D
David Damerell
Guest
[Pictures at <http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~damerell/e2e-images/>.]
In September 2004, Robin Geddes and I (David Damerell) rode the End to
End. Writing it up has proved much trickier than doing it - seven
months after Robin mentioned the idea we'd bought a tandem and were
rolling into Penzance, but I'm writing this rather later.
We took two weeks to do it, staying in B&Bs - this is very definitely
the right idea unless you cannot afford to do anything but camp. We
originally planned the route using Simon Brown's Cicerone Guide, a
slender green volume, but we worked out along the way that Mr. Brown
is an extremely strong hill climber and likes scenery an awful lot; we
were, obviously, booked into our B&Bs each night, but we started
looking at the route each morning and gently trimming some of the more
exciting excursions.
There's a detailed description of the bike and equipment at the end,
but briefly, we bought a second-hand '89 Dawes Super Galaxy tandem on
eBay from a chap who, fortunately, lived about 2 miles from me. A
tandem is an excellent choice for a pair of people who are not equally
strong cyclists, and it means less work even for matched pairs. Robin
had never ridden tandem before and I had only ridden stoker a few
times, so the first few tries on it were very exciting, but we got
used to it in half an hour or so, and we've actually never fallen off
it (and I've only kicked Robin in the chest once dismounting as if
from a solo. Sorry, Robin.)
We rode the tandem on my commute for weeks, 11 miles each way, and we
went out on Sunday rides with the Reading CTC (which are about the
daily mileage we proposed for the E2E once we'd got to and from
Reading), but what we didn't do was ride long distances successive
days. I'd strongly advise anyone training for the E2E to ride at least
Saturdays and Sundays, and if at all possible every day on Bank
Holiday Weekends. One of the lessons you learn is that you have to
keep the effort down much more when you have to do the same thing the
next day and the day after that and so on...
My friend Karen Martin, whose family live a few miles East of
Penzance, very kindly volunteered to put us up for the Friday night
(after riding from Land's End), which let us effectively start 17
miles down the road on the Saturday morning. I didn't know, however,
that she wouldn't be there at the time, so really I think I should be
thanking the rest of her family instead.
Day 0
=====
I could not get the Friday off work, so Robin and our friend Paul (who
was a great deal of help) drove down with the bike on a roofrack, but
I got the train from Reading after work (dull, but on time); they
collected me in Penzance, and Paul dropped us at Land's End (but would
join us at the Martins' house that night). Land's End is not a real
place; there's a tourist centre there, which was shut, and nothing
else. After some initial photographs (we brought 4 disposable
cameras), we waved goodbye to Paul and set off down the A30, which is
a winding hilly country road so pretty alarming in the dark.
First lesson I learned; don't ever say "We'll hardly ever have to ride
in the dark, battery lights will be OK". Fit a dynamo. I've now got a
pair of dynamo headlights for the tandem - both Robin and I have
wheels built up around Schmidt hub dynamos which can be fitted to the
tandem - but we spent more time than we expected in the dark having to
go slow because of battery lights' inadequate focussing.
We had a strong tailwind on this leg, had left most of our luggage in
Paul's car, and rode fast, so we quickly passed through Penzance, and
were met by Karen's sister on the way over to their house, where they
were very hospitable to us.
Day 1
=====
8am start - which I regard as fundamentally unnatural, but we got used
to it those two weeks - to load the full luggage onto the bike, which
only exacerbated the day's unpleasant discovery; Cornwall is the
hilliest place in Britain. In Scotland, the roads have been built on
the contours; in Cornwall, some joker with a ruler has laid them out,
making for steep climbs - but because the hills are small, no descent
gives you time to catch your breath properly, and of course at the
start of the trip you're not as tough as you are at the end. Lesson
two; you can't have too-low gearing for this kind of thing.
This day saw the first of our persistent gearing problems; dropping
the chain off the granny ring, which we were making more use of. I
adjusted it at Helston - the day's route took us not to the North
coast of Cornwall but up the A394 and the A39 nearer to the South
coast - where we stopped to look at someone's collection of brightly
painted tanks and pant gently; the weather was blazing hot and
remained so until Kirkby Lonsdale midway through the trip.
26 miles from the start brought us to Truro and lunch with an old
friend of Robin's in the Old Ale House - corny name, but decent cheap
food and decent beer - (Shinner Kiddlywink, good). Irritatingly, the
one of us who could drink at lunch without getting sleepy was also the
one in charge of the steering, so it had to be kept to a minimum. We
said goodbye to Paul, and set off towards St. Austell; here we became
gradually weaker and had to walk a hill - not the last of the trip. We
stopped and rested at a garage and ground on to the night's stop near
Lostwithiel (The Old Chapel), which was very nice albeit one of the
pricier stops of the trip.
One of the owners kindly drove us into the village for dinner at the
Earl of Chatham. I should explain that I had CAMRA's Good Beer Guide
with me as my one book; it was worth its weight in weight. Almost
every lunch and dinner stop here was picked from the GBG. The food was
also good and cheap - a common thing in the Southwest - and the
St. Austell beers excellent, particularly Tribute. We'd done 54 miles
that day for a total of 71 - this seems short, but actually the
Cornwall days on an E2E want to be shorter than the long flat expanses
in the middle of the trip.
Day 2
=====
I was up early to change the 11-29 rear cassette to a 13-34.
Irritatingly, the little spacer between the lockring and the cassette
was bent, making it impossible to tighten the lockring fully and hold
the sprockets in place; eventually I put a cable tie between the 13
and the 15, tightening everything up at the cost of those two
sprockets. This was not a problem this day - we barely got into the
middle ring. Here was where we learned to conserve our strength - we
were like bags of wet spaghetti this day because of riding hard the
day before.
We started with a huge English breakfast - or I started with one and
Robin started with about half of one (often one of us would be
mysteriously not-hungry). This was a mistake, delicious as it was; all
that meat sits like a huge lump in your stomach and slows you down in
the morning. On later mornings we'd have porridge, eggs, and toast for
breakfast, with black pudding for me where they had it.
We churned slowly, slowly up the A390 to Tavistock, stopping to talk
to another E2E group near Callington. Later we saw the aftermath of a
motorcycle accident - petrol everywhere, but the rider fortunately
appeared unhurt. We had lunch at the Trout and Tipple (Otter bitter,
satisfactory) just NE of Tavistock - they tolerated our arriving late
and lingering after their nominal finish time. After that we made the
first real change to the route; instead of crossing Dartmoor, we took
a longer but less ambitious route up the Western side, past
Okehampton, then East to Copplestone. Our stop for the night,
Jellicoe's, was out in the winding country roads to the NorthEast.
Here I managed our one really serious navigational screwup - in
gathering dark. It didn't help that the Bartholomew map extract in
Jellicoe's directions was to a slightly larger scale but also wrong,
unlike the Ordnance Survey road maps we'd brought, but Robin quite
rightly wanted us to go a slightly nominally longer route but approach
as far as possible on the main roads. Instead we described a sort of
spiral about the destination, walking up and down the terribly steep
hills (down because of the lack of decent lights), being met by a
member of the CTC who set us a little straighter, tiring, scaring the
hell out of cows with the brake squeal, and eventually walking a mile
across some fields on a nominal public footpath - which wouldn't have
been so bad, except the middle field was freshly ploughed and the
tandem sank in it so had to be carried - naturally it got a flat at
that point. Luckily we met a local there who pointed us the remaining
200 yards to Jellicoe's, which we walked, exhausted.
