Spring Is Coming...
Feb. 20th, 2012 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
f4f3So I booked my bike in for its post-winter service. This is a bit of a misnomer - the bike has done practically no miles since September or October, so what I actualy wanted was to get it a good clean, and have a couple of problems that were bugging me last Summer fixed up properly. So now I have a new chain ring, new brake blocks, and a sparkly bike (and another lock - I'm planning on doing some commuting and probably parking in town, and all the advice seems to be to use two different types of lock).
Weather permitting, I'll do some pottering around over the next few weeks to try to get back into some kind of condition for a proper run or three in the summer.
That means time to plan (actually, time to daydream, but I'm trying to dignify myself here).
My ambition for this year is to do some form of cycling on the Hebrides. I'm meaning that to be some subset of Vatersay, Barra, South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist, Harris and Lewis. The other restriction is to do as much of this as possible by public transport.
For obvious reasons, ferries will be one of the limiting factors, and althought there are a good range of these they do put restrictions on what I can do.
ETA: Hmm... Having looked at the ferries, there's a route that takes me in and out to Oban, and lets me use Uist as a base for getting to Harris and potentially even Coll or Tiree. It also allows those who can't cycle as far to join in :)
The classic South-North route would be Castlebay on Barra to Stornoway on Lewis, which is 132 miles. That's a distance I could do, in theory, in 2 days, which wouldn't leave a lot of time for dotting around, so put it as three. It would mean taking a ferry from Oban (which is on the train line from Glasgow) to Barra, and then another from Stornoway to... where precisely? The Cal Mac ferry from Stornoway takes me to Ullapool, which is very lovely, but has no train service. It may have a bus to Inverness, which does have a railways station, but does it take bikes?
The alternative is to cycle only as far as Lochmaddie on Uist (about 60 miles) or Tarbert on Harris (about 90 miles), and then take the ferry to Uig on Skye, then cycle another 60 miles or so to Armadale, where I can get a ferry to Mallaig, which has a train station.
Total cycling distance would be about 120-150 miles, whichever way I do it. I'm a little wary of Skye -it has high mountains, and of Lewis, which could double for Mordor in bad weather. My next step is to start looking at ferry and train times, and at B&Bs. It feels like an easy four days, or a lest restful 3, or a head down and blast it 2, but I feel that in the islands, where I'm at the mercy of ferries, it might be best to call it 4 days and relax.
Hmm, off to look at ferry times and daydream, sorry, plan some more.
Weather permitting, I'll do some pottering around over the next few weeks to try to get back into some kind of condition for a proper run or three in the summer.
That means time to plan (actually, time to daydream, but I'm trying to dignify myself here).
My ambition for this year is to do some form of cycling on the Hebrides. I'm meaning that to be some subset of Vatersay, Barra, South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist, Harris and Lewis. The other restriction is to do as much of this as possible by public transport.
For obvious reasons, ferries will be one of the limiting factors, and althought there are a good range of these they do put restrictions on what I can do.
ETA: Hmm... Having looked at the ferries, there's a route that takes me in and out to Oban, and lets me use Uist as a base for getting to Harris and potentially even Coll or Tiree. It also allows those who can't cycle as far to join in :)
The classic South-North route would be Castlebay on Barra to Stornoway on Lewis, which is 132 miles. That's a distance I could do, in theory, in 2 days, which wouldn't leave a lot of time for dotting around, so put it as three. It would mean taking a ferry from Oban (which is on the train line from Glasgow) to Barra, and then another from Stornoway to... where precisely? The Cal Mac ferry from Stornoway takes me to Ullapool, which is very lovely, but has no train service. It may have a bus to Inverness, which does have a railways station, but does it take bikes?
The alternative is to cycle only as far as Lochmaddie on Uist (about 60 miles) or Tarbert on Harris (about 90 miles), and then take the ferry to Uig on Skye, then cycle another 60 miles or so to Armadale, where I can get a ferry to Mallaig, which has a train station.
Total cycling distance would be about 120-150 miles, whichever way I do it. I'm a little wary of Skye -it has high mountains, and of Lewis, which could double for Mordor in bad weather. My next step is to start looking at ferry and train times, and at B&Bs. It feels like an easy four days, or a lest restful 3, or a head down and blast it 2, but I feel that in the islands, where I'm at the mercy of ferries, it might be best to call it 4 days and relax.
Hmm, off to look at ferry times and daydream, sorry, plan some more.
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 04:26 pm (UTC)Sounds awesome!! Wish I could join!!
no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 04:27 pm (UTC)