My Seventeenth Week as a Budding Author

Us sporting types are strangely obsessed with doing things that are “est”. Without these things we have nothing at all to brag about in the pub or over the internet. An achievement really needs an “est” attached to it if it is going to have any kind of bragging validity. “Last night I caught a fish in Dexter’s Lake” will only really raise an eyebrow in the Sahara. However, “Last night I caught the biggest fish in Dexter’s Lake” is going to attract attention.

“Are you sure? How do you know it was the biggest? Mick reckoned he had a ten pound tench from there a few months back, was it that one? Have you got any proof? Show us the photos....”

Adding an “est” to any kind of achievement will either earn praise, stimulate debate or lead to outright derision. And it is no different in cycling. Mention the hardest road race to a cyclist and they’ll come back with one that trumps it. A gramme can always be shaved off the lightest bike and don’t ever attempt to go near the fittest female cyclist debate.

Therefore I’m definitely out to cause controversy in the book I’m writing by claiming to have conquered TWO “est”s in a single ride this week, the hardest and highest road climb in Great Britain. In fact I might even elude to a third, with me becoming the shaggest out rider ever at the top of it, although I suspect there is some serious competition for this coveted spot.

In my view, the hardest cycling climb in Great Britain is the Bealach-na-Ba, or Pass of the Cattle as it is known in English. It’s the hardest for the following reasons:-

-it starts at sea level

-it finishes nearly 2000 feet later, no other public road goes this high

-there is not much horizontal distance between the start and finish

-it has a huuuuuge long section of 20% gradient

-lots of other books and internet things say it is

This climb needed to be ticked for the book and so I tearfully left my family at then end of a week’s holiday and went back to work in the depths of northwest Scotland. Usually it rains when you are on holiday and as soon as you go back to work the sun comes out. I had a wry giggle at this as I pulled on a set of waterproofs and headed out of Kinlcohlewe with the rain trickling down the back of my neck.

The ride started with a long climb towards Achnasheen, but for some reason it seemed really easy. I was on fire, riding at nearly 15mph up the gradient, it must have been the Spanish burgers I ate the night before? This continued all the way to Achnasheen where the road did a U turn towards Loch Carron and here I learned the truth. The wind was blowing at nearly 20mph into my face. I’d been flattered by a tail wind which subsequently flattened me as I turned and faced directly into it.

A dead stag by the roadside looked up at me sympathetically as it witnessed my struggle. I had a macabre sort of conversation with it as I ate an energy bar but I suspect it had other things on its mind.

The battle between wind and me always falls in wind’s favour. It’s not a fair fight to be honest as the only resistance I have to put up is ten weedy stone of weight and a couple of spindly legs. This combination does pretty well when having a stab at gravity, but it doesn’t really augment the frictional force at the wheel/road interface much and so I suffer. To be precise I suffered for over thirty miles and the wind played its trump card after five of them.

For some inexplicable reason the tempo of a few random gusts reminded me of the Wham song “Last Christmas”. This then became lodged in my head as a particularly malignant ear worm and led to a battle on two fronts. A physical fight with the wind, and a mental one to displace George Michael’s moanings with something less annoying. What’s worse is that I only know the following lines:-

“Last Christmas I gave you my heart,

The very next day, you gave it away,

This year I’ve la la la la,

To give it to someone special”

I haven’t a clue what the “la”s bit is which made it even more painful as this couplet went round and round my head. Not only was I stuck with this annoying tune, I didn’t even bloody well know the words. And so the trio of George Michael, the wind and the rain did all they could to sap my energy before I arrived at the bottom of the climb.

I stopped to take some pictures as a car with a strange looking bike on it pulled up and disgorged a rider. It took me a while to work out that the bike had tri-bars on it. Non-cyclists, please google. The tall gangly rider chucked leg over this machine, got into an aero position and shot off up the climb. His family gave him a few minutes then drove off after him in support. I immediately got the hump over this. Firstly, he’d cheated driving to the climb, I’d sweated out forty miles before I got to it, and secondly he looked a right twat and was giving us cyclists a bad name.

