The train journey its self was another lengthy affair, a further 7 hours (including an hours change at Inverness). In contrast to the main-line journey of the day before, this was a 2 car "sprinter" train, running mostly on single track; many of the calling points were request stops. Some of the views from the train were quite lovely, and the journey was altogether more civilized; instead of being wedged in like cattle for hours we sat in seats, read books etc. That said we didn't converse quite as much with our fellow passengers.
At Inverness we met a couple of guys heading up to start the John o' Groats to Land's End run. They were carrying day sacks and unmodified racing bikes, having opted for the B&B option. I admit to feeling a pang of jealousy, thinking about how much faster and easier this might be if I weren't carrying all the gear I needed to camp.
Our bikes, neatly stowed on the Inverness to Wick train.
The train ride it's self afforded some beautiful views of the coast, the odd Loch and then the highlands. Looking through the train windows, one got a genuine sense of the great forces that had carved the landscape over thousands of years. In one particularly wide valley I could picture the mighty glacier that must have carved it so long ago, super imposed over the flocking birds and grazing animals that reside in its present lush, green state.
Having left Aberdeen on the 07:14 service we arrived at Thurso at 14:24. Today, day 2 of the trip, was the first with an appreciable amount of riding. This did not get off to an auspicious start when I pumped up the tyres on Rich's bike at Thurso station. He was really nervous as I pumped them up to 60 psi; I assured Rich that he could trust what the manufacturer had said as to the maximum pressure for the tyre (65psi in this case) and listed all the benefits of higher pressures for touring. True to my word the tyre held the pressure... the rim however, had apparently fatigued and dramatically exploded under the pressure with a resounding bang. So there we are stood on the platform at Thurso station, the start point for our ride, and it looks like its all over; Rich in particular seemed very down hearted. Fortunately the extra wheel proved its self most admirably. I switched Rich's destroyed front wheel for the "extrawheel", and with the addition of a few cable ties to stop the dangling strands of wheel rim from catching we managed to get back on the road for the short ride into Thurso town.
Shredded; the wheel rim was destroyed beyond any possibility of repair.
"The bike shop" (its the highlands, so there can be only one) in Thurso; the place to go in Thurso for bicycle repairs, advice, local information and cutting edge political debate. If you're in Thurso and don't need any bike bits, I suggest you find a reason to go anyway. An inspection of the rear wheel showed that it was also showing the tell-tale warping that precedes a fatigue failure. After some discussion we decided to get a new wheel set, a cheep and cheerful pair, but something new would be far less likely to fail in the middle of nowhere. The owner/operators are friendly, helpful knowledgeable and make very entertaining conversation. They also raised a very interesting issue with recent changes to the Cycle to work scheme which are making the government look just a smidgin anti-green. Whilst they were providing all that, they also dropped everything to get Rich's gears switched to a replacement wheel set, refit the tyres and a new tube and even inflated the tyres up with their track pump.
Come five o-clock we were actually in a position to head off from Thurso (we were actually quite sorry to go, but needed to reach our destination before dark). We decided to head West, skipping the 60Km round trip to John 'O Groats, on the basis that we needed to return at some point to complete the Orkney and Shetland legs of the journey. I set off out of Thurso, setting my usual aggressive pace up the hill to see how Rich fared. Two thirds of the way up I pulled into a parking bay overlooking Thurso to see how he was fairing. In the relatively short hill I had him sweating buckets and had induced a mild asthma attack. Although my Asthma has been much improved of late, I have a great deal of empathy with the position of having an asthma attach, so I decided it was probably best that Rich set the pace for a while. Under the circumstances, it was rather heroic of him to try and follow my pace for as long as he did.
The dunereey Nuclear Power facility, under a striking Scottish sky and illuminated by shafts of sunlight. Lots of important science was done here, from scratch, so I thought the resemblance it holds to an Aperture Science enrichment sphere was quite apt.
At about 19:30 we reached our destination; Bettyhill. This is where the trail turns south, away from the coast and heads to Inverness. The guys in the bike shop had said that we would find out why it was called Bettyhill when we got here; I was hoping they meant that it would be funny in a slightly retro and feminine way, but it turned out to be up some steep climbs.
The camp site reception and hotel were closed so we got the last twin room in one of the B&Bs. They were also good enough to cook us some food, despite the late hour. I don't normally care for chips but these were lovley; crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside (the Jamie Oliver describes his perfect chip). The B&B is housed in a lovely little listed building, and I can say this (and I can think of no higher compliment for accommodations in an wilderness like the Scottish highlands) had a shower, which was hot and lovely. Rich had suffered rather badly from lack of sleep in Aberdeen, had a touch of motion sickness on the trains and had just put in his first proper days touring in four years, so he turned in right away. I sneaked off to write the blog/journal in the bar and chat with the locals about travel, adventure and the local traditions.
Rich has done a lot of training for this ride, but the focus has very much been on getting heavy weights up hills (an area he felt particularly weak in on our 2007 tour, when he had to walk a lot of the hills). Consequently he suffered a little when it came to putting the climbing together with the speed and endurance aspects that are needed to make meaningful in-rodes into the 6,000Km North Sea Cycle route. He had to call a halt to catch his breath on quite a few occasions and I sensed a few doubts were creeping into his thinking. The empirical facts though are these; in 2007 we completed the 250mile Lon Las Cymru route in 6 days. Today in about 2 and half hours of riding Rich covered over 30miles, in conditions which were equivalent to a normal day on the Lon Las Tour. In terms of pace that is a night and day improvement, and a very respectable pace to set on a laden touring bike.
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