29th Crianlarich to Loch Lomond (+Rest and be Thankful)

Easy downhill(ish) 40 mile day ... Well would have been ... If only. 5 years ago in our travels from Loch Awe we passed a place called Rest and be Thankful, we did not have time to stop but I wished we had. I really loved the name and was intrigued. so I thought I can do a slight (16 miles) detour. nobody volunteered so I set off an hour earlier in the hope I could catch the others up later.
So me and my trusty steed got on the road and galloped toward Tarbot. (I have stopped the place called the Drovers Inn what a find! A really quirky place. A stuffed bear and an armoured knight at the entrance room, small rooms with fascinating objects and roaring fire at 10am. - I would love to go back and stay sometime.
From Tarbot the road was winding towards my quest. A reasonably easy fivér miles and a back breaking vertical three with serious head wind. Át one point I had to get off and as I did it nearly blow me over. When I got there I felt incredibly pleased with the view and myself.
So yes I did and bloody well was.

I caught up the others and had a great ride on the side of beautiful Loch Lomond.

Another little thing which I get hacked off about; the mp3 player chooses and picks the songs which is fine because I put it on shuffle, but I am baffled and slightly annoyed that it has favourites and songs which blatantly ignores. Is it just my temperamental machine or yours as picky as mine?

Rest and be Thankful

Mull

28th Tobemory to Crianlarich

I haven't talked about food yet I do not know how I managed that, as eating is one of my favourite things. So here we go: breakfast I always feel I really had to behave wh.....
Grapefruit, cereal with lovely bits, shaky scrambled eggs with thick slices of beautiful smoked salmon, toast and honey ... that seems an awful lot compared with my usual two slices of toast. Mind you 60 miles is not my usual routine either.
The ride to the ferry took us less than half of the time than the day before. It seemed downhill nearly all the way which does not really make sense as we started and finished at the sea level, but I m not the one to complain about it. I managed to have some time on the front on my own singing to the music and pushing hard I really love the feeling the wilderness on my face with wind playing wild games with my hair it does give me freedom and mad thoughts at times.
I called Chris it just made me cry how beautiful it was ... I know I know he gently laughed at me.
Oban; lovely Prudence' gang waiting me at the port to waive me off doing the cheerleader thing with my name which makes me laugh endless. We will meet up for tea at cianlerich.
Route 78 vertical to start with breathtaking at both sense after that huge mountains everywhere and beyond.
60 miles done and I kind of feel alright although savlon close at hand.

Family coming tomorrow all of the boys,my sister rita her boyfriend and my dad in one campervan ...

Thank you lovely Prudence and Toddy.

27th

7.30 ferry from Oban. It was a taster of the magic of Mull. Ruined castle on the shore, lighthouses sail between to.
It was a bit of a suprise that we had to bike to Tobemory I thought it all kicked off tomorrow, but hey. I was a bit tired as I haven't slept much on the bus, but the excitement opened the heavy eyelids. The views were stunning and I can't stop smiling. The road was ok till three quarters of the way, then it turned from bearable uphill to struggle and beyond but we got there in the end. My lovely lovely friend Pru and Tody with her Spanish cousin Mariona came to meet me as they had to be in Glasgow by Tuesday and came a couple of days before so they can support me. It was great and surreal and very normal at the same time. The sun was out and our mood was high. Than I collapsed around 9 I was so dog tired.

The 26th

I know it is silly but I always get to a stage. I know it is coming but it always comes as an unwanted surprise and finds me whatever. The last couple of hours before setting off for holidays makes me run up and down the stairs maniacally looking for stuff that I dont really need. Let the the electrical devices look after the kids! I'm just being a bit flappy and not hugely pleasant. 

The send off was a bit touchy, the sky was weeping and then tuned into my manicness and was pouring buckets.  I really hope mull will put a braver face on.

We are late and Tas joins in with the sky, Zsoli is grinning supportively and Chris my stuff around.

In the mini bus I sit next to Steve who has run the Lyke wake walk...three times...which is forty odd miles. I have walked it once well bounced the beginning and crawled the end. So I am getting a bit scared now. 

The journey is long and a bit crowded which is fine,I m happy to arrive in Oban. It is still dark and the contour of the hills can just about be seen. Slowly the darkness is peeling off and is gorgeous. I do love Scotland. 

