Nick Hand

Picture postcard

Saturday and the annual cycling holiday

Saturday was quite a day. I had about thirty miles or so to ride from Burnham on Sea to Clevedon pier. About 25 friends from Cardigan and Bristol came over and rode the last 15 miles which was great fun and there was a lot of  nattering to people along the way. After the supension bridge in Clifton I rode ahead into the Triangle where the howies shop is. And as I turned the last bend, there was about 100 people clapping and cheering outside the shop, which was pretty amazing. The traffic light about 20 yards from the shop was red and it would have been a bit weird stopping short of the crowd, so I just went through it (and I guess the others did too). Well it was a great welcome and we had such a good old party which went on late into the evening. Thanks so much to all who traveled to get there and to everyone who helped with the planning.

Well, it's been a little odd this week, been a bit at a loose end for a day or two. There are about ten or so little soundslides to edit still. I've managed to put three up this week: one of John, a tea taster. Of Louis, a wooden gig builder from Fowey. And today of Neil and Gill, who opened the first organic B&B near Bude. I was a bit miffed though because they were a great couple and I think the batteries ran out while I was recording and I missed some really good stuff. Still I've done the best I could.

Tomorrow H and I are off on our little cycling holiday to Cornwall. It's an annual thing. We take our bikes on the train and cycle from Penzance down to Prussia Cove and spend the week doing little day trips, either walking or cycling. 

A few people have emailed and asked me about the kit and software for the soundslides. Well I took my Canon 1ds mkII with me (an slr, and a bit of a monster too, but its a great camera that I've had for about five years now). I just took one lens a standard 50mm f1.4. It's a really good lens, not too expensive.

I also took a laptop, a 15" Macbook Pro, so that I could download and edit the sound and images for the soundslides.

The digital sound recorder is a Morantz PMD620. Its a simple to use thing. I also have a little windjammer (a furry thing that fits over the top) for use outside use, to cut down wind noise.

The software I use for sound editing is Audacity which is free to download, and again straightforward to use. The films are then put together in Soundslides Plus which costs about £50, but you can get a test version for free.

I hope that is useful. Well better go and pack for Cornwall.

The picture is of some of the folk who cycled the last bit with me.

Hills and Wind

On a 14 week cycle ride and coming up through Wales, Cumbria and the west coast of Scotland, you encounter hills of varying degrees and lengths. And after a while anything that isn't more than 1:5 is generally ok.  Whereas when I started I would often stop once, twice or four times on a hill to get my breath and legs back (often masked if a car comes down the hill by drinking water to make it look like a simple water stop). But you get stronger and now I can get up a pretty long hill with little problem. But the wind is another thing. In the last week I've encountered a shifting tough wind almost every day. It's really really hard cycling into a big wind and at least equivalent to a big hill, but more mind sapping because you can't see the end of it and you feel kind of stupid peddling at 4mph on a flattish road. The Orknies (where I am now) is fairly treeless and also flattish, so any wind is fairly unremitting. And I'm not sure you get used to it in the same way as the hills. I know that Paul and Mike Carter who I met on the way up are both encountering the same problems heading down the west coast.

Yesterday I took the ferry to Stromness on Orkney from Thurso on the mainland. Stromness is a lovely little town with paved streets (very distintive square flags in all the towns and villages), nice little shops and cafes and a brilliant gallery, the Pier Art Centre which has many of the St Ives artists work (NIcholson and Hepworth etc) in its collection.

On route to Kirkwall I visited Maeshowe a neolithic monument in the middle of the island. Maeshowe is part of the Orkney World Heritage Site, and is a 2700BC burial chamber (1000 years before Stonhenge was built). I caught the end of a tour into the chamber. The mound is about 7.5m high and 37m in diameter. Inside you can see where Vikings vandalised it the 12 century and left runes on the walls telling stories of their lives. On the midwinter solstace, the sun shines directly into the chamber reflecting colours from water onto the back wall. It is a remarkable feat of building and they think it took 25 years and 100,000 man hours to build and would have involved people from the whole island.

The Orkney landscape is very different from the hills and dramatic scenery of the Highlands and Sutherland that I've been traveling through in the past few days. Orkney is almost treeless, with flat rich plains and a few low rolling hills.

