brings it back to life, although with only half the gears available.

We emerge from the forest in Chingford and the pub is totally busy. It takes ages to get drinks and a waitress chucks a half empty plate onto the floor and it crashes and makes a real mess.

After a day like this, we really have to limp back to East London and sit outside the Palm Tree and have a few soothing beers. And mine tips all over the ground and spills, curses, now that's totally fearsome and horrific.

But a pleasant day out, nice weather, and a friendly group. Most did about 42 miles, a good distance for a number of first timers. Hope to see more of you on other rides.

Welcome to the Camp, I guess you all know why we're here - Lochs 'n' Trossachs Tour - Pitlochry to Fearnan, Day 4, 13 May 2008

Pictures

Well, today's route is funny. We go a really long way to make it, hmm, maybe like 5 miles. All the way around a large loch to make it to a town that is just a few miles away. But we do that a lot on the tour, there are roads which are straight, which don't go over huge hills, and take us right to the next destination, but what fun is that?

So, I'm up pretty early. Top bunk of a crowded room, it was good to be outside and wandering around. Things are peaceful at 7 am, the town is pretty off in the distance up this high. I see Gary and Martin sitting in the front window having tea, so I go and join then. After a bit, it should be able time to start breakfast. I generally try to help out making the porridge since dinners get a bit crowded in the kitchen and it is a pretty easy meal to make. Except it gets all complicated, there has to be one with soy milk as well as one with milk. I'm not actually a big fan of it made with either, it really should be water and then you pour milk on later, but that would then be a fourth pot of something, so it isn't a big deal. And then there is the fruit and nut one. Nuts are nice but apricots are a bit icky, well, all dried fruit tastes a bit weird to me. But the different pots come out and gets mostly eaten. Just make everybody have another round of the fruit and nuts one to get rid of it.

Tire check again, like every morning. Surprisingly mine have held. Wow, that's great. However the mud guards were driving me nuts yesterday and Che won't ride next to me if they are going to be noisy again. I can't get them adjusted so Dave A takes the back one off and I strap it on the back of my bike. Later in the day, I give it to Linda to leave in the car and it stays there for a few days. But now, the bike is running perfectly, nothing to complain about. I still worry all day, just waiting, feeling the tires at every stop to see if they are still inflated. The last thing is to run into town to the bike shop to get myself a new odometer to replace the one I lost yesterday. I guess I should have gotten a nicer one, but mostly I want it to tell me how far I've gone and what speed I'm going now. Some of them are just ridiculous, about 800 features, telling you your biorhythm and everything else. Damn, but this one won't let me set the odometer, so I think I was at about 5600 miles on this bike, I'll just have to add that in my head each time I look at the odometer. But I guess not that it is important, it is only meaningful to me, nobody else really cares about statistics like that.

Everybody has checked out of the hostel and we were supposed to all meet at the bike shop and head out from there. But I'm at the bike shop and I can't see anybody else. I know they were also going to the Co-op to get food for dinner and some things for lunch. The place tonight isn't all that close to a grocery store, so we have to shop for food in the morning. It also means that there isn't room in the car for extra panniers, so it is a fully loaded day today. But it is a bike tour after all, I guess that's the way it should be. It feels a little like cheating to not carry your weight.

But I can't find them. I ride back and forth in town a little bit trying to figure out where the Co-op is. The guy in the bike shop said it was just up there and on the right side, but I don't see anything. I have to stop and ask again in the post office and I see why I couldn't see it from the main road, it is off on a side street up a hill a little bit. By the time I get there, everybody is mostly finished with shopping and just about ready to go. All of this has taken quite a while and it is like 10 am before we finally make it out of town.

Past the loch, through the duck crossing zone, and up a short steep dirt road before coming to a nice bridge over the loch. No cycling allowed on the bridge, so we walk across. We spend much of the morning then riding along the south side of Loch Tummel. It has a few ups and downs, overlooks a lot of the loch, nice views of it, and is lightly wooded. There isn't a whole lot of traffic and it is a nice ride. Ahh, but what is that up ahead. I've been towards the back of the group, leisurely making my way, enjoying the view. The rest of the group is all at the side of the road gathered around Brenda. Oh no, not another fall, I hope. But her cleats, new pedals and all, had been adjusted quite tightly and she couldn't get her foot out. She had to topple over on the side of the road and take her shoes off to get them out. (Which reminds me, I really need to loosen my right one, that one always is so difficult to take out, occasionally I topple over when I come to a stop just because I lose my balance and can't get it out.)

