Had a lovely ride out yesterday, well it was until I food bonked just near the end, but still lovely.
It was a really lovely sunny day with not much of a breeze at all, so a late morning decision seen me decide on a ride out from Tongue to Durness and then return.
It was a good idea at the time, quick check of distances and then I put an online route card in to Audax UK with a map and distances, etc. It came staright back giving me a time of 7 hours 13 minutes to complete the 124klm route. I doubted I would do it in that as I was using the Trucker which is substantially heavier than the Merckx, this combined with the map saying the outward journey was 46% climbing and the return 43%. The real plan was to test it back to back with another machine in a few weeks so if I didn't make the time cut I wasn't too bothered, I just wanted to have a nice run out.
The late start seen me arriving and parking up above Tongue around 1.30pm and leaving around 15 minutes later. It was quite warm for up here and so shorts and jersey were the order with longs in the trunk bag. Plan was to hopefully get to Durness before the halfway mark time wise, get a decent bite to eat and then rerun the route.
I was not in any rush as I had lots of stops for pics and chatting to a couple of tourers I came upon on my way back. They were heading to Durness and down the west coast. Durness was made just on 3 hours which was decent but I was tiring a bit. I went south to my turnaround point and then when I got back into Durness I couldn't find anything open to get some food. Everything was shut, both hotels and the small shop and wouldn't reopen until 6.30. By this stage I was running out of snickers and muesli bars but regardless I headed out back towards Tongue. This was to be my undoing in the end.
The rerun was great weather but there was now a steadily increasing easterly wind that was really slowing my down. This was of course in combination with dwindling energy as well.
Now this distance may not usually seem like much but considering there are quite a few big steep climbs whichever way you head it can soon catch you out if your fading. My instance of grinding to a halt was just after you leave Loch Eribol and head slightly inland there is a loch and a long two or three kilometre climb with the first kilometre at 15%. This was where I cracked, paced reduced and then a long slow grind, and grind, stop for a minute, then grind, and grind. At the top I was freezing as the headwind had picked right up and it was quite a cool wind as well which made for my wet jersey cooling me more. I quickly put my long trousers and top on and instantly felt much better. I don't know how long that climb and the following one took me but I was definitely not going to make the time cut, not that I cared by this stage, I either wanted to throw my bike in the ditch and get a lift back to Tongue then come and get it or I just wanted to lay down on the soft grass on the side and have a sleep
Neither were good thoughts especially as it was after 8pm by now and I hadn't seen a car for at least an hour anyway 
. Once in my longs and over the top of the last major climb, there were a couple of little ones to come but they were no problem, I felt much better and pushed into the headwind on the slow downhill/flat section before dropping down onto the causeway and across to Tongue itself. The last effort was made riding through Tongue and then up the road above it to the car. A long ride but despite how this sounds it was a good ride in some glorious country in some great weather. A bit more food and it would have been brilliant.
Anyway just thought I would share and put up some pics.
Jamie
The long and winding road
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