Jellicoe did have excellent food even for people turning up 3 hours
late, and I happened to run into an ex-colleague from the Chemistry
department in Cambridge who was staying there on a walking holiday - a
small world. We got an early night; we'd made 70 miles (10 of which
were pointless) for a total of 141. I believe Robin may have forgiven
me by now for that night's little adventure, but I'm trying not to do
it again.
Day 3
=====
After clearing the last of the hills, the terrain eased enormously;
even into the stiff north-easterly wind, the going was vastly easier
than the previous 2 days down to Tiverton and around to Taunton, which
raised our spirits. Lunch was at the Mason's Arms in Taunton - my
notes say "food OK but cheapish, RGH Pitchfork grew on me rapidly",
but more unusually the Gents had a selection of rather tasteful 30s
black and white photographs of naked ladies on the wall. We didn't go
in the Ladies, so I have no idea what the decor there was like.
After lunch, we looked for a bike shop in Taunton; Colmans were happy
to help us with the mangled lockring spacer and some more cardboard-
flavoured energy bars. Good timing, since it looked like in flatter
terrain we might actually need the smaller sprockets.
We made decent speed up the A38 through Brigwater towards Cheddar;
apart from the very last bit, the terrain was still very flat. We
found the B&B (The Bay Rose in Cheddar) without difficulty, which made
a nice change, and had dinner at a Chinese in Cheddar - good, but also
expensive - and looked over the next day's route, aiming to cut the
corner and avoid Shepton Mallet, which seemed a pointless diversion,
but not to go the very direct but unpleasant route through Bristol.
We'd made 68 that day for a 209 total, but for the first time it
seemed like we might be mostly in for pleasant runs through the
country and not a complicated exercise in masochism.
Day 4
=====
Robin's turn to be not-hungry at breakfast - he was more prone to this
than me - which was a shame, because the spread was huge. The north-
easterly wind kept us busy today, but it was still easier than
Cornwall - an easy run down to Wells where we looked at the Cathedral,
then over the Mendips (saving ourselves a few miles by taking the A39
out of Wells rather than going to Shepton Mallet), down through
Radstock, and to Bath; we passed National Cycle Route #24 on the way
but decided we preferred the direct route. We had lunch at a very
strange (but GBG-listed) place in Bath, Lambrettas; there's a
mod-style scooter in the window, and all the decor is mod-era
Lambretta styled. The Abbey Bellringer was refreshing and the food was
good - and it did make a change from the usual run of pubs.
Robin was pretty tired after lunch, and we had a steep climb out of
Bath on the A46 and then stiff crosswinds in high rolling terrain -
crosswinds are a nuisance on a tandem because the captain must do
twice as much work with the handlebars to keep the bike going forwards
- but we still made decent progress to Stroud; at the junction with
the M4 we stopped for a pee and met a chap who was very interested in
the bike. At Stroud we stopped at a supermarket for milk, water,
money, and baby cream for my chafed right thigh - the only real saddle
soreness problem we had. There's a considerable climb out of Stroud,
but since Mr Brown's book stopped at Stroud on day 4, we consoled
ourselves with the idea that this was really coming out of tomorrow's
run.
We got a little lost at the end, but found Pound Cottage OK (in
Cranham); dinner at the Black Horse, an old haunt of Robin's from
consulting in the area. The food was good and copious; pick of the
beer would be Sharp's Doom Bar. Straight to bed after dinner, as
usual; we'd clocked 69 for a total 278 miles.
Day 5
=====
Tightened the drum and front brakes after breakfast - things had
loosened up a bit. Easy going after climbing up to the main road, but
unfortunately the chain stuck between the middle and large chainrings,
bending the middle one badly and the large one to a degree.
Fortunately the terrain was very flat and we could limp into
Cheltenham on the 52, where a local cyclist recommended Williams (a
bike shop) to us as a possible source of 86mm BCD Stronglight
chainrings, and it was the work of a few minutes to fit a new 42 and
48 in place of the bent rings (and, I'm afraid, a few more minutes
further down the road to fiddle the limit screw so I could reach the
granny ring again).
After that we headed to Worcester for lunch at the Salmon's Leap; the
food was good but too small, the beer OK but uninspiring, and this was
the one place on the whole trip that wanted to charge us for tap water
when we were paying for food and beer. That's no way to get cyclists'
custom in the summer; one to avoid.
NNW out of Worcester through heavy terrain, but the wind had eased up;
however, the book's promised "descent" into Brignorth after
Kidderminster was full of hills, which we felt was a bit unfair. We
headed straight up the A442 towards Telford to avoid another hilly
patch on the original route; however, Ironbridge (where we were
staying) was tricky to find without going around the South half of
Telford's one-way system. Eventually we got there; I managed to take
us too far downhill to the new bridge while Robin was on the phone
figuring out exactly where we were staying, but we got back to the
quite luxurious B&B (The Old Library, Ironbridge) in the end.
We arrived too late, alas, to really look at the old bridge or the
Victorian engineering museums in Ironbridge. Dinner at the Malthouse
(Shropshire Lad good, Hanby Kelly's Gold very good) was pretty
expensive; we'd made 81 miles for a total of 359.
Day 6
=====
Very early start with a 1 in 5 to climb up out of Ironbridge, but by
this point we'd toughened up a bit and ground up it without too much
trouble. After that we made extremely fast time through and past
Telford with a slight downhill and a following wind.
On balance, when you're zipping at 25mph past a sliproad on a dual
carriageway with huge lorries thundering past, you don't want the
captain to be stung on the knee by a wasp. Robin was a bit disturbed
by the sudden wobble and stream of profanity, but we kept it under
control, stopped on the verge, and I hopped around for five minutes
before we set off again. Fortunately the sting didn't remain painful
for any length of time, and twenty minutes later we were back up to
full speed.
An easy climb past Hodnet brought us up and over towards Whitchurch
where we had lunch at the White Bear on the recommendation of the
local bike shop - plenty of food, which was lucky as I was
phenomenally hungry (and John Smith's Cask, which is always a nice
change). On the way over we stopped in a layby behind a caravan; the
couple in it came out to talk to us and turned out to be
ex-tandemistes themselves - a surprising number of people do.
After lunch we met another E2E pair whose planned campsite was full -
I do hope they sorted that out - and more caravanners, who offered us
cups of tea. Then through Warrington, with some excitement in the
traffic, and a couple of miles out the other side to the Pied Bull for
a very early arrival (in Newton-le-Willows); unlike every other stop
this was a hotel, but it was perfectly satisfactory if nothing
special. We ate there (Posthlewaites beer OK); we'd made 71 that day
for a total of 431 miles.