At the end of the loch, we turn and head up to Tummel Bridge. Scottish names do seem to follow a pretty good naming convention. You have a loch name, Loch X for example. Then where a bridge crosses it, the town is X Bridge. Or Boat of X is where there is/was a ferry across. InverX would be the river mouth of X. Aber is the town at the source of X. Glen X is a valley of X mountain. And so on. But at Tummel Bridge, we pass the hydro electric plant, a handsome looking building. Our destination is the caravan park. Yeah, I know. But they have a cafe. Well, a cafe of sorts, and we do need a place for some tea and a rest. It is a really pretty setting, along the side of a river, lots of trees and nice looking stuff. It is a shame about the horrible tackiness of the caravan park and the video games and the rest of the tacky holiday park stuff. They don't really have food to speak of, basically anything that can't be nuked in a microwave. So, tea has to do as well as whatever we have in our bags.

It is nice sitting out of the deck relaxing for a while. More sun screen though, my face is completely bright white all week, I put so much on. But the weather was really insane this week, how did Scotland get to be so hot? Onward then, there should be a cafe for food in Kinloch, which is only a few miles on. We are quickly there and there seems to be a bit of confusion. This is the point where we were going to split into two groups, one who would just head back now and another who would keep going around Loch Rannoch and possibly all the way to Rannoch Station. I was saving myself up for tomorrow, there is a long ride tomorrow with a promised really nice long pass, so I'm all for the short one, a leisurely lunch and time to hang out at the possibly hippy dippy bunk house tonight.

We stop in front of the cafe, but there are some who have already gone past. Maybe they didn't realize we were stopping or something. But can't help them now, they are in for the long ride like it or not. Apparently, we find out that some of them meant to and some of them didn't know and once they were too far, it was too late. But nobody seems too upset that night so no worries then. I enjoy a nice lunch, ginger beer, and a lemonade, and a nice sandwich. I'm quite ready then to tackle the next big hill after that.

The next part takes us up past Schiehallion. There are a few steep preliminary parts before it flattens out. Crispin tells us that Schiehallion was used as some science experiment, to find the weight of the earth or the gravity of the earth or something like that. It is very spherical and that helped or something. I can't really find any independent confirmation of this experiment, so I'll just have to take his word for it. It was nice riding over it though, even if I didn't come up with any scientific truths out of it. It was a long pass up, not horribly difficult but still quite a climb. And then the downhill at the other side was really excellent. I had some pretty good speed going down, although nothing to break any sort of speed records. It was a bit windy at parts and that intimidated me a little bit too.

On the other side, we headed off to Fortingall see something really old. No, not Gary. We went to see the yew tree. It is said that it is the oldest living organism in Europe, possibly the world. It is also said that Pontiff Pilot sat under it as a youth. And lots of other things, but it does seem that it is 3000-8000 years old, which is pretty old. It is in a churchyard now, as it seems many yew trees are. Valued for their wood to make long bows. This one is enclosed in a little building, probably because a gigantic part of it has been cut off by souvenir hunters over the years, so there is a move to preserve what might be the oldest living thing on the planet. It is funny, it does look old but it doesn't look that old. It certainly ages well.

There is also a hotel with a pub right next door to the tree. Our group sits outside enjoying the sunshine and ordering Yew Ale. We might have drunk them out since they didn't have any the next night when we went there for dinner. That seemed to happen a few times, pubs that would run out of their nice ale due to us finishing them off.

After refreshing ourselves this way, we head off to Fearnam to the bunk house. Gary gave us all sorts of warnings, be nice to them, it might be a little strange there, blah blah blah. We didn't know if we were heading for a hippie commune or what it was. It turned out to be a little bit funky but a pretty nice place. It is run by a reiki master who is married to a GP and they have tried hard to create a little green community there. They have very ambitious plans but haven't gotten to a lot of them yet. But things like that take a lot of time, they seem to have done well for themselves so far. They have a very complicated recycling system. All the containers would probably take up most of my flat. But does that go in the food compost, or can it be fed to the chickens or is that a soft plastic or hard plastic or does it just have to be rubbish. It was endlessly confusing.

