Early morning patchy mist had cleared, revealing a rather warm morning (well, warm for 7am!), for the Beds RCC charity '25'. The event was run, as usual, on the F1B/25. This course, which runs south from Tempsford on the A1, is reputed to be a slower than the northbound version, due to the severe undulations on the course just prior to the turn. But I've always found it a good course, and one that feels a bit safer due to the absence of slip roads: all joining roads do so at regular juntions and roundabouts.Before I started, my team mate Tony found he'd forgotten his overshoes. He borrowed my plasticky black ones though he seemed dissatisfied with their general grubbyness, and cleaned them up with some wet wipes he had kicking around. Dave Jones, a regular photographer at these events (I've posted some of his photographs before), had arrived without his specs, so I lent him my reading glasses so that he could work his camera.The essential support roles now complete, I rolled off for a brief warmup before starting. It was quite quickly obvious that this was a rather nice morning - there was virtually no wind as I lined  up at the start. I rolled off and tried to keep a semblance of speed as I rode up to the junction which leads down to the A1. Once on the dual carriageway, things seemed to flow quite well. I had absolutely no holdups at any of the roundabout crossings. Perhaps all this means I didn't try hard enough? Well, I reached the turn in under 30 minutes, and finished in 58:17, which (somewhat to my embarrassment) is my fastest '25' time this season. Perhaps I could have gone that little bit harder to finish with a 57, but given that Tony did a cracking ride to finish in 55:06, I was unlikely to get too much closer.With only 6 weeks or so until Team Grumpy's ride at the Duo Normand, perhaps this uplift in my form is an indicator that we'll snatch some form out of nowhere for the Duo. Here's hoping...

Early drizzle soon cleared, and conditions were warm and sunny with only a light breeze to discomfit the 13 riders who turned out for tonight's event. On the downside, this was one of those 'flying ant' days, when all the ant colonies seem to simultaneously produce new queens. I was expecting to spend a lot of the time extracting ants from my eyes during this event, but fortunately, most of them had dispersed by the evening.We had a turnout of 13 riders (plus Steve T., who had a problemmo with his front tub valve and didn't ride). My biggest problem was that I'd just come back from a week at residential school with the attendant consequence of 7 days with no exercise and a diet of chips and beer. This led me to DNS Sunday's Finsbury Park '25', but really I needed to get the bit between my teeth again. So I rode over to Stony Stratford for this event.I found the outward leg really quite hard - particularly the climb from Beachampton through Nash. But that's not too unusual, this isn't my favourite course for that reason. The return was quite quick as, for a change, the roads were dry and I felt confident enough to belt down the hills, and corner on the tri-bars. I ended up with 27:43 which, because several riders were on road bikes and some fast guys hadn't showed up, was good enough to win the event.I did find my pulse rate rather high, seeing 190bpm at one point! Anyway, full results over at the NBRC website. At the moment, my attention is focussed on the Duo Normand, which is around 6 or 7 weeks away...

This event on the F1/25 unusually used an HQ in Sandy. I'd also decided to ride over to the event, and given my Puncture Bob alter ego, I figured it was wise to set aside enough time to deal with mechanical problems en route. As it turned out, it took hardly any time to get to the HQ, and I got there with far too much time to spare. The main field of the event was your usual open event: to celebrate an anniversary there was also an invitation event with some luminaries of British time trialling, including Alex Dowsett (Team Sky), who had won the Icknield RC event a few weeks before with a 47.It turned out that I was number 101 - the same as Bradley Wiggins in this year's Tour de France. The question in my mind was whether this would inspire me. After signing on and attaching my number, there wasn't really much else to do other than ride around the lanes near the start.  By the time I'd reached the start line, I'd racked up 36 miles and come to the conclusion that conditions were remarkably similar to the Icknield event in which I'd failed to crack the hour. I was a little concerned that maybe 36 miles wasn't a great starting point for a '25'...The opening mile or so before joining the A1 seemed very tough. Tougher than I expected, even given the extra large warmup. But out on the A1, things weren't too bad even with the headwind. Turning at the roundabout near Sandy, there was David Jones - snapping riders as they came out of the turn. I closed my mouth, sucked my belly in and tried to look like a fit and fast cyclist. The long leg up to Buckden was quick and uneventful. I got caught for a minute at about 8 miles and caught a rider or two myself. Rounding the turn at Buckden, I wondered what the long southbound leg would be like. As it turned out, not too bad, though the stiff headwind did make things a bit hard at times. The only alarming incident was when a drive scorched into a service station north of the Black Cat, cutting in front of me to do so. I was caught by one of the invitation riders just before the turn. That wasn't unexpected, particularly given my form this season.I finished in 58:56 (30th place in the open event), which I was quite pleased with. Its actually the fourth '25' I've ridden in 2012 and only the first sub-hour ride. Given that conditions were similar to those at the Icknield event, I was pleased with a 1:19 improvement.I didn't stick around too long, as I wanted to get home to watch the Tour de France. I eventually got home at about 11:15am with 84 miles completed.