Day 7
=====
There isn't a very good way to clear the big industrial cities in the
North, but Warrington positions you for a run between Manchester and
Liverpool, and we started up to Wigan. After Wigan the proposed route
takes you up towards Clitheroe, but after looking over the route
profile we decided that was a stupid idea, and we'd run up the A6
(which is quite pleasant, with most traffic on the M6) to Preston and
Lancaster then cut East to Kirkby Lonsdale. Of course, if we'd known
in advance, we'd have got a night stop on the A6, since the next day
was to take us West again, rejoining the A6 North of Kendal.
This made for easy going up to lunch at the Royal Oak at Garstang,
where we ate with 2 other cyclists, one of whom was out for the very
first time after a knee operation. Regrettably, this was when the
weather changed; hereafter, we never had any very terrible days, but
we had intermittent rain every subsequent day. Going the length of the
country at this time of year really means you see everything - when we
left we were panting in blazing sunshine and shorts, and in North
Scotland I was in bibtights, winter jersey, winter gloves, and cursing
the rain...
The rain came and went from drizzle to strong up to Lancaster, where
negotiating the city centre proved tricky; then rolling country and
flagging riders meant we stopped for a rest on the final leg at
Hornby, which delayed us just for the fifteen minutes or so we needed
to be hit by torrential rain just outside Kirkby Lonsdale.
However, we found the B&B, the Copper Kettle (in Kirkby Lonsdale)
almost immediately, dried out, and had dinner at the Snooty Fox
(Landlord and Black Sheep); it was good, but at those prices it should
have been. We'd made 65 that day for a total of 495; with a long day
ahead we got a reasonably early night, but the earliest breakfast was
0830.
Day 8
=====
We'd started later than we'd hoped, and we were to lose time as the
day went on; first by sheltering from a bad patch of rain in a church
at Firbank, then battling crosswinds, and then by the chain (which had
mangled the chainrings at Cheltenham, of course) deciding it had had
enough abuse. We had a spare chain, but fortunately only a few links
were bent and having moved from a 52 to a 48 big ring there was enough
slack to punch out the damaged links and fit my spare master link.
The next delay was nicer; a very good tearoom at Orton. We should have
started having morning tea stops earlier in the trip, but after this
day we made it a regular thing. Inside we met three other touring
cyclists, two of whom we'd see regularly thereafter, and a walker on
the coast-to-coast; eventually we dragged ourselves away and skirted
(ie, climbed up and over, alas) the edge of Crosby Ravensworth Fell
before rejoining the A6.
After that we made phenomenal speed to Penrith thanks to a slight net
downhill, good weather, and an invigorated tandem team - we were
regularly making 30mph without too much effort; when we arrived we had
lunch at the Agricultural Hotel where superb Jennings Sneck Lifter let
me sacrifice some of the time we'd made up. However, the rain almost
lifted completely and the SW wind seemed intent on blowing us to
Carlisle, letting us make more time to use up when we had our second
puncture of the trip there. Joy.
Here I made a mistake; I didn't, even though I had the tyre off,
replace the nasty plastic rim tape with the Velox cloth tape I had in
my spares bag. This would punish us later. However, by sheer luck it
chucked it down with rain just after finishing the repair, rather than
during it - however, since I can't see my speedo under my rain cape, I
didn't know I'd put the front wheel on the wrong way round, and had to
adjust it the following day to catch up with Robin's cyclecomputer.
At Robin's advice we skipped the A74 direct to Gretna, a motorway in
all but name, and went the extra 4 miles via Longtown; there we turned
West into the teeth of the wind that had helped us thus far. This last
leg through Gretna, into Scotland, and onto Annan was very heavy going
with Robin fading, but we struggled on to arrive at the Nancy Pagan
B&B just before 8 pm.
Dinner was a simple (but huge) takeaway Chinese; we'd made 79 miles
for a total of 574.
Day 9
=====
Breakfast at 0730, but then I delayed somewhat to raise my saddle
slightly, relieving some left knee pain. We got slightly misdirected
on NCN #7 to Newbie (no, really) before making good time to Dumfries
in spite of a stiff South-Westerly wind with a tea stop 18 miles in.
However, after that we had a rear tyre failure with the bead
separating from the cords, which also destroyed an inner tube; we had
one spare tyre, but were running out of tubes. Fortunately Mike Quin
had agreed to bring spare tubes when meeting us the following day.
We eventually made it to lunch at a hotel in Thornhill (Caledonian
80/-, lunch not bad for a moderate price) 15 minutes before they
stopped serving, then pressed on quickly to Sanguhar then through
rolling hills to New Cumnock, where we had a rest break.
From there the A76 took us past Cumnock - very straight and smooth,
and the climbing nicely evened out. We found the B&B (Ardwell in
Mauchline) easily enough, but there was no food at the local pub after
1930, so another takeout Chinese beckoned, and an early night. 71
miles this day; 645 total.
Day 10
======
The weather this day was mostly clear - the showers were violent but
so short that I didn't wear waterproofs all day, setting myself up for
a fall later. We were awake early to push up to meet Mike - we had a
fast run to Kilmarnock where we stopped in a Halfords and bought their
widest road tyre (still much too narrow) only to discover a perfectly
good real bike shop in Kilmaurs. We cut the intended route short with
the A735, A736 to Barrhead then up North through Paisley (over a very
bad road surface) to meet Mike at The Bridgewater Tavern (with no
beer, bah, but very cheap food) just South of the Erskine Bridge.
We talked to Mike about cows for a bit, then headed up and over the
bridge - Mike was very feisty and much faster than our heavily laden
selves. We left him North of the bridge then headed up the A814
through Dumbarton, Renton, and Alexandria then up Loch Lomond - the
scenery was now very impressive but the rain was definitely
increasing.
Everything is very huge up there so it was easy to get slowed down by
"stealth hills", inclines that look flat - nevertheless we had good
progress to the Old Toll House in Tarbet, or more accurately past it
to the railway station and then back again, but still arriving at
1715. Dinner was at the "Ben Lomond", which is shockingly
Scottish-twee but does a decent steak for all that. 69 miles that day,
715 total.
Day 11
======
After morning porridge we made our way up the winding A82 to Ardlui -
dry conditions made a nice change - then a steady climb to Tyndrum for
tea in the (nice but very touristy) Green Welly. All morning we kept
seeing two women on the E2E we'd previously seen in a tearoom in
Orton, but since they were due to finish a day after us we expected to
pull ahead of them.
We then had a long coast down before a stiff long climb up to Rannoch
Moor. Midway up we talked to a Swiss couple in a layby one of whom had
worked in a bike shop and immediately spotted the rear wheel as a
hand-built one - Rob had been listening to me talk about Brandt on and
off, and was very amused when I referred to _The Bicycle Wheel_,
Brandt's book, only to have this chap exclaim "Ah, yes, the Bible."
We came across Rannoch Moor, very desolate, to the Kings House Hotel
(Caledonian 80/- again) for lunch. This was where things started to go
slightly awry - their dining room was not well heated, and I was
pretty wet when I sat down so when I stood up I was wet and cold, and
then we started off into a bad stealth hill and headwind without me
doing any of Robin's ninja stretches before a start, and the upshot
was that I quickly developed sore knees which would bother me for the
rest of the trip.