There are hundreds of signs everywhere and each bed has a notebook by it, with all their plans, mission statements, and the rest of that. They have categories for sustain ability, education, child care, growing food, medical things, and a lot more. Things they have finished got two suns, things they have started got one sun and things they hadn't gotten around to yet had a moon. There were quite a few more moons in the book than suns.

The loch is just down the hill and I haven't been swimming yet in Scotland on this trip. Che takes a little bit of convincing but I know she will love it once we get there. There is sort of a big hill down to the loch but no bag on the bikes, it shouldn't be so bad. Down at the loch, not quite sure where to go, a lot of the edge of it is taken up by houses and other buildings. But there is a bit of a beach over there and that looks like a decent place to change. It is pretty cold, but not the coldest ever. It is nice too to cool down still warm muscles, hopefully I feel a little less sore because of it.

Dinner is just in progress when we get back. A very nice roasted vegetables and couscous as well as a few sausage and crumble for dessert. Unfortunately there wasn't rhubarb available, so apple had to do instead. Today, I think was 43 miles, I accidentally reset my odometer so I'm pretty sure but not completely. Tomorrow we are at the same place, so it should be nice to leave everything and have the same place to come back to tomorrow night.

Pretty hate machine - Lochs 'n' Trossachs Tour, Comrie to Pitlochry, Day 3, 12 May 2008

Pictures

Morning time in Comrie. We had a nice room in the cottage outside the hotel. Very civilized, a small bottle of sherry and decently comfortable bed. The tour had a wide variety of accommodations, from crowded rooms at hostels, to slightly less crowded rooms in bunkhouses, and a few hotels and B&Bs where we had a private room. So, it was a good nights sleep here then.

We all assembled in the dining room, crowded around a few tables, a few maps going around so everybody could see the route for today. Almost all English breakfasts all around, I did ask to have a few things omitted from mine, sausage mostly gets a bit much after a while, but they forgot and I got it all anyways. Rob had done his daily tire check after breakfast and says that my rear tire is a bit soft. No, no, not the sort of thing I want to hear. Funny, don't tell Rob but after today, Che started doing pre-Rob checks of the tires, mostly of mine, to give a bit of extra time to get things fixed, mostly mine considering how many punctures I had, but luckily after today, my tires stabilized and things were great. But that's the future, things were still bleak now.

So, my timing is thrown all off, I have to rush to get stuff packed and the room cleaned out so that I can get my tire fixed. We wanted to leave on time and didn't really have time for something like this. I am getting good at these by now, even with the fiddly locking hubs. It does appear that this puncture was kind of my fault. The valve wasn't pushed all the way in and there was probably a bit of chaffing on the sides, which caused it. I was more careful with this one, it got pushed in just right and I am getting much quicker at these.

I pump the tire up and whoosh. What? Damn, there is a huge crack in the valve. So, this tire is totally dead and I have to start all over on it. I still don't think this one counts. Yes, that is four punctures so far on the trip, but I only think it should count as 1/2 since it only had about 3 seconds on the wheel. Everybody else wants to leave since this is taking a while. Crispin leaves two spare inner tubes with me, and I had my other two that I had brought on the trip with me, quite patched up by now, and they all head off. I finish up the job pretty quickly after that and we head off.

But my mudguards. Have I ranted about them on this trip yet? Stupid things. Ok, I love them, especially when it is rainy and how nice and dry they keep me, but they are incredibly fussy and anything being slightly out of line, they rub and they are annoying. But then, writing this account almost a month later and having gone through a cracked rear wheel and having to ride 70 miles with that and having really bad rubbing (hard work), I guess I didn't have it so bad here. Could have been worse. But today they rub all day, making annoying noises and Che decides the sound is too annoying and rides off so she doesn't have to hear.

We don't really have a tea stop planned for this morning. I know, a horrible thought. If there was anything that we had completely down on this tour, it was tea stops and fantastic pieces of cake, but today wasn't going to be one of them. It is slightly hilly and a little bit foresty, and it is pleasant, except for the scrape scrape scrape of my mud guards.