It's Sunday morning and I'm on the little ferry, a one and a half hour trip from the Orkney mainland to Westray a little remote island north. In fact it's about as far north as you can take a bicycle in Britain. I'm going to meet some craftswomen friends of Rhona and Stephen, Orkney folk who have been really helpful in telling me about the slands; places to go and people to see.

The birdlife is astounding, I only wish I could tell you some of the birds I have seen. In fact I will ask around (on this ferry) there must be twitchers on board. Ok, got a bit of info now: the big brown birds in the fields all along the coast that are acrobatic flyers are Curlew. The little black birds in the sea passing the ferry are Black Guillomots there are also Common Terns flitting by. The Puffins are still around by all accounts, and Rhona has told me of a good spot on Westray to find them (I will report later).

Last night I edited and uploaded a little soundslide of the amazing ceramicist Lotte Glob as well as two others of the fantastic family who catch fish and run a little remote restaurant on the highland coast as well as Paul, another crazy rider on a long journey home.

This image below is of Maeshowe (the round mound) taken about 7pm yesterday evening (Saturday), just after I had been inside it on the guided tour. To the left you can just see the huge standing stones a few miles away on the loch shore (not the ones on the foot of the tomb itself – they're people!).

2000 miles

I am writing this sitting in the canteen at the lovely Durness yha after wimping out after 35 miles yesterday. After three longish days I ducked into the yha in Durness about 7.30 on Thursday night. The yha's are always interesting and a good place to meet people. There are three girls staying here who happen to live about half a mile from home in Bristol ( Lynn, Katrina, and Helen). Also at our table is Alf from Montrose who says all people from Montrose are a bit dour, so I just asked him to say 'we're all dooomed' like the bloke in Dads Army, sounded good too.

Have been a bit single minded about pushing on for a few days, and I am hoping to get the Saturday morning ferry over to the Orknies. But I'm also aware that the idea of this journey is about slowness, and I feel like I've been hammering it a bit lately and missing stuff. So, for example, the Bristol girls aid that they had seem Puffins on Handa Island a day or so ago and I was at the point yesterday where you get the little ferry over to the island yesterday. I think it's easy get a 'pushing on' thing in your head. So I'm going to take my time with Orkney and see what happens.

I have almost done 2000 miles now and will pass the mark sometime today. I think I should do something special to mark the event but can't think what. Maybe a local whisky or two tonight.

As a little postscript on the blog, Its now 11pm on the 31st, and I didn't quite get to Thurso. The day started really well from Durness, wind dropped and sun was out. But as things do around here, it changed again in the afternoon and the wind got up and later it rained. I also called in on a ceramic artist, Lotte Glob who lives about 8 miles east of Durness. She has an amazing 14 acre plot full of her amazing work. I will get a soundslide up in a few days.

So I'm back in my little tent in the sanddunes at a place called Strathy some 20 miles short of Thurso. Some of the local youth are camped further down towards the beach and I'm hoping I don't get bothered later on.

I've spoken to my Orkney contact, Rhona. who has been really helpful in getting me sorted for the weekend. So I've got some artisans to go and see on Orkney and  provided I survive the wind gusting outside (and the local youth) then it should be a really interesting couple of days.

Stuff you would never do in real life

I did the last blog from the Wee camp site and it occurred to me that you do stuff on a journey like this that you would never do at home. So on the Wee camp site, for example, I was in the little shower block (about the size of a garden shed that contained two toilets, two showers and the washing up bit, so you can imagine what it was like): I noticed a few old towels hanging up gave them a quick sniff and decided to use the least smelly for my shower (just so I could keep my towel dry another day)- see stuff like that I would never do in real life.

The Obama bike wave
So on the little single track roads, I decided to upgrade my relationship with 'the motorist'. Whenever a car would stop at a passing point to let me pass (which I have to say is a rarity), I would do a wave which is raising my right hand a bit like when the President is inaugerated (in my head it's Richard Nixon -don't know why), and just before you pass 'the motorist' you change the flat hand gesture to a thumbs up, works a treat and often gets a little smile. I reckon it's worth the effort.