We got some rest on the descent to Glen Coe and Ballachulish (this is
a very long smooth descent, perhaps seven miles at 20-30mph without
significant pedalling) but then we had a steady climb up to Fort
William. Oddly, I found my knee pain was eased by crunching really big
gears - Robin was not convinced this was a good idea, but it was what
I could stand. This tired Robin out - it is very hard, oddly, for one
member of a tandem team to take it easy when the other one is pushing
hard - so we walked through Fort William and had a rest at the
remaining ruins of the fort before taking it easy to Spean Bridge and
the Coire Glas Guest House.
I can't quite recommend it - a "drying room" at the ambient outside
temperature in Scotland in September isn't a drying room (and if we'd
known we could have hung stuff on radiators as we usually did), and it
was generally not very friendly. Dinner at the Old Station restaurant
- Isle of Skye Red Cuillin beer and good food. We'd clocked 80 miles
taking the total to 795.
Day 12
======
The weather started good, but my right knee was still very
painful. Fortunately we started with easy running over swing bridges
(which were a constant feature this day) to a tea stop just SW of Fort
Augustus - nice toasties, shame about the tourist **** - then into the
town proper for a bucket of ibuprofen which I would munch contentedly
on for the rest of the trip, then up to Drumnadrochit for lunch with
the going still easy and pleasantly warm on the north side of the
loch.
Unfortunately the hotel listed in the Big Book of Beer had no food at
lunchtime, so we ended up a pricey restaurant eating merely adequate
food. We abandoned the direct route up the A833 which ends with a
climb over 1 in 5, and instead added 10 miles running up to Inverness
and over the impressive Kessock Bridge on the A9 where we saw the
first road sign mentioning John O'Groats - after this we diverted from
the very busy road up NCN1 to Tore. NCN1 was a mixed blessing, at best
country roads, at worst wee-smelling underpasses full of broken glass.
We had a short break in Tore then had a few miles of gentle climbing
followed by a few miles of not-so-gentle descending at up to 37mph,
which brought us up to Dingwall, the Moydene B&B, and a decent dinner
at the Mallard - 74 miles down, total 868.
Day 13
======
I was suffering less, and we made rapid progress up the A9 with a
tailwind to the tea stop at Tain, over Dornoch Firth, and up and down
to Loch Fleet; the first real climb of the day took us to lunch at the
Ben Bhraggie hotel, and then a short leg to Dunrobin Castle on the
coast, which is an 1830 mockup but still very impressive.
This day was short - the Dornoch Firth bridge postdates Mr Brown's
book - so we took a look around outside (being too tight to pay
admission) and chatted to another chap on the E2E whose friends we had
seen at the bridge - one of them had broken three spokes that day,
although we seemed to be finished with mechanicals ourselves for a
bit; then pressed on to Helmsdale and the Broomhill House B&B over
some short but stiff hills.
59 miles made a short day with the total 927, but only 55 miles to go
to JOG.
Day 14
======
We started slightly late and over some initially challenging hills;
also we had a very slow puncture in the rear which we opted just to
pump up every 20 miles and put up with. This would be a busy day for
the puncture fairy; on a steep descent, the front tyre blew
unexpectedly. Fortunately I was able to slap on the anchors (with help
from Robin on the drum brake) and stop before it deflated enough to
make steering difficult.
It turned out to have been caused by the nasty plastic rim tape I
failed to replace with a Velox cloth tape at Carlisle, so I did the
sensible thing and changed it. We then pressed on through hard country
to a tearoom just NE of Dunkeath.
Thereafter the going was much easier - long easy descent to lunch in a
Wetherspoons in Wick whose beer delivery had failed to arrive. Curses!
We set off again and were passed by Simon and Donna about ten miles
from JOG; we offloaded two huge bags into their huge vehicle and
pressed on over the last hill.
We remembered to apply the brakes and turn left to avoid falling into
the sea; met S&D again and let Simon spray us with sparkling wine -
then we spotted the "official" start-finish line and cruised over it.
JOG is a real place, unlike Land's End, and so isn't quite either the
most northerly or north-easterly point; we crammed the tandem into
Simon's hired people-carrier (a point of some concern to those of
lesser faith who hadn't measured it up) and let Simon drive us to
Dunnet Head which is actually the most Northerly point before dinner
at the Seaview Hotel and a sampling of the extensive whisky
selection. We'd come 54 miles for a grand total of 981.
Equipment and Spares
====================
The bike's a 1989 Super Galaxy tandem. The captain's saddle's a Brooks
B17 Narrow; the stoker had a B-67, which is sprung. The stoker's hit
up harder over bumps, so that made sense.
The front bars are a Nitto Noodle 46cm with big foam handgrips and
bar-end shifters.
The stoker's cranks were Stronglight with a single bolt circle, which
I can't recommend (see the problems with bent chainrings, etc - a
large chainring on a small bolt circle is very floppy), with a 28t
granny ring. I've since replaced this with a Sugino XD 110/74 crank,
which goes down to a 24t granny. You cannot have too low a gear for an
undertaking like this. The rear sprockets were 11-28 until after the
first full day, when they were 13-34, where they have stayed. (Now we
have sensible cranks, the large chainring is 53t, so we're not missing
a high gear).
The front hub was the 40-hole Suzue which came with the tandem -
nothing wrong with it, but it's now got a 36-hole SON on a Sun
Rhyno. The rear hub was a 48-hole Shimano - adjusting a cup and cone
hub before screwing a drum brake onto it is a royal PITA, and now we
have a White Industries tandem hub. The drum brake was the normal Arai
model.
We used a Tortec Expedition steel rear rack - one kind I can't break -
Ortlieb rolltop rear panniers, and a small Brooks saddlebag. We didn't
need front panniers, but we forgot to take the racks off anyway.
We had Bontrager Select K tyres. Of course, since they were a fat road
slick, they aren't made anymore. The bike has cantilevers - normal
front, self-energising rear.
We started with the following spares and tools.
2 inner tubes (bring more).
Brake blocks (Kool Stop Salmons). We did wear out a set.
Light bulbs and batteries (fit a dynamo!).
Rim tape (used).
Chainring bolts (unused, but they're tiny).
Gear levers (unused).
A cantilever straddle cable.
A tyre (used).
A chain and master link (used).
A cassette (used, but I wouldn't have if I'd got the gearing right to
begin with).
Duct tape.
Grease.
Short chunks of cable housing.
Four spokes of each length.
A tyre boot.
Brake and gear cables.
Cable ties (on no account omit cable ties!).
A boring multitool.
Proper allen keys. Well worth it not to use the multitool for
everything.
A dumb-bell spanner.
An adjustable spanner (also worth it).
Cone wrenches (which also are an easy way to adjust the Suntour
self-energising rear brakes, but I never used as cone wrenches).
A pressure gauge.
Zefal HPX3 pump.
Tyre levers.
A "hypercracker" field cassette remover (which I used).
A swiss army knife (well worth it).
A bottom bracket pin spanner (which also adjusts the eccentric for the
synch chain tension, which I used).
A cable cutter.
Two proper screwdrivers.
A spoke key.
A chain tool (overkill, the one on the multitool is OK).
--
David Damerell <[email protected]> Distortion Field!