Outside of Crieff, we come to the Famous Grouse Distillery. I had hoped we would convert that into a tea stop, but we just end up in the parking lot, taking pictures of the gigantic metal grouse and of ourselves standing in front of it. My rear tire is still a little soft, hard to get 100 pounds of pressure with a tiny frame pump. John suggests I get it up to full pressure, since it will be easier and also less likely to get a new puncture. I wave him off at first but then on second consideration, I take him up on it. Maybe he is just really strong or he has a really nice pump, but he gets 100 pounds in there in a few seconds. Wow, I want that pump. I must find out what it is.

It sort of becomes an obsession for me the rest of the tour, what pump would work well, is compact, and is easy to use. I like the one I have in terms of getting lots of pressure, you can either set it to high pressure or high volume, which works well, but the way you have to twist it onto the value really sucks since it tends to bend the values. So, the perfect pump must just be pressed on and then have a thumb lever to pull up, no twisting movement. And something that handles 100 pounds without breaking your arm. And a gauge would be nice too, but for the most part, that's probably not as necessary, you just pump until you can't any more and that's usually just kind of almost sort of enough.

But enough technical babble, we head on. There are a few miles on a relatively easy road before the main fun of the day starts. Crispin warns us over and over, very steep pass and an even worse descent into Kenmore. But to get there, we have a pleasant few miles before that. We come across a man and a woman who are in the middle of an end to end ride, or approaching the end. I'm not sure how I feel about those, it seems like it would nice, a great accomplishment but then it also seems like it wouldn't be that fun. But I guess if you took it easy, didn't just try to cram as many miles into every day, it might be pretty good to do. Maybe I'll have to try one some day.

When we reach the turnoff to the pass, Linda is there and waiting. I believe that she had parked on the other side and was already over once and was heading back again. Still no tea or lunch possibilities, so we sit at the side of the road and have some snacks before going on. It seems like a nice and quiet road, so I head on by myself and just enjoy being there. There is a fantastic oyster catcher perched on a stone fence just at the side of the road. Wow, very close up. We look at each other for a little bit and I stop and look. Sadly, it takes off before I have a chance to get my camera out. Oh well, put that in my list of regretted missed photographs, along with that one in January of all the crows perched on each fence post all the way across a field outside of St Andrews. Maybe it would have been a good picture but it is probably better in my mind.

This tour was really good for me in terms of birds. It was when I finally got beyond those few, ok that's a robin, and that's a black bird/crow/raven. Ok, I wasn't that bad, but just about. So, today's lesson is about the difference between swallows and swifts and house martins. House martins look like both of those but they have white bellys, like the ones swarming around this house I see on the way. Those are house martins, yes, well done Kerry.

Ahh, but that was when the climb started too. Right around the corner from that house, I hit switchbacks and the fun started. It was a pretty long climb and I think of the whole week, it had the very steepest sections. It wasn't as relentlessly long as some of the others later in the week, but at on point, I was standing up on the pedals, pushing down hard, and like I was just taking very slow long steps, barely moving at all. So, I take lots of pictures then which gives me something to do. I really hope that they convey the steepness, but somehow they just never do. They always look like a little slope. Oh well, I know.

The top portion was really nice. It was flat and pretty and wound around a little bit between the tops of hills until the real fun started. We were warned, relentlessly steep downhill, be very careful, stop a few times to let your brakes cool off so that you don't melt your rims. It was fun but scary on the way down and mostly I stopped a few times because my hands were hurting from holding my brakes so hard. The second time, I touched my rims and they really were incredibly hot. Unfortunately when I felt the tires, damn it, my front tire now, it was a bit soft. This is getting annoying, that's three punctures today.

It was nice lookout to stop at and while I cursed at my bike and tires, the rest of them went off around the corner to watch yet another flock of house martins circle around a house there. Slam slam slam, ok, tire fixed, ready to go again. (This is probably about where I lost my odometer, turning my bike over, something I don't notice until a few hours later. Really hating my bike today.) This last part was actually the worst of it too. The entire thing I think was about 500 meters down over a kilometer, but this last section was narrow winding switchbacks. Not something I would want to go very fast on even if I wasn't nervous about my wheels blowing up. The road then takes its toll on Dave W's tire and we sit and watch him changing his tire. That one must have been smoking hot, he did the entire tour on a folding bike and it had really tiny wheels.

