Category: Cardinal Spins

I went to Barnsley today and I liked it. Not just Barnsley, but the whole ride there from home. It took under three hours, and only an hour and a quarter to get home again by train. So why, I have to ask myself, have I never been there before? I have spent a large […]

It was a little cooler and cloudier today than yesterday’s bright sunshine; but still a great day for riding a bicycle to the coast. Especially since the warm breeze, which was not inconsiderable, had chosen to go the same way as me today. That always helps. I made my way up from the lower part […]

Having sent me on the longest unbroken straight line I can draw from my centrally located home, it was perhaps fitting that the magic spinner should next send me out along the very shortest of my cardinal spokes. Since I go where the spinner sends me, it was now my duty and pleasure to ride […]

The Durness Highland Gathering is a big deal in the far north-west of Scotland. For a weekend it takes precedence for the local population and over certain other matters. Like, for example, the Cape Wrath ferry. We weren’t to know. There was no information to tip off even the most well organised of cycling groups, […]

The Achness Hotel is in a remote part of northern Scotland, even by Scottish standards. It is inland from the coast in the tiny village of Rosehall, on a road that takes almost no traffic. It lies about ten miles from Lairg, the “Crossroads of the North”, which itself is little more than a junction […]

I wanted a decent start from Aviemore today, because I had much to achieve. Predictably enough, I slept through all the early morning activity in my YHA dormitory and woke only at 8.30am. Once again, I was playing catch up from the start. I was obviously making up in part for the miles I let […]

I changed my plans to give me an easier day today. Only 60 miles instead of 100 miles. I felt I had earned it and it actually made a lot of sense. For one thing I wanted to make a trip to the bike shop in Pitlochry. They had saved me from disaster on my […]

I left Edinburgh early because I had a lunch appointment over 40 miles away. I’m lucky to have two brothers who can offer accommodation options for me in nice parts of the southern suburbs, and I had just spent a welcome rest day doing nothing much other than playing table tennis and helping to build […]

My days in this adventure kept getting bigger. I would get a day off in Edinburgh at my brother’s house (unless you count helping to build a garden shed); but I had to earn it today. In typical fashion I failed to make an early start and was playing catch up all day long. It […]

Leaving Skipton wasn’t easy. For starters, it required an early departure to combat the threat of rain mid-afternoon where I was heading. And an early start is always a stretch for me. It means forcing down the breakfast you know you need, in this case a rather delicious one at our BnB, when you aren’t […]