Fat Bloke on a Bike

Today was supposed to be an early start but again I find myself messing with all the technology I'm carrying.  Transferring giga tons of video from the camera to the laptop, charging bike lights, crap navs and a selection of battery packs and remotes.  I'm a mini one man recording studio. After breakfast I dress quickly.  I spy my cycling jacket standing on its own in the corner of the bedroom rigid with all the dried snot I've blown over it from the start of the ride.  It's way past silvery sleeves.  I put it on like I'm trying to wear an ironing board.  I bend over to tie my shoelaces and with a sound akin to the cracking of a basket full of poppadoms a small snowstorm of yellow flakes drop to the bedroom floor.  I've also noticed a rather horrid smell in the room.  Not really noticeable when I was in it overnight but on returning to the room after breakfast, my God, something has died in here.  I open the bedroom window to clear the smel...

I awoke at 03:30 am.  I'm wide awake.  Daylight is streaming through the bedroom window.  We're still heading north and if we're not careful will soon be in the land of the midnight sun. At breakfast the French couple are not to be seen.  I assume that they're still sleeping, now with spare rolls of Tesco toilet paper wedged in their ears after suffering the 'Guns of Navarone - the loud bits' film loop being played all night in the room next door.  The landlady was good to me; she did a service wash last night and handed me a bag of clean dry clothing this morning.  I said I would leave her a little something in the room as a thank you.  It's a good job I checked the loo before departure as the mummified chicken had somehow resurrected itself, flown the coop and crash landed with a splat on the toilet wall.  Not the best thank you to leave behind. I'm still buggering about with this blog so I'm late meeting London Alan.  He's ready and ea...

Myself and London Alan are sat at breakfast.  Alan tells me he has slept well.  My thunderous snoring completely failed to wake him from his much needed sleep.  He says he was unconscious as soon as his head hit the pillow.  A proper solid 6 hours sleep he says.  Nothing I could have done would have woken him from his dance with the night.  It's often said there is nothing as good at initiating a deep sleep than a hard days work.  It's only taken 7 of them and approx 300 miles of hard riding to get London Alan unconscious whilst in the same room as me. I look out and see a man pushing a tall trolley cage with by the sounds of it wobbly shopping trolley wheels past the dining room window full of what looks like dead cyclists.  Bits of Lycra poke out everywhere with an occasional limp arm and leg on show.  It's addressed to go to the recycling plant.  Very appropriate.  This 500 thing is hard work! Back in our room London Alan is ...

I arrived at the Sands campsite last night soaked to the core and cold.  A long undulating ride along the Gairloch shores to a hidden in the dunes campsite with more than one short sharp pillock of a hillock to climb was enough for today.   It was getting late as I had stopped to have dinner with Alan who had wimped out of another night with me because, 1, I snore, a lot; and 2, it’s a campsite again.   I squish squeeshed my way into Alan's hotel lobby with water cascading from every orifice.  ‘Hello’ I gargled.  Do you have somewhere I can get changed?  I suppose the presence of a human waterfall courtesy of Glen Torridon at table number 27 in the restaurant would for sure put the other diners off their water biscuits.  I hit the gents toilet like a small tsunami and spill into cubicle number 1.  I fought to get stuff off.  Boots - squish, plop, plop.  My jacket flumped on the floor.  So did my shorts and cycling underwear,...

First of all, apologies for late updates.  I need both Wifi and mobile signals to be able to log on to the blog cos of the mixture of passwords and security texts to do so.  Mostly I have neither.  Sometimes one, rarely both.  Sorry for the delay. I’m in a lovely cosy wigwam having a pow wow with the Cherokees smoking a peace pipe cos for sure the last two days have been tough.  London Alan feels like he’s got no wheels on his wagon and that he’s been scalped.  I do not mean just his head.  Every single goddam bit of what is normal for riding a bike has been brutally lopped off.  I see it in his face, in his actions, I hear it in his tone.  LEJOG was tough, mainly cos this fat prat put 90 mile days in the equation.  This is harder for two main reasons: 1. The hills.  Irrespective of the low mileage planned for the day it’s the ascents that are murderously hard on the aged lungs and legs.  30 miles is a bloody long...

Hello.  I hope that you are pleased to note that I am not yet dead.  Nor is London Alan.   Somehow two ageing gents of late 50’s and very early 60’s vintage have, against a stiff headwind, made it to the top of the Bealach Na Ba pass and have done it without making a gutteral BeeeALAAACH! sound as we threw up our porridge after a full 3 hours of HARD grind in the pedals.  Yes WE DID IT! The Na Ba boasts the steepest ascent of any road in the UK.  From sea level to just over 2000ft at the summit.  It’s bucket list material for aged racing snakes.  It’s their Valhalla.  I’m half expecting to find the mythical racing snake graveyard at the top of it being that most of the old feckers make their final pilgrimages here when their slippy gland has stopped working.    For sure its a battle with loads of other traffic.  The Na Ba is a narrow road with infrequent passing places and a magnet for every camper van, hire car, ...