This is probably the only time this season I'll race on the Stagsden course (see Garmin trace below), as I was away cycle touring on the previous occasion this year. The evening was marred by an exceptionally heavy shower - but let's face it, that's pretty much par for the course for this season. I rode up via Astwood, and it was at Astwood that the deep black clouds caught me and I rode along the A422 towards the meeting point in one of the heaviest showers I can remember ever having been riding a bike in. By the time I arrived to sign on, I was completely and utterly drenched, from head to toe. My colleagues were all warmly ensconced in motor vehicles and took some delight in seeing me squelch into view. Fortunately that was all the rain I experienced that evening, but the roads were pretty wet throughout.From the start, this course always feels tough, as the road rises gently towards Astwood and beyond. This evening was no exception, particularly as there was a stiff head wind. Indeed, I felt as though I was riding through mush as my speed dropped. But once past Astwood, things felt a bit better, even though my speed wasn't that great. Up the hill to Chicheley and on to the turn roundabout. From the turn, things got much better. With the tail wind my speed picked up - I noticed 34 mph at one point.I squelched on past the finish, recording 23:19, which I was quite pleased with. I was closer to Tony that I've been on recent outings, though we were all somewhat eclipsed by Jason Gurney's excellent ride.Results (at northbucksroadclub.org.uk)

It was always on the cards that tonight's event stood the risk of being dominated by the weather, and so it transpired. But it was beyond just being wet! Riding up to Astwood in sunshine, I could see deep black clouds heading my way, despite the essentially sunny conditions I was cycling in. When I arrived to sign on, most of the riders (there were 17 mad fools there) were all looking a bit apprehensively at the glowering horizon, with much talk of hailstones falling nearby.By the time the first riders started, the wind had dropped, but while I was 'warming up', the temperature had fallen noticeably. However, the wind whipped up wildly a couple of minutes before I was due to start, and by the time I set off conditions were, shall we say, less than favourable. Emerging onto the road to Chicheley, I found myself battered by gales strong enough to not only slow me almost to a standstill, but to make my bike really rather difficult to steer. But then it got worse...First, a few rain drops, then the hail started. Under the dark clouds, I could not discern any of the numbers on my bike computer. I had no idea how fast (or rather, how slow) I was going. I had no idea what my heart rate was. In fact, by the time the rain was evading my glasses and the lenses had steamed up, I could barely see where I was going.I pressed on to the Chicheley turn, which I took very gingerly. The next stretch up to North Crawley seemed quite speedy.  But I really had no grip on how I was going! From North Crawley I felt it was heavy going, and each bend was taken cautiously. Finally, I reached the descent before the final climb. I roared down as best I could, buffeted by wind and rain (fortunately the hail had stopped in favour of heavy rain), and ground up the climb to the finish. Still unable to read my computer, I waited for the result.25:30Possibly my worst time on that course that I can recall. I blame the ghastly conditions. Still, we'll see how I get on at the weekend, when I'm supposed to ride the API Metrow '25' on the E2/25. Last weekend's VC10 '10' was cancelled due to roadworks: this weekend's weather is forecast to be rather wet, so we shall see whether the '25' goes ahead...P.S. I failed to report on last week's two-lap event at Astwood - I'll write that up out of sequence maybe.

