2009 Cycle Tour - Mull, Skye and the Black Isle

This year's cycle tour was partly blogged as I went (only slightly successful, as internet access with my Vodafone modem was patchy and 2G at best).  For this writeup of the tour, I've updated the blog articles, and linked them to this article.

Day 1 - Tayport to Aberfeldy  In which we meet old friends, both expected and unexpected.

Day 2 - Aberfeldy to Oban  Lochs and mountains in  long haul of 78 miles, in startlingly hot conditions...

Day 3 - Oban to Tobermory  In which we change our plans a bit and don't visit Iona, but discover we have forgotten how hard the road from Salen to Tobermory is...

Day 4 - Ardnamurchan: Tobermory to Salen  In which we have another unexpected meeting in Ardnamurchan...

Day 5 - Salen to Broadford  In which we lament the "upgrade" of west coast roads and battle against winds in Skye...

Day 6 - Broadford to Lochcarron  In which we noodle round the coast and push the tandem up a hill...

Day 7 - Lochcarron to the Black Isle  In which we ride from coast to coast and visit a friend from long ago

Day 8 - Black Isle to Aviemore  In which we try (and fail) to follow National Cycle Routes 1 and 7 through Inverness...

Day 9 - Aviemore to Birnam  In which we decide that cycle routes may not be so bad, but that a bike with suspension would make them a bit more comfortable...

Day 10 -  Birnam to Tayport  In which we ride through familiar roads and successfully negotiate Dundee and the Tay Bridge...

We rode our usual Dawes Super Galaxy touring tandem.  This has been through the wars a bit over the 15 or so years we've had it (and in fact we may replace it with a new frame this year).  It performed excellently, except for gear issues on Day 4, which was entirely my fault for not setting them up correctly in the first place.  As usual, we carried camping kit as insurance against failing to find a B & B, but this time we didn't camp once.  Since this represents a significant proportion of our luggage, we'll probably not do that next year.  On the other had, the trusty Trangia cooker is invaluable for tea breaksand meals in the wilds.

I tried to blog while touring, and recorded our routes with a GPS datalogger.  This worked well, except for the day we rode to the Black Isle, when it ran out of juice before we finished riding.

An invaluable source of information about sites of interest in Scotland is the Undiscovered Scotland website. It's well worth looking up the areas you plan to visit - there's a useful map based navigation tool.  The Rough Guide to the Scottish Highlands and Islands (this link is to the edition we have, though check for the latest) is an excellent source of information, particularly on places to eat and to stay, and fits easily in a handlebar bag.  We previously had the Rough Guide to Scotland which is not nearly as good. 

For island hopping, the Caledonian MacBrayne website has timetables.  We generally make several crossings and find that one of the Island Hopscotch tickets are most convenient, and offer savings (e.g. the bike goes free).  On this tour, we bought Island Hopscotch #7, which covered Oban-Craignure, Tobermory-Kilchoan and Mallaig-Armadale.  We've never had problems getting on one of these ferries (the limits mostly affect drivers), and the CalMac staff are invariably helpful - it's always worth asking if they want bikes on first or last when they are loading the ferry.

A word on the National Cycle Routes.  On this trip, we made a conscious effort to make use of the Sustrans National Cycle Routes, particularly as they relate to negotionating thebusy and fast A9 trunk road.  In the past we've just avoided this road (mostly).  On this trip, we used Route 83 to get from Dunkeld to Ballinluig, and Routes 1 and 7 to get from the Black Isle to Inverness, and from Inverness to Ballinluig respectively.  In our experience, the signage (particularly in towns) is pretty poor.  Inverness in particularl is horrendous, with a requirement to push bicycles over busy dual carriageways.  We got hopelessly lost in Inverness.  Some of the purpose built cycle path sections are pretty crap, though much of the network uses less busy B roads.  On the whole, I prefer to be more in command of the routes I take, but that being said, the route 7 along the A9 is invaluable, and has some really nice wide sections as well a ridiculously narrow parts.