Today is Friday, September.
In September 2004, Robin Geddes and I (David Damerell) rode the End to
End. Writing it up has proved much trickier than doing it - seven
months after Robin mentioned the idea we'd bought a tandem and were
rolling into Penzance, but I'm writing this rather later.
We took two weeks to do it, staying in B&Bs - this is very definitely
the right idea unless you cannot afford to do anything but camp. We
originally planned the route using Simon Brown's Cicerone Guide, a
slender green volume, but we worked out along the way that Mr. Brown
is an extremely strong hill climber and likes scenery an awful lot; we
were, obviously, booked into our B&Bs each night, but we started
looking at the route each morning and gently trimming some of the more
exciting excursions.
There's a detailed description of the bike and equipment at the end,
but briefly, we bought a second-hand '89 Dawes Super Galaxy tandem on
eBay from a chap who, fortunately, lived about 2 miles from me. A
tandem is an excellent choice for a pair of people who are not equally
strong cyclists, and it means less work even for matched pairs. Robin
had never ridden tandem before and I had only ridden stoker a few
times, so the first few tries on it were very exciting, but we got
used to it in half an hour or so, and we've actually never fallen off
it (and I've only kicked Robin in the chest once dismounting as if
from a solo. Sorry, Robin.)
We rode the tandem on my commute for weeks, 11 miles each way, and we
went out on Sunday rides with the Reading CTC (which are about the
daily mileage we proposed for the E2E once we'd got to and from
Reading), but what we didn't do was ride long distances successive
days. I'd strongly advise anyone training for the E2E to ride at least
Saturdays and Sundays, and if at all possible every day on Bank
Holiday Weekends. One of the lessons you learn is that you have to
keep the effort down much more when you have to do the same thing the
next day and the day after that and so on...
My friend Karen Martin, whose family live a few miles East of
Penzance, very kindly volunteered to put us up for the Friday night
(after riding from Land's End), which let us effectively start 17
miles down the road on the Saturday morning. I didn't know, however,
that she wouldn't be there at the time, so really I think I should be
thanking the rest of her family instead.
Day 0
=====
I could not get the Friday off work, so Robin and our friend Paul (who
was a great deal of help) drove down with the bike on a roofrack, but
I got the train from Reading after work (dull, but on time); they
collected me in Penzance, and Paul dropped us at Land's End (but would
join us at the Martins' house that night). Land's End is not a real
place; there's a tourist centre there, which was shut, and nothing
else. After some initial photographs (we brought 4 disposable
cameras), we waved goodbye to Paul and set off down the A30, which is
a winding hilly country road so pretty alarming in the dark.
First lesson I learned; don't ever say "We'll hardly ever have to ride
in the dark, battery lights will be OK". Fit a dynamo. I've now got a
pair of dynamo headlights for the tandem - both Robin and I have
wheels built up around Schmidt hub dynamos which can be fitted to the
tandem - but we spent more time than we expected in the dark having to
go slow because of battery lights' inadequate focussing.
We had a strong tailwind on this leg, had left most of our luggage in
Paul's car, and rode fast, so we quickly passed through Penzance, and
were met by Karen's sister on the way over to their house, where they
were very hospitable to us.
Day 1
=====
8am start - which I regard as fundamentally unnatural, but we got used
to it those two weeks - to load the full luggage onto the bike, which
only exacerbated the day's unpleasant discovery; Cornwall is the
hilliest place in Britain. In Scotland, the roads have been built on
the contours; in Cornwall, some joker with a ruler has laid them out,
making for steep climbs - but because the hills are small, no descent
gives you time to catch your breath properly, and of course at the
start of the trip you're not as tough as you are at the end. Lesson
two; you can't have too-low gearing for this kind of thing.
This day saw the first of our persistent gearing problems; dropping
the chain off the granny ring, which we were making more use of. I
adjusted it at Helston - the day's route took us not to the North
coast of Cornwall but up the A394 and the A39 nearer to the South
coast - where we stopped to look at someone's collection of brightly
painted tanks and pant gently; the weather was blazing hot and
remained so until Kirkby Lonsdale midway through the trip.
26 miles from the start brought us to Truro and lunch with an old
friend of Robin's in the Old Ale House - corny name, but decent cheap
food and decent beer - (Shinner Kiddlywink, good). Irritatingly, the
one of us who could drink at lunch without getting sleepy was also the
one in charge of the steering, so it had to be kept to a minimum. We
said goodbye to Paul, and set off towards St. Austell; here we became
gradually weaker and had to walk a hill - not the last of the trip. We
stopped and rested at a garage and ground on to the night's stop near
Lostwithiel (The Old Chapel), which was very nice albeit one of the
pricier stops of the trip.
One of the owners kindly drove us into the village for dinner at the
Earl of Chatham. I should explain that I had CAMRA's Good Beer Guide
with me as my one book; it was worth its weight in weight. Almost
every lunch and dinner stop here was picked from the GBG. The food was
also good and cheap - a common thing in the Southwest - and the
St. Austell beers excellent, particularly Tribute. We'd done 54 miles
that day for a total of 71 - this seems short, but actually the
Cornwall days on an E2E want to be shorter than the long flat expanses
in the middle of the trip.
Day 2
=====
I was up early to change the 11-29 rear cassette to a 13-34.
Irritatingly, the little spacer between the lockring and the cassette
was bent, making it impossible to tighten the lockring fully and hold
the sprockets in place; eventually I put a cable tie between the 13
and the 15, tightening everything up at the cost of those two
sprockets. This was not a problem this day - we barely got into the
middle ring. Here was where we learned to conserve our strength - we
were like bags of wet spaghetti this day because of riding hard the
day before.
We started with a huge English breakfast - or I started with one and
Robin started with about half of one (often one of us would be
mysteriously not-hungry). This was a mistake, delicious as it was; all
that meat sits like a huge lump in your stomach and slows you down in
the morning. On later mornings we'd have porridge, eggs, and toast for
breakfast, with black pudding for me where they had it.
We churned slowly, slowly up the A390 to Tavistock, stopping to talk
to another E2E group near Callington. Later we saw the aftermath of a
motorcycle accident - petrol everywhere, but the rider fortunately
appeared unhurt. We had lunch at the Trout and Tipple (Otter bitter,
satisfactory) just NE of Tavistock - they tolerated our arriving late
and lingering after their nominal finish time. After that we made the
first real change to the route; instead of crossing Dartmoor, we took
a longer but less ambitious route up the Western side, past
Okehampton, then East to Copplestone. Our stop for the night,
Jellicoe's, was out in the winding country roads to the NorthEast.
Here I managed our one really serious navigational screwup - in
gathering dark. It didn't help that the Bartholomew map extract in
Jellicoe's directions was to a slightly larger scale but also wrong,
unlike the Ordnance Survey road maps we'd brought, but Robin quite
rightly wanted us to go a slightly nominally longer route but approach
as far as possible on the main roads. Instead we described a sort of
spiral about the destination, walking up and down the terribly steep
hills (down because of the lack of decent lights), being met by a
member of the CTC who set us a little straighter, tiring, scaring the
hell out of cows with the brake squeal, and eventually walking a mile
across some fields on a nominal public footpath - which wouldn't have
been so bad, except the middle field was freshly ploughed and the
tandem sank in it so had to be carried - naturally it got a flat at
that point. Luckily we met a local there who pointed us the remaining
200 yards to Jellicoe's, which we walked, exhausted.