Strangely, there wasn't even a whiff of rain for this event, which was in itself something that marked the event as a bit special, at least for 2012. The other unusual factor was that we had as scratch rider the current British time trial champion and Team Sky professional Alex Dowsett. Apparently he'd ridden a '10' the previous afternoon, recording a shortish 18.As I warmed up for the event, two things were quickly apparent: firstly, it was actually quit cold just before 7am and secondly, there was quite a stiff breeze whistling across the fields. This promised to make the southbound legs of the event rather tiresomely tough. Well, at least for us lesser mortals in the field!And so it proved. The initial short southbound leg to the Sandy roundabout undulates a bit, so I found the speed quite high at times, but predominantly I found the head wind a bit of a bother. Once round the Sandy roundabout, things perked up considerably, and I headed northwards a a decent speed. David Jones was there snapping riders as they passed.[caption id="attachment_1965" align="aligncenter" width="469" caption="Just after the Sandy turn (photo David Jones)"][/caption]One issue that concerned the organisers had been the closure of the M1 near J12 (to remove a now superfluous bridge) and the re-routing of some of the M1 traffic via the A1. Busy traffic near the Black Cat was expected. As it happened, traffic levels weren't too bad, I thought, at any point. I reached the Buckden turn in about 34 minutes - from here it's about 10 miles to the finish. But those 10 miles were pretty tough going. Oddly, there were spells where I was fairly whizzing along. But mostly I was grovelling. And at times finding the steering rather twitchy in the wind.Shortly after the Buckden turn, I was contemplating a finish time substantially over the hout, but as I crossed the Black Cat once again, I was entertaining hopes that I might squeak a sub-hour ride. But I crossed the line in a disappointing 1:00:15. Mind you, that's the fastest of the three '25's that I've ridden this year. As for my mate Tony, he did a long 56. Next weekend sees my first ride on the new cheatie '10' course on the Tring bypass.And what of Alex Dowsett? 47:53. He won. An excellent ride...

A warm sunny and quite still evening this week: how unusual that felt! I rode over to Stony Stratford via the V10 redways, which is always a navigational challenge (but the traffic on V10 seemed quite heavy). At one point in an underpass, I got off the bike to avoid trailing through broken glass, and got talking to a group of four kids who seemed interested in the bike. After letting them look at it (and feel its weight - or rather lack of it), I carried on my way. Later, at the time trial, other riders ventured the opinion that this was unwise - but actually they were pretty good-natured kids, and quite young. Anyway, I reached the signing on just in time to get a start one minute before Tony. So, I knew I'd get caught, question was - when?I set off in as good a style as possible, with the instructions from the start crew that I wasn't to let Tony catch me. That may have been intended as encouraging, but frankly it would have taken a puncture to avoid the catch! Anyway, I successfully negotiated the crappy road surface into Beachampton, where the worst and deepest potholes appear to have been filled, rode through the ruts and holes as I exited Beachampton, then began the climb up to Nash. This time, I chose to moderate my gears. Did this help? Not a bit - I still suffered and grovelled up to Nash. Once through Nash I tried to settle into a better rhythm and avoid an early catch. But to no avail, Tony rolled past at pretty much the same point as the last time we rode this course. Never mind, I thought, he didn't keep pulling away so fast last time. But what was this? Tony roared off like a bat out of hell, and not even descending like a stone from Nash could keep him in sight! Clearly either Tony was on song, or I was going backward. Or both.In any event, I finished in third place out of 12 with 27:43. This is marginally quicker than the last time I rode at Stony Stratford, back in May, but frankly nothing to shout about. Ho hum!Results