Then at the bottom in Kenmore, we wait at the intersection at the side of Loch Tay and wait for the last few stragglers. Finally we have the long delayed lunch stop. I'm a little worried that it is too late that they won't be serving anymore but they have some food left. The ducks wandering around are cute too. We sit in the sun and enjoy.

This tour is funny. We don't really go anywhere. Ok, we start and end in Stirling. But we also cover the same ground a lot, sort of. We are in Kenmore, on Loch Tay, we head through the Appin of Dull (although we don't go to Dull, even though it is only a 1/4 mile away from our route), all of it that we will be through again in the next few days. We do end up covering like 450 miles over the tour and do 1000s of meters of climbing but we never really get all that far from Stirling, so the tour never really has the epic feel of say riding up the west coast of Scotland or riding from coast to coast.

We all get a bit scattered out on the last leg to Pitlochry. All those who didn't have to fix tires got through lunch quicker and headed off sooner. It is fairly flat and not so difficult. We cross a nice suspension bridge into Pitlochry and then up the steep hill to the hostel. What a nice view of the city. I sit outside and watch the birds in the roofs, get sort of a feeling of the birds eye view. Back in the room, I come back into the room from my shower, oh hi Owen, this is a surprise. After years of trying to convince him to go on a bike tour, he finally relented on this one and then showed up a few days into it as a surprise to everybody. He just took delivery of his new Pearson bike and is ready to try it out. Hopefully he won't have new bike problems, especially since he already had a pedal explode the day he got it.

The hostel is pretty much over run by German hikers, so we have to work hard to get our pasta dinner cooked and a few free tables set aside for us. We devour it and lots of wine and I jump up to help make the fruit salad for dessert. The end of a day, 53 miles for me, and a rather frustrating day at that with all the mechanical problems.

Rage against the machine - Lochs 'n' Trossachs Tour, Stirling to Comrie, Day 2, 11 May 2008

Pictures

Wow, here it is, the first actual day of the tour. The one yesterday, lots of train travel, a warmup for today. Which speaking of warming up, this whole week in Scotland is freakishly warm. Mid May and hot days, lots of sunscreen and no rain at all (light mist one day). The mornings feel cold, I need a few layers on but nothing very heavy. I never really wear my heavy jacket at all. But by noon most days it is super warm the rest of the day. Weird. Is this really Scotland? I keep getting Scottish money everywhere so it must be.

So hostels, as always, the rooms are too hot and then too cold in the middle of the night and I never sleep very well in them. I'm up fairly early and wander around for a bit before finding my way to the kitchen. A few are up and there is a pot of tea waiting. Lovely. After a bit, my cooking speciality on these tours seems to be porridge, so I pitch in to help with that. Porridge with milk, porridge with soy, and porridge with fruit and nuts (which seems to be a popular idea but doesn't get eaten quite as fast as the other ones). But all is quickly consumed and it is time to pack up and head out.

Crap, my tire which I had changed last night, it has deflated a bit. The back one, a pain to fix because the mud guards have about 0.000001 mm clearance and my fancy locking hubs (I do live in London after all) are slightly tricky to remove. Ok, fixed and we assemble. Linda has a car along on the tour, getting over an injury so she wanted to take it easy on the tour, and there is room to leave some baggage with her and have it show up tonight. So decadent. And Crispin has showed up ready to lead us on. There are introductions all around.

We leave the hostel, through a showering of cherry petals and set off to our first sight. As many of the mornings were, it is slightly cold, misty, and pretty atmospheric. We stop on Stirling Bridge for a quick history lesson, battle of Stirling Bridge and all that stuff. The castle looks pretty cool up there on the hill. I'll have to get up there when we are back in town. But as historical as the bridge was, we were promised something even more historical and authentic.