Jellicoe did have excellent food even for people turning up 3 hours
late, and I happened to run into an ex-colleague from the Chemistry
department in Cambridge who was staying there on a walking holiday - a
small world. We got an early night; we'd made 70 miles (10 of which
were pointless) for a total of 141. I believe Robin may have forgiven
me by now for that night's little adventure, but I'm trying not to do
it again.
Day 3
=====
After clearing the last of the hills, the terrain eased enormously;
even into the stiff north-easterly wind, the going was vastly easier
than the previous 2 days down to Tiverton and around to Taunton, which
raised our spirits. Lunch was at the Mason's Arms in Taunton - my
notes say "food OK but cheapish, RGH Pitchfork grew on me rapidly",
but more unusually the Gents had a selection of rather tasteful 30s
black and white photographs of naked ladies on the wall. We didn't go
in the Ladies, so I have no idea what the decor there was like.
After lunch, we looked for a bike shop in Taunton; Colmans were happy
to help us with the mangled lockring spacer and some more cardboard-
flavoured energy bars. Good timing, since it looked like in flatter
terrain we might actually need the smaller sprockets.
We made decent speed up the A38 through Brigwater towards Cheddar;
apart from the very last bit, the terrain was still very flat. We
found the B&B (The Bay Rose in Cheddar) without difficulty, which made
a nice change, and had dinner at a Chinese in Cheddar - good, but also
expensive - and looked over the next day's route, aiming to cut the
corner and avoid Shepton Mallet, which seemed a pointless diversion,
but not to go the very direct but unpleasant route through Bristol.
We'd made 68 that day for a 209 total, but for the first time it
seemed like we might be mostly in for pleasant runs through the
country and not a complicated exercise in masochism.
Day 4
=====
Robin's turn to be not-hungry at breakfast - he was more prone to this
than me - which was a shame, because the spread was huge. The north-
easterly wind kept us busy today, but it was still easier than
Cornwall - an easy run down to Wells where we looked at the Cathedral,
then over the Mendips (saving ourselves a few miles by taking the A39
out of Wells rather than going to Shepton Mallet), down through
Radstock, and to Bath; we passed National Cycle Route #24 on the way
but decided we preferred the direct route. We had lunch at a very
strange (but GBG-listed) place in Bath, Lambrettas; there's a
mod-style scooter in the window, and all the decor is mod-era
Lambretta styled. The Abbey Bellringer was refreshing and the food was
good - and it did make a change from the usual run of pubs.
Robin was pretty tired after lunch, and we had a steep climb out of
Bath on the A46 and then stiff crosswinds in high rolling terrain -
crosswinds are a nuisance on a tandem because the captain must do
twice as much work with the handlebars to keep the bike going forwards
- but we still made decent progress to Stroud; at the junction with
the M4 we stopped for a pee and met a chap who was very interested in
the bike. At Stroud we stopped at a supermarket for milk, water,
money, and baby cream for my chafed right thigh - the only real saddle
soreness problem we had. There's a considerable climb out of Stroud,
but since Mr Brown's book stopped at Stroud on day 4, we consoled
ourselves with the idea that this was really coming out of tomorrow's
run.
We got a little lost at the end, but found Pound Cottage OK (in
Cranham); dinner at the Black Horse, an old haunt of Robin's from
consulting in the area. The food was good and copious; pick of the
beer would be Sharp's Doom Bar. Straight to bed after dinner, as
usual; we'd clocked 69 for a total 278 miles.
Day 5
=====
Tightened the drum and front brakes after breakfast - things had
loosened up a bit. Easy going after climbing up to the main road, but
unfortunately the chain stuck between the middle and large chainrings,
bending the middle one badly and the large one to a degree.
Fortunately the terrain was very flat and we could limp into
Cheltenham on the 52, where a local cyclist recommended Williams (a
bike shop) to us as a possible source of 86mm BCD Stronglight
chainrings, and it was the work of a few minutes to fit a new 42 and
48 in place of the bent rings (and, I'm afraid, a few more minutes
further down the road to fiddle the limit screw so I could reach the
granny ring again).
After that we headed to Worcester for lunch at the Salmon's Leap; the
food was good but too small, the beer OK but uninspiring, and this was
the one place on the whole trip that wanted to charge us for tap water
when we were paying for food and beer. That's no way to get cyclists'
custom in the summer; one to avoid.
NNW out of Worcester through heavy terrain, but the wind had eased up;
however, the book's promised "descent" into Brignorth after
Kidderminster was full of hills, which we felt was a bit unfair. We
headed straight up the A442 towards Telford to avoid another hilly
patch on the original route; however, Ironbridge (where we were
staying) was tricky to find without going around the South half of
Telford's one-way system. Eventually we got there; I managed to take
us too far downhill to the new bridge while Robin was on the phone
figuring out exactly where we were staying, but we got back to the
quite luxurious B&B (The Old Library, Ironbridge) in the end.
We arrived too late, alas, to really look at the old bridge or the
Victorian engineering museums in Ironbridge. Dinner at the Malthouse
(Shropshire Lad good, Hanby Kelly's Gold very good) was pretty
expensive; we'd made 81 miles for a total of 359.
Day 6
=====
Very early start with a 1 in 5 to climb up out of Ironbridge, but by
this point we'd toughened up a bit and ground up it without too much
trouble. After that we made extremely fast time through and past
Telford with a slight downhill and a following wind.
On balance, when you're zipping at 25mph past a sliproad on a dual
carriageway with huge lorries thundering past, you don't want the
captain to be stung on the knee by a wasp. Robin was a bit disturbed
by the sudden wobble and stream of profanity, but we kept it under
control, stopped on the verge, and I hopped around for five minutes
before we set off again. Fortunately the sting didn't remain painful
for any length of time, and twenty minutes later we were back up to
full speed.
An easy climb past Hodnet brought us up and over towards Whitchurch
where we had lunch at the White Bear on the recommendation of the
local bike shop - plenty of food, which was lucky as I was
phenomenally hungry (and John Smith's Cask, which is always a nice
change). On the way over we stopped in a layby behind a caravan; the
couple in it came out to talk to us and turned out to be
ex-tandemistes themselves - a surprising number of people do.
After lunch we met another E2E pair whose planned campsite was full -
I do hope they sorted that out - and more caravanners, who offered us
cups of tea. Then through Warrington, with some excitement in the
traffic, and a couple of miles out the other side to the Pied Bull for
a very early arrival (in Newton-le-Willows); unlike every other stop
this was a hotel, but it was perfectly satisfactory if nothing
special. We ate there (Posthlewaites beer OK); we'd made 71 that day
for a total of 431 miles.
