Intro - Bicycling the Scottish Highlands

Well, I've decided to blog about what I do best... bicycle touring. I can get all irate at any moment, just thinking about the steaming pile of crap that our government has become. But that isn't entertaining, and if you consider that to be entertaining, then check out any of the blogs in my blogroll.

In the meantime, I'll write about what I know best. First up: a trip report from Scotland, one of my favorite tours that I've done.

Scotland 2002

The Gentle Reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become, until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the Gentle Reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass.

-- Mark Twain

Why Scotland? I'd been thinking about a tour in Scotland for a couple years now. I'd heard that it was a great place to bike tour, and had read some tour reports by other cyclists. It just seemed like a beautiful country, and I had to see for myself!

After checking into a solo tour, I found an organizer who put together a nice package that included baggage transfer and arranging accomodations, but not really leading the group. This sounded great to me, and I thought some of my fellow Tarwheelers might be interested. So, I asked if anyone wanted to come along. To my surprise, 10 others said that they wanted to come. The small group that I had envisioned, had mushroomed into a much larger, though intriguing, group.

So I contacted the organizer, Bespoke Highland Tours, and asked if they could handle 11 people. Sure, they could, as a group. Thus, our Tarwheel Scotland tour was born. The idea was that we would meet in Glasgow, getting there however we could manage, then start the tour together. After the original tour of seven days was complete, we would scatter to the four winds and make our way back home after possibly exploring more of the country on our own. For example, I had planned to bike up the northeast coast ofScotland, finishing up with a day in the Orkneys before heading back to London.

Bill and Ian, from Bespoke Highland Tours - they made it happen!

So, that's how it got started. And this travelogue is a feeble attempt to tell how it all turned out (in a word, it was wonderful!).

Our group consisted of a total of 11 people. Of the 11, six of us had previous experience on
multi-day, self-contained bike camping trips. Four others had experience with multi-day trips where the luggage was transported. And the 11th person had just biked a century (100 miles) the previous year, so I knew she'd do all right. In addition, I knew that this group would be a fun bunch, able to laugh at adversity and turn it into just another part of the experience, instead of allowing it to ruin the trip. So, we were ready!

The itinerary (I've marked the days where all 11 of us rode together with '*'):

• Prolog - Flying to London and training to Glasgow


• Day 1 - Glasgow and Paisley(*)


• Day 2 - Tulloch to Fort William(*)


• Day 3 - Fort William to Glenfinnan(*)


• Day 4 - Glenfinnan to Acharacle(*)


• Day 5 - Acharacle to Arisaig(*)


• Day 6 - Day Trip to Eigg(*)


• Day 7 - Arisaig to Isleornsay(partial *)


• Day 8 - Isleornsay to Arnisdale


• Day 9 - Arnisdale to Ft. Augustus


• Day 10 - Ft. Augustus to Inverness


• Day 11 - Inverness to Cromarty


• Day 12 - Cromarty to Brora


• Day 13 - Brora to Melvich


• Day 14 - Melvich to Finstown


• Day 15 - Finstown to Wick


• Day 16 - Return to Glasgow

I will post each of these days as a blog entry. So enjoy!