Our next stop is the Wallace Monument. I'm sort of mixed on this one. It does have a certain atmosphere but I'm not sure I'm that keen on it. It looks a bit like one of those earth boreing machines, all the different drill bits on the end that has just popped up at the top of a mountain. But it also looks kind of cool up there on the hill in the mist, and has a certain mad quality to it. But what we really came to see was Mel. Imagine our disappointment when we find him missing. I'm not sure of the exact story here, some really bad sculptor decided one day to make a sculpture of Mel Gibson, umm I mean William Wallace, and donate it to Stirling who then puts it up at the base of the Wallace Monument. It being pretty monumentally hideous, the Stirling locals do what any reasonable group of people would do, shower it with dirersion and abuse so that poor Mel has to be locked up in a cage at night to prevent damage. We ask at the visitor center what happened to Mel but they are a bit cagey, it is being moved, will he be back, umm they don't know. So we have to settle for viewing the picture of the scupture on the front of the Stirling OS map instead.

We head for some back roads out of town. It is fairly uneventful. It is just a bit rural and country lane-ish, so nothing special. Our destination is Dollar for a tea stop. We are told the name has something to do with the currency but Wikipedia tells me it is about sorrow instead. All week, we don't really have internet access but we do spend a fair amount of time wondering what Wikipedia would tell us about different things and places.

Our tea stop seems to be closed, slight panic ensues until we find a cafe just down the block. The selection of cakes looks acceptable so we sit and wait to order. Well, we queued up at the counter to order but were told to sit down and they would get to us. Until a few start ordering at the counter anyways and everybody wants some of that and also starts ordering at the counter until they tell us again to sit down and they will get to us. I guess they have only been open for a day or a few days, so there are still a few bugs in the system. Eventually it all shows up and is nice.

Ok, now supplies for the day. There isn't a good lunch stop on the way so we head down to the shop to pick up some things. The Co-op or the fancier looking deli across the street? Ahh, the Co-op has the nice triangle oatcakes so they win. And we are off again. At this point, it was deemed that the tour started. We head to the hills. We pass what is probably one of my favorite town names, Pool of Muckhart. Not much in the town but a great name. Just beyond there, at the top of our first sort of hill climb, we stop at a turn off waiting for the rest while a B&B owner tries to sell us his B&B (he is moving to Wilshire). He is a bit disappointed when we ride off (sheesh, 15 Londoners and not a single offer on the B&B).

I am quickly disappointed when my back tire again decides to give up. Crap, I am quickly getting annoyed with my bike. The rest go on and the two of us work on fixing the puncture. At this point, I'm getting fairly quick at getting the tires on and off, although I think I am pinching them getting them back on. I blame it all on some vengeful god of punctures but some of them were probably actually my fault. Although, we do find bits of glass that have worked their way through, so some of the blame can lie on London.

We have a bit of a climb and descent to Dunning. It is really a nice one. I think, look at the buzzards circling, going past pretty fields of bluebells, hillsides of crunched down bracken looking like a mini Tunguska explosion, misty mountains, and a nice group of people to hang out with for a week, it is really great to be here. Chatting on the way up, the climb goes quickly and is pretty nice, steady up but nothing too steep. And then the other side coming down is really good and pretty. Although I am slightly paranoid about my tires, just knowing that every time it feels slightly bumpy and rough it must surely mean my tire has decided to go again.

But we make it to Dunning and find somebody waiting at an intersection to direct us to the village green and the lunch stop. Food comes out of the bags and a picnic is set up and we lunch. We had gone past numerous spots where wild garlic was growing and it goes nicely with the sandwiches.

We head on, passing through Gleneagles, which seems mostly like a huge golf course. Past there, lots of rural farm lane and fields. I get good at spotting lapwings. And I'm surprised when we come across a hedgehog sitting by the side of the road. Perhaps it isn't a very healthy one since that's not a very good place for it to hang out.

We come across a old Roman something or other. I read the sign but I can't quite figure out what we are supposed to be seeing, a bit of wall or part of a fort or what. We find a tea stop (and of course more cake) at a vaguely new agey meditation center/cafe. Apparently on the way out, Brenda slips on some gravel and injures her leg. It doesn't really seem to stop her though.

The final destination then is Comrie. The group has become a little split up by now. We were just starting to find out who tended to be speedy, who rode together, and who you end up having to wait for to make sure they don't miss turns. None of us seemed completely sure where our hotel was in Comrie and a few missed the turn at the edge of town, so there is a certain amount of waiting, going back to find lost sheep, and finally arriving at the hotel.

