A Jouney to the Turning of the Year

Simon Brooke

A Journey to the Turning of the Year

Have you ever considered how nice it must be to live in Iceland? I
mean, apart from the spectacular scenery and the friendly people. Just
think, if I lived in Iceland I could have lounged in bed this
morning. I could have slept in till the back of eleven, got up, had a
leisurely breakfast, cycled round the block, and come home for a well
earned bath in free geothermal hot water with the satisfaction of
something significant achieved.

Unfortunately I don't.

I mean, the idea of cycling from sunrise until sunset is the sort of
thing which sounds like a cool idea in the balmy days of September. It
was a cool idea. Indeed, in parts, it was a shockingly cold idea, but
I get ahead of myself. Back in September I had the idea of cycling
from sunrise to sunset, and if you're going to cycle from sunrise to
sunset the sensible time to do it is on the shortest day of the
year. OK, so today wasn't quite the shortest day of the year, but
let's not sweat the small stuff.

It wasn't my intention to do this on my own. Indeed, having announced
it to my club back in September, I sent an email to the club's
mailing list last week:

I'm looking for some very, very stupid people.

I'm looking for some very stupid people because, primarily, I'm even
more stupid myself: I'm planning to go for a bike ride on
Saturday. From the moment the sun comes up, to the moment the sun
sets. That's 8.43 am to 3.41 pm. It is going to be cold. It is going
to be tough. It is going to be a long day. If you're really, really
stupid, please come with me...

Surprisingly, I had a volunteer. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't for the
whole distance. So when I arrived at the appointed meeting place in
Castle Douglas at half past eight this morning I wasn't hugely
surprised to find nobody there. I waited around for ten minutes in
the cold and the rain, and then, knowing no-one else was coming, set
off.

It was fairly light and growing lighter fast, which was just as well
because within half a mile my headlight fell off and smashed (it was a
cheap old one, so no huge loss - I hadn't taken my lumicycles on the
grounds of weight). Within two miles the rain had cleared, and I was
cycling along at a nice easy pace, crossing the Dee for the first time
at Glenlochar. By Laurieston I was warmed up enough to stop and swap
my big padded winter gloves for track mits. Down the shores of
Woodhall it was a really beautiful morning, and just past Mossdale
there was the most superb complete rainbow, spanning the landscape
from horizon to horizon. Of course, a rainbow meant another shower,
but once again it was light, thin, not very wetting, and soon
past. And at fourteen miles out along the shore of Loch Ken I met
Chris coming the other way to meet me.

This was a slightly mixed blessing. He was extremely good company, and
we enjoyed pleasant conversation, but he was also significantly
quicker than me up hill - and, indeed, the steeper the climb the
greater the difference. I plead in mitigation that he had sensible
hill-climbing gears on his bike, and I, errm, didn't. But despite the
fact that the route took us from below the 50 metre contour to above
the 250 metre, the climb is on the whole gradual - with a few short,
sharp shocks. At New Galloway we went straight on out by the kirk for
the first of those short, sharp shocks, and thence up the west side of
the river to the Earlstoun Loch dam for the second. The high hills were
white with snow - the whole ridge of the Rhinns of Kells looked
properly arctic, and the Cairnsmore of Carsphairn was a great white
spike pointed at the sky. And thus to the long, slow, gruelling climb
up to Carsphairn. But we reached Carsphairn much earlier than I had
expected, and went straight on through, heading for what had been my
personal goal - the Green Well of Scotland, allegedly the last place in
Britain where pagan religion was openly practised, as late as the
eighteenth century. We got there, and were going well, and were still
ahead of schedule, so we headed on up towards the watershed. By now
there was a little bit of snow down to the roadside - not a lot, but
enough to make it bitterly cold. And by about 11:30 we got to the point
where we were clicking up onto our big rings as the climb levelled out.

At the Ayrshire border we turned and blasted back down towards
Carsphairn. Climbing, we'd had a north wind against us which hadn't felt
strong enough to be much nuisance, but now with both wind and gradient
helping we made exceedingly good speed, and were down into Carsphairn
again about twelve. Carsphairn is not, let's face it, the world's most
bustling metropolis, but it does boast a bar with a large sign
inscribed 'meals served all day'. The sign lies. Fortunately - and
remarkably for a place so small - Carsphairn also boasts a tiny shop,
which sold us rolls and polystyrene beakers of instant soup. We drank
these sitting on a bench at the roadside; but we didn't sit for long,
because if cycling in these conditions was cold, just sitting was
colder.

Heading south we took the Moniaive road down the East bank of the
river. The weather was getting decidedly colder, and Chris stopped to
put his warmer gloves on. This struck me as a good idea, and I put mine
on, too. Shortly we came to the junction where the Dalry road splits
off, and Chris had planned to go home down this. I had sort of planned
to cross the watershed down to Lochinvar and thus down the Urr, but
neither of us were particularly keen to be cycling alone on those
lonely upland roads, so I turned right with Chris.

