Re:
I think my favourite single ride of 2014 was in June, on the Isle of Mull in Argyll.
I was there for the sportive and to stay for the week; it is my family home, and although I have no living relatives there any more, I still love to visit, as I have done since my earliest childhood. This year though it was different, I was there on my own and with a bike. The last time I had a bike on Mull I was about 13 and was never brave enough to venture too far from my grandparents cottage, but in 2014 I was there to ride.
On the third riding day of my stay I had decided to ride 'the other half' of the sportive I had completed on the Sunday. The sportive had a 70k or a 140k route. Never having ridden a sportive before, I chose to ride the 70k route, but I also resolved to ride the other 70k during my stay. As things turned out, I rode the route in reverse, that is, I rode in the opposite direction to that taken by the sportive riders. This had not been the original plan but just before I was due to set off on my ride, a bank of hard rain bowled through, and knowing the islands weather as well as I do I immediately realised that if I set off 'with the storm' then I might well have the wind on my back for a while, but I would also be absolutely soaking wet for at least half my ride, so I set off in the opposite direction, on wet roads and under a leaden sky, but not in the rain.
Anyone who has travelled anywhere the Highlands knows that corner by corner you are faced with climbs, descents and stunning views, and Mull does not disappoint in any respect. So after the first half hour along flat roads and then alongside a sea loch, I started to climb.
The camera flatters to deceive, and although none of the climbs were quite as brutal as a couple I had already ridden, and some that would come later in the week, there was enough elevation to quicken the pulse.
However, the real bonus was only just starting to dawn on me.
As I said before, I have been visiting Mull since I was a tot, it is a small isle with relatively few roads and either as a passenger or later in life a driver, I have travelled every one of them many times, but I have never and I mean never seen some of the sights that I saw from my Rourke that day. When on a bike you get the time to look and listen and smell, you are not just travelling past the scenery but through it.
It is not over dramatic to say I really found myself as a cyclist during my week on Mull, during this and couple of other rides.
From a bike you are able to take in the scale of the scenery you are passing through, you look at a road, snaking away in front and know that at some point you will reach the vanishing point. You can look behind, and know that you and your bike have come all that way.
On that day on Mull, I saw Golden Eagles, seals, deer and other wildlife, I rode through rain, cloud and sunshine, I saw cars and coaches and then for an hour not another living soul.
I saw ghosts of memories of journeys I had had as a child, sitting next to my grandfather in his Morris Traveller, trundling along roads that no longer exist and that most other visitors would never know had been there, just an old stone bridge here, or a ribbon of decaying tarmac a half a mile over there.
I saw ancient woodland, with Beech trees draped in lichen that I have never seen before; it must have been there, but in a car I had never seen the history I was passing and that means so much to me.
However, I was in Scotland, on an island, on a windy day and sooner or later the piper was going to have to be paid, and pay I certainly did.
The road from Craignure through to Salen is modern, flat and hugs the coast and the wind funnels between the mainland and Mull, and I was riding right into it, for that last eight miles. Every time I recognised a landmark, be it the golf club, or the new quay or any number of others, it only brought home the fact that I was making achingly, leg burningly, energy sapingly, slow progress, clicking further and further up the cassette, my legs spinning round and round and yet forward progress seemingly unendingly slow. Until at last I reached the outskirts of Salen, and then the Post Office and finally my flat for the week.
I stashed the Rourke in the back of the car and staggered up the two flights of steps to my flat.... HOME.
An hour later, after something to eat and a shower, I was uploading the photos onto my laptop enjoying the warm glow of an excellent ride.
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