I gave him an extra five minutes head start to prevent any kind of macho ding-donging on the climb. Looking up this monster, the last thing that I needed was a race to the top. The climb description shall be saved for the book. But you will be pleased to know that I made it and summited thirty seconds after the cheating time triallist. Which just goes to prove that George Michael is much more effective than tri-bars on large Scottish road climbs. He gives you a four and a half minute advantage and only makes you feel a twat.

After the Bealach it was off to the Isle of Skye for some more riding and writing for the book. This was a long drive in the motorhome and I arrived mid-afternoon with not enough time to complete the ride. So instead I put on some red socks, donned my rucksack, packed an apple and headed of for a quick walk into the hills. I knew of a path that led to the base of Sgurr nan-Gillean, a particularly fearsome Cuillin mountain, and I planned to go and look up at it. I had no intention of climbing it whatsoever, as I knew it was very high and very hard, in fact it has a rock climbing grade.

Toddling along the path I met another red sock festooned walker, Mike. He was on his way to get right to the top of Sgurr nan-Gillean having failed at a previous attempt due to adverse weather. We had perfect sunshine and no wind. The conditions could not have been better and as we got higher we met other walkers coming down. I asked them what it was like at the top and without exception they all said “It’s fine mate, not that bad at all”.

I should have realised that these weren’t walkers, they were serial mountaineers or just plain hard Scottish types who are made of girders. Mike worked on me a bit further and suddenly the summit bid was on and I committed to completing the route with him. Things gradually got steeper and harder as we got higher, but so far I was within my comfort zone and confident that I could make it to the top. That was until we met our first English bloke on his way down.

He looked a bit sweaty and we asked him how it was up on the ridge.

“Fuck me it was scary, I fucking shat myself up there mate. There’s a couple of places where I though ‘Oh my God’, Jesus Christ”, was his succinct reply.

I started to give Mike a speech about going cycling the next day and saving my legs etc...He just pointed upwards and so that’s what we did. The exposure was bearable most of the way to the top as we followed a shallow ridge line. However, 100 metres from the summit it all disintegrated into a high level exposed rock climb. The harsh gabro rock opened up a small cut on my finger and I bled all over the place as we climbed higher. And I mean “climbed”. It turns out that the English bloke was right as far as I was concerned and eventually Mike and I were perched on the summit admiring the view. Well Mike was, I was clinging to the minuscule amount of rock available and wondering how the hell I was going to get down.

The problem was that in my haste to get it all over with I had not taken the time to remember the way up. This had consequences when we were surrounded by 1000 foot drops on all sides. Gingerly we began to make our way down, until I spotted a dabbing of blood on the rock. Salvation! Like Hansel and Gretel following a crumb trail, I made my way down the climb by following my discarded blood.

Some five hours after setting off the two of us clutched pints in the Sligachan Inn and bathed in the achievement. Mike had ticked off another Munro, and I was just happy to be alive. Although it turns out that my legs were not. The previous day’s “hardest” climb and a lack of walking muscle memory meant that my legs began to seize. The next day things were much worse, they simply did not want to walk at all, and I had a seventy mile bike ride to complete. Attempting to walk made me look as if I was trying to impersonate a duck, but I had to do the ride as the weather was perfect and opportunities such as these do not often arise.

Strangely, the bike muscles appeared to work fine. Which must have looked really odd at my cafe stop as I gracefully pedaled to a halt then waddled in some weird sort of ostrich parody to the counter. I was immensely glad of this as the ride around Skye was perfect in every way; weather, scenery, empty roads, hills, valleys, sea views and a curious hare that watched me pass quizzically rather than running away.

This theme continued in the Scottish borders where I found roads and hills that seem to be off the motoring map yet designed for road cyclists. The weather remained on my side for the remainder of the week and I left Scotland with another three chapters in the bag.

Driving home I regained radio reception on the M6 and was informed that whilst I was indulging in my Scottish odyssey others were being forced to camp out on the streets of London in deference to the monarchy. As I admired the lorry drivers either side of me who were controlling their vehicles by mobile phone I reflected on progress to date. Project “Dave’s book” is back on track after a very productive week. In fact the trip has inspired me even further to do all I can to cement the joys of British cycling into as many minds as I possibly can. This has nothing to do with avoiding a proper job whatsoever.

Dave

29th April 2011

WEEK Eighteen>>>>>