And within a couple of miles we got a sharp lesson on why it's not
clever to cycle them alone. The High Bridge of Ken is a narrow stone
bridge, about three metres wide between its high stone parapets, and
about fifty metres long. It sits at the bottom of a steep-sided
east-west glen, with a sharp turn onto it and a sharp turn off
it. Steep sided glen, high parapets, very cold day: you're ahead of
me, aren't you? At the same time, face with a nice swoopy descent onto
the bridge and a nice tight turn off it, what would you have done?

It was just as I cranked the bike over into the turn off the bridge at
about twenty five miles an hour that both tyres let go, suddenly,
together, and I had that awful moment of knowing.

Oh, shit, this is going to hurt - a lot.

Curiously, it helped that I was cranking into the bend. The back wheel
tried to overtake the front, spinning the bike around to about 45
degrees to its direction of travel, and long after I thought I was at
the point of no return got enough grip to bring me back towards
upright. I steered into the skid and got the bike under control again,
but for the next several miles I felt decidedly shaky and took it a lot
slower. Which was a shame because we were dropping down through a
series of deliciously swoopy back roads towards Ealstoun.

On one of these - which would have been a stiffish climb the other way
- Chris stopped to show me a little roadside memorial, nicely kept with
flowers:

'In memory of Johnny Stirling, who died here while cycling
in Bonny Galloway'

Looking at the hill, one could see how one might; but looking out over
the glen with the lochs in the bottom and the high snow covered hills
on the far side, it felt as though it would not be a bad way - or a
bad place - to go.

And thus down to Earlstoun, and into St John's Town of Dalry, and to
Chris's house, where I stopped for coffee. I left at three o'clock,
and considered my onward route. It's 14 miles down the A713 into
Castle Douglas, and I had been averaging 12 miles per hour. I was due
to finish at 3:41. Chris advised me against riding down the A713 on
the basis that it's busy; but busy is relative and busy by Galloway
standards is not busy as understood elsewhere, and by Galloway
standards the A 713 down Loch Ken is relatively flat. Also, I had come
up the west side of Loch Ken, so going back down the west side didn't
feel particularly interesting. So I started off down the A713 thinking
I might cut across the watershed into the Urr valley later. However,
when I reached the junction at Balmaclellan, it said Corsock 9 miles,
and I knew those were nine pretty hilly miles. I didn't feel like
it. I cycled on down Loch Ken, past the sailing centre, past the
viaduct, through Parton, down through Crossmichael.

By now I was into the home stretch, with only a few miles to go. But I
was also feeling it. There were a couple of little detours I could
make to add a few miles to the route and get me closer to the magic
3:41, but I didn't take them partly because my legs didn't want to and
partly because, as my speed was dropping off, it was beginning to look
as if I wouldn't need to. At some point - way later than I should have
- I realised I was just running out of blood sugar to burn, and
stopped to switch on my lights and get a cereal bar out of my bag.

There's a state you get into (or at least, I get into) where you are
just cycling, not doing anything else. I remember watching the trip
click up to 63.59 miles, expecting it to change to 64.00 and being
completely bewildered when it instead went to 63.60 and then to 63.61;
I was so chilled and tired I was confusing miles with minutes. But
miles and minutes both rolled on and very soon I was passing under the
bypass, onto urban streets, track-standing in the congested traffic of
King Street as motorists jostled for parking spaces, getting off the
bike stumbling tired and practically staggering into the bike shop, to
be greeted with hot sweet tea and a compulsory mince pie and
scone. Which were most welcome.

OK, so I finished all of eight minutes early. So sue me. Total distance,
just over 65 miles by my computer, or, in morale-boosting metric speak,
104 Km. Total time actually cycling, about six hours. And, despite my
whingeing, I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I did it.

And thus back home to a bath with water heated with very expensive
oil. I suppose I'd better get on the phone to the Icelandic consulate
and talk to them about emigration...


--
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; It appears that /dev/null is a conforming XSL processor.

Jon Senior

Simon Brooke wrote:
> OK, so I finished all of eight minutes early. So sue me. Total distance,
> just over 65 miles by my computer, or, in morale-boosting metric speak,
> 104 Km. Total time actually cycling, about six hours. And, despite my
> whingeing, I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I did it.

A great report (And a great ride by the sound of things).

I have spent all my spare time (Other than that spent arguing pedantry
on urc) building the new frame for the recumbent. My deadline for
completion is tuesday since I intend to take it down to my folks for
christmas.

With luck I'll then have time to clock up some miles (In the flatlands
of the south!) on it.

