2024 Summer Tour - Day 8 (Mechanical problem!)

Day 8 Monday Acharacle to Oban - in which we suffer a serious mechanical problem that brought the tour to a sudden end! Monday June 3rd.

Up bright and early for breakfast - pancakes and bacon this morning. After loading everything up and settling our bill with the hotel, we we set off towards Strontian. Our plan for the day was to ride over to Strontian, round the end of Loch Sunart and over the long three mile climb to the equally long descent to Lochaline. From Lochaline we'd catch the ferry to Fishnish on Mull and cycle a few miles down the road to Craignure for the ferry to Oban.

Unfortunately, less than a mile down the road, I found myself suddenly sagging backwards while Carol found herself sinking forwards. The explanation was that the front seatpin has snapped. It was probably a good thing that this happened so close to Acharacle, and while we were cycling uphill rather than bombing downhill far from help! Here's a photo of the seat post stump, taken a few days later after we got home.

It seems quite odd that it broke about a centimetre above the binder clamp and a similar distance below Carol's handlebar stem clamp. 

We strapped the rear handlebars to the saddlebag and backtracked to Acharacle wheeling the bike (which is really difficult without the rear bars!). At the Loch Shiel Garage we asked whether there was any possibility of repair (sadly, no), then asked about transport links. It turned out we'd just missed the bus to Fort William. I asked whn the next was due, and there wasn't another till the following morning. This was getting a bit grim. We were facing another night in unbooked accommodation, if it was available, then a bus ride to Fort Willam the next morning. That would in turn be followed by getting Oban by some means, possibly a taxi, and driving back to Acharacle to fetch the tandem. That sounded like an expensive option to us.

We were in a bit of a bind. While the Loch Shiel Garage had no way of sorting the damage, they did offer a solution – a driver to take us (on a huge flatbed truck) to the Corran ferry, and a driver to take us to Oban in a transit van. Not a cheap option but probably comparable with additional accommodations and other expenses. Both drivers were great company, the the guy driving the big truck had his baby daughter in a child seat!

The tandem on the huge truck!

So we reached Oban early afternoon and went over to Stoddarts for the car. After a chat with them, we got changed and left the car there for a few hours while we went for a walk in Oban. Lunch was more seafood sandwiches from the seafood shack, before wandering to shops for presents for friends (and instant porridge for the following morning's breakfast) and eventually checked into the Kings Knoll Hotel. 

We spent a very enjoyable evening with a former work colleague and his wife.

And that was that. Our return to cycle touring after a seven year gap was over, though not without incident.