This was a rare outing to the F20/10, a course based on the A20 dual carriageway near Ware. This course is where I set my best time in the last three seasons, back in 2010 - 21:05. Since that season, it's fair to say my performances have been rather lacklustre. Tony and I set off for the Hertfordshire Wheelers event on a rather cold and blustery evening - hoping that the wind was coming from a direction that would provide at least some assistance at some point. To add to our worries, rain was threatened...We reached the HQ in Great Amstell in good time for our start times (19:32 and 19:43), got the bikes and ourselves set up then rode out to warm up. The roads around the course were pretty busy and this, together with darkening skies (black clouds had been building) gave me considerable cause for concern. At least I had remembered my rear light - but what help thst would offer on arather busy road wad by no means clear, and I'd begjn to worry about safety on the way over to the race. Maybe I'm getting old!  As we warmed up, the rain began...Eventually I reached the start. I was a bit early, but I didn't fancy negotiating the Rush Green flyover too many times. I talked to my minute man. Turned out he'd had to return to fhe HQ to change his skinsuit after oiks in a passing car had flung tomato ketchup over him. This didn't really help my general lack of enthusiasm and worry. All too soon, I was being held by the pusheroff as the timekeeper counted down. Pretty quickly I was up to speed. I think - with my (very lightly) tinted glasses coupled with my general need for reading specs (especially in low light) and the gloomy conditions I found myself riding in, I found it difficult if not impossible to read my bike computer. Unfortunately, and while one certainly couldn't accuse the F20/10 of being a hilly course, soon after the start there's a gentle rise. I decided to just try and muscle my way over, but this was at the cost of a considerable drop in speed, and a bit of an oxygen debt, which took a while to clear. the rest of the outward leg wasn't too bad, despite the head wind, at least in terms of gradient. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of traffic coming on and off the course on the slip roads, and this made me very nervous. I don't really see that peering over my shoulder would actually have had any benefit, but it certainly took the edge off my speed. Overall, it all combined to make it difficult to stay focussed on my ride.As I rode up the slip road to the turn, I heard an ominous carbon fibre rumble as #104 caught me for a minute. I rode round the turn trying to stay back - this was quite good (it forced me to review my pace) - it wasn't until well after we returned to the dual carriageway that he started to pull away again fast. The big blow was that the return leg was rather sheltered from any beneficial effects of the wind, so there wasn't really any help. I was left feeling rather grateful that I was only riding a '10', and not some longer distance. The rain built a bit as I approached finish - in 22:35. Not a good result by any stretch of the imagination. How much of that was down to poor form and how much to my lack of mental focus I'm not sure (probably both), but I really need to work on this.

Good grief, a sunny evening for a club '10'! This was perhaps the warmest time trial I've ridden all year. I was surprised it didn't bring out more riders, but I wonder whether we're suffering a bit of competition from the VC10's Wednesday club events on the fast Tring course (F11/10), which I think attracted some regular riders.Anyway, despite feeling a bit tired after trailing over to Uxbridge for most of the day, I was feeling fairly comfortable on the ride over to Astwood. It was a pretty good evening with only a light wind, which promised to make the return leg a little harder. But of course, it meant the first three or four miles to Chicheley, usually the quickest part of the course were likely to be even quicker than usual. And so it proved. Actually, this was only disturbed (for me, at least) by a motorcyclist who roared past me very close and very loud, and who nearly made me jump out of the saddle!It wasn't until the North Crawley turn that I found it hard to keep the speed up - after the T-junction it's always a bit of an effort to get one's speed back up, and tonight seemed worse than usual. But after that it was business as usual.I finished with 23:46, a reasonably time, though the top three riders came in over a minute quicker than that (and some had course PBs). I'm over to ride the F20 on an evening event on Saturday - it'll be interesting to see how that goes as it's quite a fast course. I may bring out the lighter wheels for that event!Results (over at the NBRC website) 