Any urc-ers in or around the Cambridgeshire area who fancy a ride should
get in touch.

Jon

Call me Bob

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 01:23:04 +0000, Jon Senior
<jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOT_co_DOT_uk> wrote:

>> OK, so I finished all of eight minutes early. So sue me. Total distance,
>> just over 65 miles by my computer, or, in morale-boosting metric speak,
>> 104 Km. Total time actually cycling, about six hours. And, despite my
>> whingeing, I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I did it.
>
>A great report (And a great ride by the sound of things).

Yes, yes, yes! Great read, thanks for sharing. Your description of the
landscape was wonderful, made me wish I'd ridden with you.

--

Call me "Bob"

"More oneness, less categories,
Open hearts, no strategies"

Email address is spam trapped, to reply directly remove the beverage.

Not Responding

Simon Brooke wrote:
> A Journey to the Turning of the Year

snip

> Back in September I had the idea of cycling
> from sunrise to sunset, and if you're going to cycle from sunrise to
> sunset the sensible time to do it is on the shortest day of the
> year.

snip

Simon, great cycling write up. Reminds me of the reason I read this
group; cycling talk rather than bike mechanic flame wars trolls.

James Annan

Simon Brooke wrote:

> A Journey to the Turning of the Year

Nice ride report. Reminds me of our annual "trans-in-law challenge", aka
how to visit both sets of parents over Christmas/New Year without
actually spending too much time with them...3 days of sunrise-to-sunset
riding in each direction, one of which is Dumfries-Ayr along some of the
same roads as you describe.

James
--
If I have seen further than others, it is
by treading on the toes of giants.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/

Not Responding

Jon Senior wrote:

>
> Any urc-ers in or around the Cambridgeshire area who fancy a ride should
> get in touch.
>

Well, I'll be at my home village south of P'boro over Xmas. And there's
a bike shaped parcel under the tree with my name on.

The plan is to do the Peterborough Green Wheel shortly after Christmas Day.

MSeries

Simon Brooke wrote:
> A Journey to the Turning of the Year
>

Nice one Simon, you have set my mind going, since I am off work on
December 20, 21 and 22 maybe I should ride from sunrise to sunset on one
of those days. It would be more of a feat to do this on the summer
solstice though - which I might.

Paul - xxx

Simon Brooke composed the following ...
> A Journey to the Turning of the Year

> And thus back home to a bath with water heated with very expensive
> oil. I suppose I'd better get on the phone to the Icelandic consulate
> and talk to them about emigration...

Great ride and report. I'm quite envious.

--
Paul ...
http://www.4x4prejudice.org/index.php
(8(!) Homer Rules ...
"A tosser is a tosser, no matter what mode of transport they're using."

Brian G

MSeries wrote:
> Simon Brooke wrote:
>
>> A Journey to the Turning of the Year
>>
>
> Nice one Simon, you have set my mind going, since I am off work on
> December 20, 21 and 22 maybe I should ride from sunrise to sunset on one
> of those days. It would be more of a feat to do this on the summer
> solstice though - which I might.

It's always good to meet a target, eventually. I've had a vague notion
for long enough to set off into the hills at noon on the longest day,
spend the shortest night out under the stars, then ride home the
following morning. Unfortunately the weather over the past few years
has been discouraging at that time (damn good excuse for the basically
indolent, mind you!)

--
Brian G

garryb59

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 01:23:04 +0000, Jon Senior
<jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOT_co_DOT_uk> wrote:

>Simon Brooke wrote:
>> OK, so I finished all of eight minutes early. So sue me. Total distance,
>> just over 65 miles by my computer, or, in morale-boosting metric speak,
>> 104 Km. Total time actually cycling, about six hours. And, despite my
>> whingeing, I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I did it.
>
>A great report (And a great ride by the sound of things).
>
>I have spent all my spare time (Other than that spent arguing pedantry
>on urc) building the new frame for the recumbent. My deadline for
>completion is tuesday since I intend to take it down to my folks for
>christmas.

Likewise. This thing has been on the go for about a year now. Almost
there, almost there. It WILL be done before the year's out, then I can
reclaim my flat for a place of residence instead of a workshop!

Garry

JohnB

Brian G wrote:
>
> MSeries wrote:
> > Simon Brooke wrote:
> >
> >> A Journey to the Turning of the Year
> >>
> >
> > Nice one Simon, you have set my mind going, since I am off work on
> > December 20, 21 and 22 maybe I should ride from sunrise to sunset on one
> > of those days. It would be more of a feat to do this on the summer
> > solstice though - which I might.
>
> It's always good to meet a target, eventually. I've had a vague notion
> for long enough to set off into the hills at noon on the longest day,
> spend the shortest night out under the stars....

Did the opposite many moons ago.
The longest night and a 24 hour ride. Never again.

John B