Riding to Scotland - September 2016

Twelve days' touring around Scotland is an ideal way to get a cycling fix – unless you're the one driving the support van. “Why don't you ride to Scotland then?” said my husband, who was leading a group cycling tour there. It was a good idea with just one problem: I didn't know if I was capable of it. I was still trying to work out what I could and couldn't do with my ileostomy. A year had passed, but I still hadn't worked out where my limits were.

Having loved cycle touring all my life I wasn't going to let an ileostomy stop me. But it was going to present an additional challenge, as I would need to take a whole load of medical equipment in addition to my usual stuff. As for my fitness, I'd lost weight, too much weight; I had compromised strength, and I had plenty of old injuries to cope with too, particularly the weak left leg. It had been a long road back to the beginnings of fitness and the rides I had done since my operation were on a smaller scale to this altogether.

I set off from my home in the Welsh borders alone and unsupported six days before my husband's tour was due to start, my two small panniers and my bar bag being the limit of what I could carry. I would be riding 316 miles to Milngavie, just north of Glasgow, and my first day took me to Chester over familiar roads with Shropshire's hills making for a ride which felt easier as the day wore on. At least two long-distance cyclists overtook me, but then I knew I wasn't fast. It didn't matter if I was slow, I was touring again, and proving to myself that I still could.

The next day took me through through a series of urban landscapes, a day I'd dreaded as there seemed to be very little countryside between. But it provided one of the highlights of my trip when I found myself eating lunch amongst a few thousand dogs and their owners at the “Paws in the Park” event taking over Sherdley Park in St Helens. The infectious happiness of the dog people stayed with me for all the remaining urban miles through Preston and its suburbs! 

My third day was through the Forest of Bowland where the scenery really started to dominate my attention. Although it was my shortest day in miles, it was also my hardest day of climbing, but I made a discovery. My nearly-new bike had never carried panniers before and I was astonished to find that it handled better with them than without, so much so that I rode up hills I could hardly believe I could manage. Those loaded panniers were helping me to balance in my lowest gears so that I could avoid stalling with my weaker left leg. And the climbing took me into the most beautiful part of my ride, I even found the motorway beautiful! Looking down on it from the hill I had just climbed I saw the M6 before me with anonymous traffic speeding both ways; just behind it ran the railway, with freight trains passing by in both directions as I watched; behind that the River Lune flowed ageless and serene, and behind that the Howgill Fells watched over the whole valley. I found beauty in the juxtaposition of all of these disparate threads.

Spot the motorway!

From my B&B in Tebay the next day I swooped down to a turning as a massive flock of gulls weaved around my head. I found myself riding between the two lanes of the motorway which were perhaps three hundred metres apart at this point. Kestrels hunted either side of me in the wide verges as I climbed up onto Shap fell, savouring the barrenness of this bleak wilderness before descending to make my crossing into Scotland.

At Gretna I rode past all of the pretty B&Bs to my accommodation which might seem far from appropriate - it was at a motorway service station! On-site eateries supplied my energy needs as cars and lorries made their fleeting visits, and in my Spartan but cosy room with my bike nestled safely beside my bed, the heated towel rail was a gift for my hand-washed clothes which dried beautifully overnight.

I'd been worried about my fifth day, because I had a lot of climbing to do. But in fact it seemed easy, because although I was close to a main arterial road I rode almost the whole day on a wide cycle-path bordered by grasses and ferns which rose at a similar rate to the gradient railway lines use, the colours gradually changing to Scotland's special autumn palette of amber and lime green. I criss-crossed the main Glasgow railway line several times, and also the Clyde in it's upper reaches. I felt an affinity with the river as I would be accompanying it to Glasgow the next day.

My last day's riding was a ride of two halves – a bleak wilderness moorland during the morning beside another major road where once again I had a wide cycle-path to myself. After my lunch I descended rapidly down to sea level riding through East Kilbride on its heavily trafficked main roads, eventually ending up on the banks of the Clyde in Glasgow. After six miles on the pleasant riverbank I had to climb on busy roads through to Milngavie, and the traffic on those roads was so bad that I rode on the pavement unapologetically. If I'd ridden on the road, I'm sure I'd have died.

As I pulled alongside the turning to the hotel where my husband's tour was to start, I could see my husband and a few of his participants arranged in a loose arc to welcome me. I pulled into the car park to a small round of applause. I'd made it!

All of us feel a sense of achievement when we arrive at our destination but for me, the destination was only the half of it. Before my operation I'd been so ill that to ride even a fraction of this would have been impossible. I'd gained a measure of fitness, and a huge measure of confidence. Now I found myself contemplating a second section of riding, perhaps during the following Spring. Milngavie to John o'Groats perhaps? Then maybe part three another time...

Paul's participants braved long days in treacherous terrain, massive challenging climbs, even more challenging descents, most of the time in biblical rain and with the odd cold virus thrown in. I'd had fair weather throughout, and six days of riding in shorts!

Glencoe