This is an event I enter each year, and is the only event which uses the somewhat peculiar F13/25. I say peculiar, because it features pedestrian crossing traffic lights on the course. To add insult to injury, said traffic lights are immediately outside a police station in Waddesden. Other than that, the course is quite straightforward, and while not exactly hilly is sufficiently lumpy to make it one of the slower courses I ride each year. The 2012 edition of the event featured a new HQ in Ambrosden (the regular HQ in Launton having been booked), and had been altered to avoid new traffic lights. So the main A41 section turned at the new Parkway roundabout, and the section on the B4011 to the finish correspondingly extended. The day before saw spectacularly windy conditions and, while the wind had certainly lessened, it was clearly going to be a problem.As I foresaw, the outward leg was in general slightly wind-assisted, and the return leg correspondingly difficult. What I hadn't remembered (at least in how bad it was) was the poor state of the road, ranging from cracked and lumpy tarmac to downright dangerous potholes. This actually wasn't too bad in safety terms (as long as one kept a sharp look out), though I never like riding over crappy tarmac.The first climb comes about 3.5 miles from the start, but it's far from the only one. Indeed  the bending nature of the road made some sections hard even on the outward leg. Once again, I wasn't stopped at the traffic lights in either direction. Traffic was pretty light, so I experienced no real hold ups. The last section on the B4011 was a bit tougher than I expected - I went roaring off after the turn down a gentle descent, but then road turned up slightly and I was left gasping and wondering where the finish was. I ended up with 1:00:35 for 13th place (6th on standard) out of 45, which I was reasonably happy with, given that normally only just break the hour on a good day. Mind you, the winner did 51:31!  

Along with the website update, I finally got around to sorting out the report of our 2012 Summer Tour (click the Cycling menu item above and select 2012).  I suppose this was almost a Spring tour, as we had to set off quite early due to work commitments. On the other hand, I think this was 9 days of rain-free cycling, and possibly our first tour in which we had no rain. Despite the dates we cycled, we did encounter some midgies - but they weren't really much of an issue. During the nine days, starting and finishing in Oban, we visited Barra, Eriskay, South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist, Harris, Lewis, Skye and Mull. We made nine ferry crossings! Almost every B&B had free WiFi, making this our most connected tour - we took along an iPad to plan routes using Google Maps, to check weather forecasts and on one occasion find out about a road closure. The road closure was suspended because of the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

A reasonably warm evening greeted us for this week's time trial.  As readers will have noted, this was my first time trial for a couple of weeks, and came after cycle touring on the tandem. My usual experience is that several hundred miles of cycling for long days at low speed does nothing for my speed, and this evening was an example of that.The initial sections, across three roundabouts and up to the dual carriageway section seemed quite quick. I always find myself easing off to negotiate the first roundabout - on safety grounds as the surface there is rather potholed and rough. Up on the dual carriageway, I found myself losing concentration, and for a couple of spells allowed my speed to drop off. I think there may have been a bit of a head wind at points, but really I needed to keep a better focus!Once round the turn, things perked up a bit, but despite that Simon cruised past me, looking cool. Off the DC and down the hill, things kept up well, but ultimately the final section, on rough tarmac was a bit heavy. I was stopped to a standstill by a line of cars at the final roundabout, and had to heave myself up to speed. This kind of sapped my energy  for the final push for the line, and I finished in 23:10. This is a bit down on my last few outings, but maybe it's down to the post-tour effect.I'm riding the Hemel Hempstead CC '25' on Sunday - that may give a clearer idea of my form. It's on the F13/25, which isn't a particularly quick course.