It seems nice. We have a nice little room in the cottage in the garden. It just has a bath instead of a shower, but the bath was nice and there is a sip of sherry to enjoy in the room too. It is nice too to have a room after a night in a hostel. We all settle in the garden for a drink while we wait for the dining room to be set up. The menu looks pretty decent. I have chicken stuffed with haggis which seems like an odd combination but it is pretty good. There are plenty of drinks too.

We retire to bed. A pretty decent first day. 51 miles.

The Cosmic Splendour and Cosmic Chaos of Tea (Beginning) - Lochs 'n' Trossachs Tour, London to Stirling, Day 1, 10 May 2008

Pictures

Packing, it might be the greatest challenge of any bike tour. Too much and it is heavy and you are miserable. Too little and you might have missed something vital (i.e. good rain gear). I consider packing for a few days before leaving, but as always, it is a bit of a last minute job. I am determined to finally crack the system for proper packing, two bags and a handlebar bag, I should know where everything is and be able to get to it without just dumping things on the floor and rummaging around. (See the report from last year's Northumberland tour for the consequences for having improperly packed and trying to find that spare inner tube in the bottom of the bag.) But this year, Linda has a car along (so decadent) and we can offload some luggage some days, so having to decide what I need along for the day (tools, rain gear, snacks) and what can go into the other bag that I won't need until later sort of forces me to come up with a workable solution. It isn't perfect yet, but it is better than before.

Anyways, 8:30 train at Kings Cross, must rush rush rush. The bags seem a little heavy but then again I have been zipping into work (late every day) carrying the laptop (the heaviest one known to man), so I guess it doesn't seem to be much more than that. Surprisingly, we are on time, well, a little early, and there are no train troubles. Nobody moans that we have bikes, it all goes pretty smoothly. On the train up, we try to think of a plan. There wasn't one yet, all there is that we have to be in Stirling that evening and our train is only going as far as Edinburgh. Lots of options, cycle all the way, take a train part of the way, take the train all the way. But Falkirk seems appealing and after a few texts to Ian, who is already in Edinburgh, we decide to meet at the station and catch the next train to Falkirk, and go from there.

Which leaves us exactly six minutes to get off the train, get bikes and bags together, go up and down two sets of stairs, struggling with heavy bikes, buy tickets, find the next train, up and down those stairs, and catch the train. Luckily Ian has the train schedule wrong and we actually have more like 12 minutes, which is good because he was just buying the tickets when we find him. A burly guard blocks our way as we get to the platform. Oh no, I see a hassle over the bikes coming, but he only wants to see our tickets. Oh ok, everything is ok then. When the train comes, we rush to claim some space on the bike carriage. Another cyclists who was ahead of us nicely decides to catch the next train (thanks whoever you were) since there are only two spaces on the train (although the guard let us put three). (Insert rant here about the ever decreasing number of bikes allowed on trains. You can take an unlimited number of surf boards to Cornwall but no way will they let more than two bikes on a train. Sigh, no way Britain is ever going to get to sustainable transport as long as it is more expensive and more hassle to take a bike on a train somewhere than it would be to drive it there in your car.)

Off the train at Camelon and trying to find the Falkirk Wheel. On the way back, I realize we probably went in a bit of a circle, but no matter, an extra mile won't hurt anybody. We follow the signs to the Wheel for a while and then spotting a canal and towpath we switch to that. The Wheel is all about canals, so follow one and you will end up there. The Wheel really is marvellous. It is enormous and all funky curves and angles and big gears. And there are some very simple basic principals at work to efficiently shift a few boats from the top to the bottom, hundreds of feet, which used to require just a crazy amount of locks. We sit and watch a group of boats pass through and have a few snacks.

I was a bit lazy about maps on this tour. I brought a really large scale one and printouts of our routes for each day, but I didn't really have much for this Edinburgh to Stirling part of the trip. The Wheel visitor center has a few OS maps and we check those out since I at least knew that NCR 76 goes from Edinburgh to Stirling via Falkirk, but not much more than that. So, if we go up the A9 for a while and there should be a turn just after Torwood and hopefully we can find the route. The A9 was busy and annoying (as A roads tend to be) and it is quite a relief to turn off onto a country road. Holding our breath, and then a little further up we spot that familiar blue sign, Sustrans has been here. Now I might go on about Sustrans, how mad some of their routes can be (rocky, bumpy, through industrial estates, Britain-if you have a back alley that isn't on a Sustrans route yet, we want you, give us a call and let us know) but they are also fantastic. There is something so nice about being able to ride through completely unfamiliar cities and places without a map just by following those little blue stickers stuck on poles, signs, and anywhere else.