Day 7
=====
There isn't a very good way to clear the big industrial cities in the
North, but Warrington positions you for a run between Manchester and
Liverpool, and we started up to Wigan. After Wigan the proposed route
takes you up towards Clitheroe, but after looking over the route
profile we decided that was a stupid idea, and we'd run up the A6
(which is quite pleasant, with most traffic on the M6) to Preston and
Lancaster then cut East to Kirkby Lonsdale. Of course, if we'd known
in advance, we'd have got a night stop on the A6, since the next day
was to take us West again, rejoining the A6 North of Kendal.
This made for easy going up to lunch at the Royal Oak at Garstang,
where we ate with 2 other cyclists, one of whom was out for the very
first time after a knee operation. Regrettably, this was when the
weather changed; hereafter, we never had any very terrible days, but
we had intermittent rain every subsequent day. Going the length of the
country at this time of year really means you see everything - when we
left we were panting in blazing sunshine and shorts, and in North
Scotland I was in bibtights, winter jersey, winter gloves, and cursing
the rain...
The rain came and went from drizzle to strong up to Lancaster, where
negotiating the city centre proved tricky; then rolling country and
flagging riders meant we stopped for a rest on the final leg at
Hornby, which delayed us just for the fifteen minutes or so we needed
to be hit by torrential rain just outside Kirkby Lonsdale.
However, we found the B&B, the Copper Kettle (in Kirkby Lonsdale)
almost immediately, dried out, and had dinner at the Snooty Fox
(Landlord and Black Sheep); it was good, but at those prices it should
have been. We'd made 65 that day for a total of 495; with a long day
ahead we got a reasonably early night, but the earliest breakfast was
0830.
Day 8
=====
We'd started later than we'd hoped, and we were to lose time as the
day went on; first by sheltering from a bad patch of rain in a church
at Firbank, then battling crosswinds, and then by the chain (which had
mangled the chainrings at Cheltenham, of course) deciding it had had
enough abuse. We had a spare chain, but fortunately only a few links
were bent and having moved from a 52 to a 48 big ring there was enough
slack to punch out the damaged links and fit my spare master link.
The next delay was nicer; a very good tearoom at Orton. We should have
started having morning tea stops earlier in the trip, but after this
day we made it a regular thing. Inside we met three other touring
cyclists, two of whom we'd see regularly thereafter, and a walker on
the coast-to-coast; eventually we dragged ourselves away and skirted
(ie, climbed up and over, alas) the edge of Crosby Ravensworth Fell
before rejoining the A6.
After that we made phenomenal speed to Penrith thanks to a slight net
downhill, good weather, and an invigorated tandem team - we were
regularly making 30mph without too much effort; when we arrived we had
lunch at the Agricultural Hotel where superb Jennings Sneck Lifter let
me sacrifice some of the time we'd made up. However, the rain almost
lifted completely and the SW wind seemed intent on blowing us to
Carlisle, letting us make more time to use up when we had our second
puncture of the trip there. Joy.
Here I made a mistake; I didn't, even though I had the tyre off,
replace the nasty plastic rim tape with the Velox cloth tape I had in
my spares bag. This would punish us later. However, by sheer luck it
chucked it down with rain just after finishing the repair, rather than
during it - however, since I can't see my speedo under my rain cape, I
didn't know I'd put the front wheel on the wrong way round, and had to
adjust it the following day to catch up with Robin's cyclecomputer.
At Robin's advice we skipped the A74 direct to Gretna, a motorway in
all but name, and went the extra 4 miles via Longtown; there we turned
West into the teeth of the wind that had helped us thus far. This last
leg through Gretna, into Scotland, and onto Annan was very heavy going
with Robin fading, but we struggled on to arrive at the Nancy Pagan
B&B just before 8 pm.
Dinner was a simple (but huge) takeaway Chinese; we'd made 79 miles
for a total of 574.
Day 9
=====
Breakfast at 0730, but then I delayed somewhat to raise my saddle
slightly, relieving some left knee pain. We got slightly misdirected
on NCN #7 to Newbie (no, really) before making good time to Dumfries
in spite of a stiff South-Westerly wind with a tea stop 18 miles in.
However, after that we had a rear tyre failure with the bead
separating from the cords, which also destroyed an inner tube; we had
one spare tyre, but were running out of tubes. Fortunately Mike Quin
had agreed to bring spare tubes when meeting us the following day.
We eventually made it to lunch at a hotel in Thornhill (Caledonian
80/-, lunch not bad for a moderate price) 15 minutes before they
stopped serving, then pressed on quickly to Sanguhar then through
rolling hills to New Cumnock, where we had a rest break.
From there the A76 took us past Cumnock - very straight and smooth,
and the climbing nicely evened out. We found the B&B (Ardwell in
Mauchline) easily enough, but there was no food at the local pub after
1930, so another takeout Chinese beckoned, and an early night. 71
miles this day; 645 total.
Day 10
======
The weather this day was mostly clear - the showers were violent but
so short that I didn't wear waterproofs all day, setting myself up for
a fall later. We were awake early to push up to meet Mike - we had a
fast run to Kilmarnock where we stopped in a Halfords and bought their
widest road tyre (still much too narrow) only to discover a perfectly
good real bike shop in Kilmaurs. We cut the intended route short with
the A735, A736 to Barrhead then up North through Paisley (over a very
bad road surface) to meet Mike at The Bridgewater Tavern (with no
beer, bah, but very cheap food) just South of the Erskine Bridge.
We talked to Mike about cows for a bit, then headed up and over the
bridge - Mike was very feisty and much faster than our heavily laden
selves. We left him North of the bridge then headed up the A814
through Dumbarton, Renton, and Alexandria then up Loch Lomond - the
scenery was now very impressive but the rain was definitely
increasing.
Everything is very huge up there so it was easy to get slowed down by
"stealth hills", inclines that look flat - nevertheless we had good
progress to the Old Toll House in Tarbet, or more accurately past it
to the railway station and then back again, but still arriving at
1715. Dinner was at the "Ben Lomond", which is shockingly
Scottish-twee but does a decent steak for all that. 69 miles that day,
715 total.
Day 11
======
After morning porridge we made our way up the winding A82 to Ardlui -
dry conditions made a nice change - then a steady climb to Tyndrum for
tea in the (nice but very touristy) Green Welly. All morning we kept
seeing two women on the E2E we'd previously seen in a tearoom in
Orton, but since they were due to finish a day after us we expected to
pull ahead of them.
We then had a long coast down before a stiff long climb up to Rannoch
Moor. Midway up we talked to a Swiss couple in a layby one of whom had
worked in a bike shop and immediately spotted the rear wheel as a
hand-built one - Rob had been listening to me talk about Brandt on and
off, and was very amused when I referred to _The Bicycle Wheel_,
Brandt's book, only to have this chap exclaim "Ah, yes, the Bible."
We came across Rannoch Moor, very desolate, to the Kings House Hotel
(Caledonian 80/- again) for lunch. This was where things started to go
slightly awry - their dining room was not well heated, and I was
pretty wet when I sat down so when I stood up I was wet and cold, and
then we started off into a bad stealth hill and headwind without me
doing any of Robin's ninja stretches before a start, and the upshot
was that I quickly developed sore knees which would bother me for the
rest of the trip.