This was billed as the day on which the weather would turn, with light rain afflicting our final day's cycling. But would it? As I looked out of the window when I woke, the skies were still cloud free.The bathroom window had unfortunately been left slightly ajar, admitting quite a few midgies! This was pretty minor compared to the clouds around our heads as we loaded our luggage back onto the tandem and prepared to roll off. The planned route was to cycle to the end of the loch, then cycle over Morvern to Lochaline (about 23.5 miles), catch the ferry to Fishnish on Mull, then cycle about 5 miles to catch the Craignure to Oban ferry. If we were able make the 11.55 Fishnish ferry, we'd probably make the 13.00 Oban ferry.The ride along the loch was flat and easy going, with the water pretty smooth as there was no wind. The weather b this time was cloudy with sunny spells. However, the road was single track and motor traffic was quite disruptive to our progress. Eventually the road reared upwards. The climb itself isn't spectacularly steep, bit it is quite long. And either it gets steeper nearer the top or we were flagging! Fortunately we didn't encounter too much traffic on the way up, though we did have to stop twice to let vehicles past. Between the summit and Lochaline, there isn't another major climb, and the road descends from pretty bare hillside through wooded valleys. It does undulate quite a bit and this, with passing motor vehicles made progress quite tiring.  We did reach Lochaline in time for the 11.55 crossing. The ferry is quite small, and the provision for bikes seems a bit lacking - not a problem for solo bikes, which can be stashed anywhere, but finding a suitable spot for the tandem required some originality!The crossing takes only 15 minutes, and even after waiting for the motor vehicles to disembark, we were off and riding by 12.15. The ride to Craignure is pretty straightforward, though pretty dull, as the road is lined with trees which cut out the views. We reached Craignure about 20 minutes before the ferry was to leave, and by the time we boarded (before motor vehicles), there were about a dozen cyclists of one kind or another. By this I mean some were clearly touring (like us) while others were merely using their bike as transport for themselves and quite a bit of baggage only short distances.The crossing takes about 45 minutes, and motor traffic was unloaded first. Riding out into Oban after over a week on the Isles and west coast is always a shock to the system - Oban can be a surprisingly busy and bustling town. We quickly found ourselves negotiating traffic jams as we made our way back to the garage to pick up the car. By 14:15 we'd transferred our baggage to the car, mounted the bike on the rack and were driving home from Oban.We had no rain at any point in our tour - we had 9 dry days cycling in Scotland! That's unprecedented in our tours. As we approached the Forth Road Bridge, the rain began...

The weather forecast didn't bode well for today's ride - it was predicted to become overcast with light rain. In the end, the weather improved as the day went on, and evening in  Strontian saw completely clear blue skies.After another fine breakfast, we rolled out of Mallaig, along the main road. This isn't very busy first thing in the morning, particularly on a bank holiday. Nevertheless, we always get abuse from at least one driver who thinks we should be riding on an entirely inadequate cycle path. This path is about a metre wide and is shared by cyclists and pedestrians in BOTH directions. Anyway, we kept to the road, and soon traversed the ups and downs of the road, reaching Lochailort in quick time.Loch Ailort is a lovely sea loch, and there are numerous opportunities to stop and admire the view (in common with much of the country we cycled through, Loch Ailort is seeing quite a lot of housebuilding). Indeed, we dawdled along until Glenuig, where another of my favourite road signs is to be seen (watch out for elephants). From Glenuig, the road goes up and up, until it descends to Loch Moidart. We stopped beside the road to heat up some lunch. We were much amused by watching seagulls stamping on patches of seaweed, presumably to scare tasty morsels out. From Kinlochmoidart, the road climbs once again - this is the section being worked on and about which we were warned about. Fortunately, no work was going on due to it being a bank holiday.Once over the newly rebuilt road, we descended into Acharacle, where we stopped for ice creams at the village shop, before once again climbing over to Salen and Loch Sunart. The road from there is delightful, with mixed broadleaf woodland, and stunning views. at one point we stopped to look at some seals basking on a rock. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of a whole succession of switchback climbs and descents on singletrack.Eventually, we reached the turnoff for our B&B for the night, Heatherbank. This is a really nice B&B about 2 miles up a lane. Fortunately, there's a Tearoom/restauranf about halfway up the hill: after getting cleaned up, we walked down for dinner (we had venison). Returning to the B&B exposed us to midgies, but walking briskly kept them at bay.As I type this it's hard to believe the weather will turn tomorrow, the last day of the tour!