You know how it is.  Thanks Alan.  I now have an ear worm that I just cannot shift and I have been humming it to myself ALL bloody day.  And it will not stop.  A forever loop of 'Three Wheels on my Wagon' running riot in my head.  To explain... London Alan is having a few problems with his bike.  Nothing major but all need fettling in one way or another.  Bits are dropping off or breaking as we sidle down the road.  Alan stops.  He's clearly irritated with something.  The front mudguard is rubbing on the front tyre with a regular brr brr brr on every rotation of the wheel.  I quickly spanner it and normality is resumed.  I start to hum: 'Three wheels on my wagon, and I'm still rolling along'... A little later he hears a squeak from the right hand pedal.  We pass a local bike shop who immediately diagnose a problem with his wallet and start talking about putting the bike in the bike stand (uh oh) to check for problems...

'So tell me...' says London Alan after pensively thinking about it, '..why is it that Human Beings do all manner of stretching just before embarking on some serious exercise yet Lions do not a jot just before a hunt and a mad sprint to catch their evening meal?'  There I was, pulling my socks on which cos of the size of my belly gives me a right good stretch of the quads, hamstrings and glutes thinking, yeah, he's got a point.  Why don't they. Whichever way we argued it there was no scenario where a Human would exert more explosive energy than a Lion at full trot with the smell of Zebra in its nostrils.  I pulled up my pants which gave my shoulders a nice little shrug workout and said, 'yeah I think you've got a valid point London Al.  Perhaps we should just do as Lions do?', as I finished my mid-drift twists trying to capture the flayling camera battery lead hanging out of my rear cycling jacket pocket.... And we're off.  Today's route t...

It's a mad road that can only ever have been the idea of a wealthy bewigged English upper class twat with a pointy hat determined to make sure his army is well and truly fooked moments before being set upon by the local Scottish clans who rather enthusiastically wield and toss their Cabers (1) at the silly worn out red coated English tommy. Day 1 in the saddle should never be about doing a big days ride as it's the first opportunity to try everything out.  It was such a smart idea to cut day 1 down a little and not ride through to Spean Bridge as it is likely we would have fallen off our bikes atop the final 700ft hill climb like dead flies.  So test we did.  It was a day for it.  Hills [tick], legs [big cross], rain [tick], bag packing [er tick on the 7th attempt], squeaky noises fettled [tick] etcetera. We're out of Inverness in a slow flash cruising up an incline in a rain shower under a broad canopy of trees.  I'm leading this leg.  All of a sudden ...

Last night was loaded with bad sweaty dreams.  Of riding my bike and finding a man curled up on a street corner shouting at children to call 999 and ask for an ambulance because he was suffering with stress and anxiety.  Then riding with them somewhere remote and losing them in the back of beyond.  And of riding down huge grassy tracked slopes trying to ride my way to nowhere and finding it very hard work only to see both tyres were as flat as pancakes. Yeah that about sums up the fears of days to come.  No surprise then that I did not sleep last night.  London Alan is polite in saying that he slept OK for I know I have a snore that can be heard across the universe.  Like crashing black holes projecting ripples in space time.  Feeble bedroom doors and walls are no match for it.  One good snore and hiccough at the same time is enough to break a planet in half.  I am the Higgs Bosun (I sail too).  Fuelled by green Kryptonite.  Note to...

Bloody hell!  Where has the time gone?  I've been off blogger for nearly one month and didn't know it.  Thanks for reminding me Mark! Tomorrow we're off to see the Scottish Wizard and follow the Braw Bricht road.  All together now.. 'Follow the Braw Bricht road, follow the Braw Bricht road, la, la-la, la-la, la.. follow the Braw Bricht road!' I've mad images of Dorothy and Toto spinning in our wheels as though we've been in an overloaded Wicked Witch of the West biking accident somewhere on this mad 500 mile route. OK I apologise.  I've been busy.  My garden no longer resembles the edge of a rainforest with Brazilian farmers looking up at it and saying 'feck that for a game of conquistadores' before frogging off to find an easier bit of forest to demolish. But, hey, I've also been out on my bike.  Bigger and longer loops out of York last month cumulating this week with a 4 day ride out with everything on the bike including the kitch...