The 'two spares' principle
The 'two spares' principle up in smoke two days ago. I always understood that the 'sensible' road cyclist takes two spare inner tubes with him/her at all times. Sensible right. Except here is my sad tale. After 1600 miles of trouble free cycling, I was in my little tent on a quiet shore on a loch in Mull with my bike (fits in the porch bit) and thought I would oil the chain and top up the tyres. With the little Blackburn pump attached to the tyre I added a bit of air and then sssssssssssssssss: said tyre deflates, valve comes away from tube. Blimey, must be a duffer I think and change said tube for one of the two spares: one still left, excellent.

Two days later in the Wee camp site, ready to go. Maybe top up air, careful though. Same operation, same disastrous result. So new tube on, pumped up carefully to 60psi. So now no spare tubes. Not a good situation in the north west of Scotland. Funny thing is I popped in a little shop in the village and asked where they thought the nearest bike shop was. Fella says 'oh, there's a Halfords in Ullapool' 'how far is that' I ask 'about 120 miles' he says. Mmmm, not good. Still all is well as two days riding on, I picked up the little pack of tubes that Harriet sent to a hostel (thirty miles south of Ullapool). Got four this time, I think for the long distance tourer four is good, two is a bit iffy. Also by the way, no Halfords in Ullapool either I think he meant Aberdeen or maybe Glasgow.

The bike by the way is brilliant. Gay, Mark, George etc back at Argos in Bristol really know their stuff, and everynow and then you see someone studying it (in Bristol that would mean about to make off with it, but here it is normally admiration), this morning for example, an Austrian (turns out used to run a bike shop) was giving it the once over, nodding in approval. Anyway it's brilliant to ride and everytime I get on it, it is lovely to ride.

One more thing about meeting the mighty Mike Carter (the bloke who writes on the back of the Observer travel section) and a final whinge about cars (no more promise)
One thing that Mike Carter and I agreed on was that not once (on our combined journey of over 4000 miles) is that neither of us would  have exchanged places with someone in a passing car once on our rides around the coast of Britain (Mike anti-clockwise- clearly a mistake, me sensibly clockwise).

On cars (again),most people are fine in cars but you just get the odd crazy bloke (for it is always one Clarkson loving bloke) who is foot down and ain't going to slow down or move too much for some nutter who decides to ride a mere bike. The worst and most worrying time is going up a sharp hill (common around here) with a bend. You aren't moving too fast (no Bradley Wiggins legs or heart I'm afraid). There is a car or camper coming down and you can hear a supertuned motor hurtling up the hill behind and hidden by the bend. This has happened twice in the last four days. Both times same result, I pull right in and stop, car hurtles round bend, skids to halt a metre away from me, motorist angry and fist shaking (in one case anyway). What can you do? We need to do something about it Gordon. It's no good the Observer celebrating cyclists increasing in massive numbers (over 100% in London alone in a year) without making it safer. The CTC says we have the safest roads in Europe for cars, but the worst record for fatalities and accidents for bicycles. Well it's not surprising when cars become more and more powerful, tyres more efficient, and by the way, penalties for killing someone on a bike normally involve a suspended sentence and maybe a one year ban.

Beamount not Humphries
On one of my first blogs I said that Alastair Humphries holds the record for cycling around the world, it's held by Mark Beamount. And James Bowthorpe is attempting to beat it currently (he must be almost there by now). Thanks to Peter Gostelow for pointing it out. Peter is about to attempt a solo ride to Cape Town in a few weeks (www.thebigafricacycle.com), good luck and gods speed to him (I'm not religious but I like that little phrase).

Catching up
In the last two days I've cycled 130 miles or so and climbed 7000ft, mainly to try and get back on track with the 50 miles a day aim. It's been pretty hard in terms of weather, though there have been some nice breaks (often early evening). I'm sitting in a pub in Ullapool and plan to head north towards Lochinver. Mike (Carter) says I should spend a night on Wrath, he says its very elemental and remote. Mmmm I'll chew it over. Also, going to try to get over to Orkney some good Artisans to meet (as recommended by Rhona and Stephen). I did a little soundslide about James, the weaver at Lochcarron weavers which I will post now.

Meanwhile here is a wee image I spotted coming along a midge infested Loch Torridon (I think) two days ago. Sometimes you just spot a bit of colour harmony and have to get a picture (until the midges home in, which is normally about 12 seconds).