After an excellent night's sleep, we woke to brilliantly sunny conditions. By the time we'd had breakfast, loaded up the bike and paid the bill, it had clouded over a little. The first 11 miles were the toughest of the day, featuring the south Loch Carron road - road which as assumed mythic proportions in hour collective mind. It is, if truth be told, quite a hard road for the loaded tourer. Within a mile of leaving the hotel, we were grinding up a 15% gradient, with several climbs following, including a hugely long climb that takes one past the famous "Stromeferry (no ferry)" sign. We paused for a snack when that was done, then began a fast descent to the main road to the Skye bridge.There was a huge volume of traffic heading for Skye - I wondered whether the island would be big enough to absorb them all - and this, together with pretty atrocious road surfaces made the ride to the bridge rather a hassle, particularly as our mobile phone rang at that point! The Skye Bridge is surprisingly steep, but not difficult to negotiate, and once over, we made good progress despite several photo stops. Eventually we turned off towards Armadale. The road initially takes one over some bare moorland, despite this we decided we had time for a stop for a snack and a cuppa.Remounting, we hastened on to catch the 15:20 ferry. The road to Armadale is rather varied - one minute one's riding through bare hillside, the next through attractive woodland; one moment grinding up a surprisingly steep bit of road, the next roaring along at a fine lick.We reached the ferry terminal in good time: I bought a pair of Island Hopscotch tickets to cover the remaining ferry crossings. The guy at the desk alerted us to roadworks and consequent road closures on the road between Glenuig and Acharacle. This caused us a bit of concern, but when we reached the B&B we did a spot of Googling and found that the roadworks wouldn't be happening tomorrow as it was a Scottish bank holiday (prior to the additional Jubilee bank holiday on Tuesday).After arriving at the Western Isles B&B and cleaning up, we wandered into town and had dinner - cullen skink followed by crab wrapped in lemon sole (Carol) and scallops with cauliflower bhajis (me). After dinner we wandered about, were nosey-parkered at by a couple of seals in the harbour, then returned to the B&B.So all looks well for our penultimate day in the saddle tomorrow. That sees us cycling from  Mallaig to Strontian. According to my iPad weather app, we may see our first rain of the trip tomorrow, though I'm hopeful that we can avoid it.

This was to be the longest day's mileage - around 68 miles. I'd phoned the previous evening to book a double at the Strathcarron Hotel, so at least we knew we had somewhere to stay. After breakfast, we set off out of Ullapool, along a whole series of tough old climbs. Actually, the road didn't get at all easy until we'd reached Loch Glascarnoch (very depleted of water after a long dry period). I was concerned about my sore neck, so we stopped every ten or twelve miles to stretch and eat snacks. This section of the day's cycling was pretty bleak, with no obvious wildlife to be seen bar a few red deer carcases on the road side. Mid-way between Loch Glascarnoch and Gorstan, we stopped at a hotel with tearoom for tea and scones. Rather exorbitant, however!From Gorstan, we were on the road to Achnasheen, where we planned to stop for refreshments. The cycling was pretty easy, as we'd picked up a tailwind. The countryside became barer as we proceeded towards Achnasheen, with very little in the way of accommodation, so we were pleased to have planned ahead.There's a gift shop and tea room by the rail station at Achnasheen, where we stopped for a  (very nice) capuccino. We also admired some motorcycles being refurbished ouside! Actually, from past experience, they do a rather nice smoked venison salad. But we didn't linger, and set out on the final 21 mile leg to Strathcarron.From Achnasheen, the road rises through bare landscape, then descends to more wooded countryside as it approaches Loch Carron. At times we were exceeding 30 mph, though the road reverts to singletrack. We arrived at the Strathcarron Hotel at about 4.30, to a warm welcome. After cleaning up a bit, we had a beer (Red Cuillin), before retiring to our room to plan the last two nights' accommodation in Mallaig and Stontian. After that, a rather good dinner in the bar - monkfish and salmon kebab washed down with McEwans 80/-, followed by crannachan.

This was a pretty easy day, fortunately, with only 15 miles or so to the Stornoway ferry terminal. Reaching the ferry terminal, we left the bike, and went to investigate Stornoway. We picked up some bananas and fruit and nut mix from the Co-op (along with a couple of bottles of chocomilk). A visit to the Library cafe dealt with lunch (toasties and apple pie with capuccinos). After wandering around, we returned to the ferry terminal and waited for the ferry.The man loading the ferry was keen to get us on the ferry before the cars, which was good, as it meant we could get good seats on the observation deck. On the crossing, which is about 2h45, we actually saw some dolphins and gannets going after a shoal of fish. Despite the sunny conditions, it was getting a bit cool, even in the ferry. It was quite a relief to get off the ferry - the bloke organising the unloading was very helpful, and got us off before the majority of motor vehicles.Once off the boat, we circulated, looking for a B&B - the one we settled on was a little 'eccentric', and not en suite.  But we both slept well enough. For evening meal, we went to the Ferry Boat Inn. Carol had cajun monkfish, which was great, while I had a mountain of grilled langoustines. For dessert we both had Ecclefechan tart.And so to bed.