Away we go

Thank you very much Boden. 

All clothes on the picture donated by Boden and will be auctioned at the end of the ride.

It is the night before

Clothes piling up my bedroom floor still haven't quite decided anything yet. My head is just as messy. Excited ...yes. Scared … well a little bit, but I am not that easily scared … I still think it is going to be no bother. I might be completely utterly wrong.
So tomorrow with 12 others (who I have never met before) cram ourselves in the minibus and start the  journey to up-north to down below. Everybody is doing it for a charity, everybody for a different one . I am a bit unsure if I have to say something about my little  'hiccup' it does not really go well as a easy conversation piece. It is always a bit awkward when people do not know me quite well as I think (possibly I might be wrong on that). It is hard to go beyond that for a while and I am not one to be tiptoed around. Anyway we will see.

The bike is looking lovely though, the new yellow tape on the handle bar looking rather gorgeous I might rename her Rocinante; let's chase my ferocious giants.

We went to Cornwall

There was some tent to be pegged

Some rain to shoo away

Some fists to shake, when the shooing was not enough

Some smiles to put on when all the success was claimed by Tas’s Jedi power

There were some holes to dig ( it’s a pity that we can’t take home the kangaroos)

Some racing cars to build and driven away

Some waves to be tamed with blue lips and trembling limbs

There was some fun to be had

Family arguments and fall outs to smooth away

Catalogue of small desires to be negotiated (no you cannot have a giant fluffy bear from your £5 holiday money... bouncy ball...all right then)

There were some memories to be made

Some heavy hearted fear to be shooed away

And some Jedi’s power to believe in 

It is only 2 weeks and pedalling will start. 8 days which will take me through the west highlands, the lakes, the dales and the moors ... yee haa

I went for a practice weekend with my friends and Chris at the last weekend. Friday was lovely warm sunshine which followed us from Hull to Hayburn Wyke. http://www.cyclestreets.net/journey/1003284/.

Whitby to Jugger Howe

The second day was a bit trickier. The coastal path was absolutely stunningly beautiful from Hayburn Wyke to Whitby, then we ventured into Sleights, which was a bit of a hard push, and then it all went haywire. The rain was setting in fast and furious in a couple of miles into open moorland, which looked fine and reasonably bikeable on Google Earth (we really should know better) the thunder and lightning started. Chris was lying through his teeth about urban myths about lightning to keep me calm (something about the rubber wheels and contact and how lightning never going to hit us....), not as though I believed a word he said, but pretended to, which worked anyway. Then he had a puncture. We tried the foam and it did not work; we tried the patches but the foam was too slippery and the rain was too rainy so it did not work ...so we all pushed... after that things turned to hilarity and we could not stop laughing. So we pushed and occasionally attempted to cycle with Lisa ( who looked like a Harry Potter witch in her giant black poncho, just about to take off) but most of the time ended up falling into the mud and laughing unstoppably;  until we realized we got a bit lost and were doing one of the most gruesome parts of the Lyke Wake walk (which we had done a year earlier... if you know this , it is the up and downy step bit) and midges were out for our blood. Then we called for help which we got, silly buggers.

The pint felt brilliant

Raven scar to Pickering http://www.moortoseacycle.net/routemap.html

The 3^rd day was just Lis and me what a fantastic treat journey we had. The route was well signed, very exciting and rideable. We went through 3 forests on mostly single country lanes and dirt roads crossed over with woodland paths. It seemed like we had a lots of really good rolling downs and some ups which we pushed up, as they looked impossibly vertical. The route was a real find, bursting with rarely seen landscapes, fantastic earth smells and loads of smiles. Then at Dalby our grins turned wolfish and we ate up the whole canteen. At the final push to Pickering we stopped at Thornton le Dale where a young boy from Scarborough was playing rather well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyke6nxKdf4&feature=related.

How great wonderful it was, all 3 days in very different ways, loads of great memories of fantastic landscapes, hard pushing, smell of the rain and the earth and occasionally mud but most of all hilarious laughter.

Thank you all. 

I like to ride by bicycle

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Hello we are just playing, getting ready for a blog about my bike ride from Mull to Hull