We got some rest on the descent to Glen Coe and Ballachulish (this is
a very long smooth descent, perhaps seven miles at 20-30mph without
significant pedalling) but then we had a steady climb up to Fort
William. Oddly, I found my knee pain was eased by crunching really big
gears - Robin was not convinced this was a good idea, but it was what
I could stand. This tired Robin out - it is very hard, oddly, for one
member of a tandem team to take it easy when the other one is pushing
hard - so we walked through Fort William and had a rest at the
remaining ruins of the fort before taking it easy to Spean Bridge and
the Coire Glas Guest House.
I can't quite recommend it - a "drying room" at the ambient outside
temperature in Scotland in September isn't a drying room (and if we'd
known we could have hung stuff on radiators as we usually did), and it
was generally not very friendly. Dinner at the Old Station restaurant
- Isle of Skye Red Cuillin beer and good food. We'd clocked 80 miles
taking the total to 795.
Day 12
======
The weather started good, but my right knee was still very
painful. Fortunately we started with easy running over swing bridges
(which were a constant feature this day) to a tea stop just SW of Fort
Augustus - nice toasties, shame about the tourist **** - then into the
town proper for a bucket of ibuprofen which I would munch contentedly
on for the rest of the trip, then up to Drumnadrochit for lunch with
the going still easy and pleasantly warm on the north side of the
loch.
Unfortunately the hotel listed in the Big Book of Beer had no food at
lunchtime, so we ended up a pricey restaurant eating merely adequate
food. We abandoned the direct route up the A833 which ends with a
climb over 1 in 5, and instead added 10 miles running up to Inverness
and over the impressive Kessock Bridge on the A9 where we saw the
first road sign mentioning John O'Groats - after this we diverted from
the very busy road up NCN1 to Tore. NCN1 was a mixed blessing, at best
country roads, at worst wee-smelling underpasses full of broken glass.
We had a short break in Tore then had a few miles of gentle climbing
followed by a few miles of not-so-gentle descending at up to 37mph,
which brought us up to Dingwall, the Moydene B&B, and a decent dinner
at the Mallard - 74 miles down, total 868.
Day 13
======
I was suffering less, and we made rapid progress up the A9 with a
tailwind to the tea stop at Tain, over Dornoch Firth, and up and down
to Loch Fleet; the first real climb of the day took us to lunch at the
Ben Bhraggie hotel, and then a short leg to Dunrobin Castle on the
coast, which is an 1830 mockup but still very impressive.
This day was short - the Dornoch Firth bridge postdates Mr Brown's
book - so we took a look around outside (being too tight to pay
admission) and chatted to another chap on the E2E whose friends we had
seen at the bridge - one of them had broken three spokes that day,
although we seemed to be finished with mechanicals ourselves for a
bit; then pressed on to Helmsdale and the Broomhill House B&B over
some short but stiff hills.
59 miles made a short day with the total 927, but only 55 miles to go
to JOG.
Day 14
======
We started slightly late and over some initially challenging hills;
also we had a very slow puncture in the rear which we opted just to
pump up every 20 miles and put up with. This would be a busy day for
the puncture fairy; on a steep descent, the front tyre blew
unexpectedly. Fortunately I was able to slap on the anchors (with help
from Robin on the drum brake) and stop before it deflated enough to
make steering difficult.
It turned out to have been caused by the nasty plastic rim tape I
failed to replace with a Velox cloth tape at Carlisle, so I did the
sensible thing and changed it. We then pressed on through hard country
to a tearoom just NE of Dunkeath.
Thereafter the going was much easier - long easy descent to lunch in a
Wetherspoons in Wick whose beer delivery had failed to arrive. Curses!
We set off again and were passed by Simon and Donna about ten miles
from JOG; we offloaded two huge bags into their huge vehicle and
pressed on over the last hill.
We remembered to apply the brakes and turn left to avoid falling into
the sea; met S&D again and let Simon spray us with sparkling wine -
then we spotted the "official" start-finish line and cruised over it.
JOG is a real place, unlike Land's End, and so isn't quite either the
most northerly or north-easterly point; we crammed the tandem into
Simon's hired people-carrier (a point of some concern to those of
lesser faith who hadn't measured it up) and let Simon drive us to
Dunnet Head which is actually the most Northerly point before dinner
at the Seaview Hotel and a sampling of the extensive whisky
selection. We'd come 54 miles for a grand total of 981.
Equipment and Spares
====================
The bike's a 1989 Super Galaxy tandem. The captain's saddle's a Brooks
B17 Narrow; the stoker had a B-67, which is sprung. The stoker's hit
up harder over bumps, so that made sense.
The front bars are a Nitto Noodle 46cm with big foam handgrips and
bar-end shifters.
The stoker's cranks were Stronglight with a single bolt circle, which
I can't recommend (see the problems with bent chainrings, etc - a
large chainring on a small bolt circle is very floppy), with a 28t
granny ring. I've since replaced this with a Sugino XD 110/74 crank,
which goes down to a 24t granny. You cannot have too low a gear for an
undertaking like this. The rear sprockets were 11-28 until after the
first full day, when they were 13-34, where they have stayed. (Now we
have sensible cranks, the large chainring is 53t, so we're not missing
a high gear).
The front hub was the 40-hole Suzue which came with the tandem -
nothing wrong with it, but it's now got a 36-hole SON on a Sun
Rhyno. The rear hub was a 48-hole Shimano - adjusting a cup and cone
hub before screwing a drum brake onto it is a royal PITA, and now we
have a White Industries tandem hub. The drum brake was the normal Arai
model.
We used a Tortec Expedition steel rear rack - one kind I can't break -
Ortlieb rolltop rear panniers, and a small Brooks saddlebag. We didn't
need front panniers, but we forgot to take the racks off anyway.
We had Bontrager Select K tyres. Of course, since they were a fat road
slick, they aren't made anymore. The bike has cantilevers - normal
front, self-energising rear.
We started with the following spares and tools.
2 inner tubes (bring more).
Brake blocks (Kool Stop Salmons). We did wear out a set.
Light bulbs and batteries (fit a dynamo!).
Rim tape (used).
Chainring bolts (unused, but they're tiny).
Gear levers (unused).
A cantilever straddle cable.
A tyre (used).
A chain and master link (used).
A cassette (used, but I wouldn't have if I'd got the gearing right to
begin with).
Duct tape.
Grease.
Short chunks of cable housing.
Four spokes of each length.
A tyre boot.
Brake and gear cables.
Cable ties (on no account omit cable ties!).
A boring multitool.
Proper allen keys. Well worth it not to use the multitool for
everything.
A dumb-bell spanner.
An adjustable spanner (also worth it).
Cone wrenches (which also are an easy way to adjust the Suntour
self-energising rear brakes, but I never used as cone wrenches).
A pressure gauge.
Zefal HPX3 pump.
Tyre levers.
A "hypercracker" field cassette remover (which I used).
A swiss army knife (well worth it).
A bottom bracket pin spanner (which also adjusts the eccentric for the
synch chain tension, which I used).
A cable cutter.
Two proper screwdrivers.
A spoke key.
A chain tool (overkill, the one on the multitool is OK).
--
David Damerell <[email protected]> Distortion Field!
Today is Friday, September.