This turned out to be a day of two halves - and both suffered from strong head winds.We completed our stay at the Lochedge B&B with an excellent breakfast, and selected our packed lunch. This armed, we set out for the next arranged B&B - up on the west coast of Lewis. First, however, we had to scale the absurdly steep road from Maraig to the road across Clisham. We accomplished this with some style, and set off on the main cycling out of Harris and into Lewis. The weather at this point was rather overcast and cool.We quickly realised this was not going to be easy cycling, as we had a nagging head wind. After about 20 miles, we made a left turn to Garynahine. For eight miles we had anice tail wind! We paused to eat our packed lunches (ham and mustard & salmon and cucumber sandwiches) in the sunshine - by now, the sunny spells were longer and more frequent. Unfortunately, from Garynahine, things got a lot harder as the head wind ad begun to swing and become more northerly. We cycled past the famous Callanish stone circle (and Callanish III, a secondary circle nearby) and pressed on to Carloway.At Carloway, there's a great view of the famous broch from the road. Once again we decided not to stop, since we'd visited the broch before. A little further on, we made a short detour to the Gearannon black house museum, but only because we knew they had a good tearoom, and by this time we desperately needed a pit stop. Tea and scones fortified us as we rejoined battle against the wind, with 15 miles or so to go before reaching the B&B. The cycling remained really tough as the head wind strengthened, and we were getting a bit fractious in the last few miles.Once in the B&B we showered, and pretty much collapsed! Plans to go out for a walk fell by the wayside as we decided to just take it easy.Fortunately, tomorrow should be an easy day - according to Google, we will have a mere 15.1 miles to cycle, and this should have a stiff tail wind. The ferry to Ullapool leaves in the early afternoon. We still need to plan how we return to Oban in detail.

This was to be a slightly shorter mileage today, estimated at around 40 miles, plus the ferry from Berneray to Leverburgh. our destination was a Bed and Breakfast at Maraig, on the shore of Loch Seaforth in Harris.It was quite chilly as we started (though it was another brilliantly sunnydays and quite hot later), and we were a little later leaving than intended (mostly due to chatting to the B&B lady!), so we had a bit of a dash to make it to the ferry - which we did with about 10 minutes to spare. Once again, there were quite a few cyclists. The crossing takes about an hour as it zig zags around various obstacles. Once in Leverburgh, the cyclists dispersed along the road. We didn't ride for much more than half an hour before stopping by a fabulous beach to make a coffee and eat a snack lunch.Our progress to Maraig was quite leisurely due to frequent photo stops, and two major climbs. The first of these was before Tarbert, and features a climb from the golden sands up through the weird rocky landscape that Harris is renowned for. We didn't stop in Tarbert, but did (for a drink)  just below the second big climb of the day, over Clisham. We have memories of this climb from earlier tours, and it was just as hard to get a tandem over as we remembered! At the top, we stopped to stretch, as my neck was feeling a bit stiff. Just over he crest of the hill is the turn off to Maraig. We met Richard (the owner of the B&B) coming up the steep road to meet us, as he'd heard the tandemists he was expecting were looking a bit lost!Lochedge B&B is in a spectacular location. It's also the most lavishly set up B&B I think I've stayed in (more on this when I do the final write up of the tour).  Dinner was excellent (vegetable soup; local mackerel; gin and tonic sorbet). Very good company from other guests, and from Richard. Highly recommended accommodation.Nature points: a seal seen basking, a variety of wading birds, more geese with goslings, loads of dragonflies whizzing about. And at one stop, many sundews.