It is a nice country road route and we go past Plane Tower (also known as Cock-a-Bendy Castle or Plean Castle) I look it up later, seems like it is a guest house now. A few dogs go crazy barking at us at we stop to look at it and when a mother and daughter appear down the road, oh no, go, can't be overtaken by a little girl, time to go. We take it slow, leisurely riding on the nice lanes. At a few points, Ian disappears, as he tends to, taking pictures or something.

There is a moment of indecision then. The sign points across a field and a road that looks rocky and bumpy, and the road also heads through the forest and looks like a little nicer road. We take a vote and the forest drive seems to be in the lead. After a bit of sitting around we take another vote and it has swung to the field road, so we take that. Luckily, that one seems to be the right way, it does seem to have been in the right general direction for Stirling. But then it isn't far now, soon we are on the outskirts of town, back on a B road and decide to forgo the rest of the Sustrans dirversions and just head straight into town. We follow the signs to the town center and realize we don't actually know where we are heading. A quick look at the tour notes gives us an address, which we find on the map of the town center in the pedestrian mall.

A quick shop at the M&S to pick up some porridge and a really excellent lemonade. I stay outside and watch the bikes. A man sits down nearby and assembles his drum and chair and his tray for change and then starts to play, drumming and singing quietly. It is really pretty fascinating. I just can't get a handle on the rhythm. There is one in there but I just can't translate it into anything I know. It makes me think of somebody running through the jungle, step step step step stutter stutter (to avoid roots or branches) step step etc. But I wonder what it is that inspires that sort of rhythm.

But they are back from shopping so it is time to go then. Besides the drummer was distacted by his mobile ringing and he stops drumming to chat with somebody. Our destination is just up the big hill a few blocks to the SYH. I make it a block before I realize that my rear tire is nowhere as firm as it should be. Damn. (Note this as a reoccuring motif during the tour. Lots of London glass was lurking in my tires waiting for the perfect opportunity to burst my inner tubes.) I end up walking up the steep hill, much to the amusement of a few earlier arrivals waiting at the top of the hill who just think the steep hill was too much for me. (Hmm, maybe the puncture story can be a good cover for getting out of all sorts of hills.)

But most of the group has already arrived and was just heading out to get some last minute supplies for dinner and breakfast. The hostel is in a fantastic building, apparently a old church, abandoned, much burned down, and then rebuilt fairly recently. And it is right next to the Old Town Jail, a Victorian castle-y looking thing. Mostly there is a lovely cherry tree out front shedding its pedals everywhere. We assemble in the dining room, chili is made, introductions all around, a few new faces for me but mostly old friends. There is much to eat, plenty of wine and then we retire for the night and prepare outselves for tomorrow, the first proper day of the tour. 23 miles for me for the day.

Tour Totals -
Sat 10 - 23 Sun 11 - 51 Mon 12 - 53 Tue 13 - 43
Wed 14 - 64 Thu 15 - 47 Fri 16 - 45 Sat 17 - 34
Sun 18 - 58 Mon 19 - 0 Tue 20 - 38
456 total

A small remembrance of something more solid, all I want is a picture of you

Loads of pictures then.
Day 0, Take the last train to Clarksville, 30 May 2008
Day 1, Buzzards and dreadful crows, 31 May 2008
Day 2, Are we not men, we are DEVO, 1 June 2008
Day 3, They call him Flipper, faster than lightning, 2 June 2008
Day 4, If the rain comes, they run and hide their heads, 3 June 2008
Day 5, Comin' down the mountain, 4 June 2008
Day 6, Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world, 5 June 2008
Day 7, Feel like Jonah in the belly of a whale, 6 June 2008
Day 8, This is the end, beautiful friend, 7 June 2008
Day 9, Going off the rails on a crazy train, 8 June 2008
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And the rest of the pictures and videos and writing Dolphin Watch 2008