Tandem riding on Skye - part one

With a little bit of effort, a bent bar and the need to get a replacement along with a lot of encouragement from John and Ruth from J D Tandems I managed to get a BTS tandem carrier fitted to the top of the car. This meant the tandem could come on holiday with us to Skye.
For the first few days of the holiday I wondered why I'd bothered. Grey cloud down at around 200 feet made seeing across the bay from our holiday cottage almost impossible. And with the cloud, rain. I'm not per se a fair weather cyclist but I'm also not a complete nutcase wanting to go out in anything. And for the Stoker this would be the first time out on the roads in Skye, so we wanted to make it a good experience, not one to be avoided at all costs.

Portnalong

Finally a day came along where the weather was fine. And with the promise of a south westerly breeze we decided to ride to Portnalong which is just a view across the loch from the cottage. By road, however, it's about 14 miles. Such is the way with things on the north west coast of Scotland and its attendant islands. There's something else about the roads here. There's no way you could describe them as flat. There's no major alpine cols but I think in the 28 miles we did on this trip you'd be hard pressed to find a continuous mile (or even 1/2 mile) of flat tarmac. But with views like this you can't complain much.

Views of the Cuillin from the road south

I'd ridden the roads to Carbost before. In fact I've used the first hill in this ride as a training session, doing hill repeats on it. So I knew the first 10 miles or so and despite the up and down nature it went ok. We descended into Carbost and came upon the Talisker distillery right down by the loch side. Luckily, thanks to ridewithgps, I was prepared for what followed. A very steep, thankfully short, section of tarmac to put us on the road out to Portnalong. Despite the forecast for fine weather we endured a short shower on this rolling stretch of road before we dropped down to the road end. Here's a picture of me with the tandem. The Stoker is in their preferred position, behind the camera.

The road end at Portnalong

At this point we could see our holiday abode but we knew that the way back was to reverse our outward cycle. With all the up and down it wasn't the most pleasant of thoughts but after a drink and some oat-based bars we were off again.
After enjoying the "whee" down the hill after climbing out of Carbost we faced the long climb up and away from the Cuillin. This section felt long and I was pleased that we got up it in one go; tortoise style. The rest of the roads back were surprisingly ok and we enjoyed another fast run down the big hill we'd ground our way up on the way out.
For the Stoker this was by far and away their hilliest bike ride to date.  Of course, success on this route just means more hills to come!

The Ride

Cake at Dunvegan

On Skye you can't have a rest day if the weather is nice because you know it's never going to last that long. And in this case we had a forecast promising rain and wind for the next day so it was back on with the lycra and out with the bike. This time we remembered the pump (a good job we hadn't needed it the day before) and headed out.
After the hills of the day before a slightly less hilly route was desired. Unfortunately from the cottage you can only really go up so we picked the least horrible option and headed north to Dunvegan.
To make things more interesting we decided to cycle the little loops at Ullinish, Harlolsh and Orbost before sneaking up to the cafe at Dunvegan Castle. These back roads were great with lovely views and even better driving from the small number of cars we met. Most of the drivers seemed delighted to see a tandem. It's a reaction we are getting used to. And a far better reaction than the one I'm used to.
The main views on this run up the coast is of these hills. I'd like to point out that this picture (and the one of the Cuillin) was taken on another adventure but it shows the scenery you can have on Skye.

MacLeod Tables

Coffee and cake was well timed as we sat in the cafe watching a short sharp shower fall on the cars in the car park. Luckily we had parked the tandem under the shelter of some trees. As part of my promotion of Skye I can recommend the carrot cake, scones, hot chocolate and tea at the cafe. We also enjoy the garden there.
The straight ride back should have been uneventful but proved not to be. Coming through Dunvegan we ended up behind a car whose driver decided to stop and be nice to the traffic on the other side of the road and let them pass the parked car. This meant we needed to come to an unexpected and fairly abrupt stop. When we went to start up again there was a horrible grinding noise and then the Stoker informed me that the chain had come off.
The reason for this was that I'd forgotten that we were in a very high gear when we came to a stop. And we didn't star smoothly enough. Chain back on and onto the middle chainring we started off again. The Stoker had thought the big chainring was a bit "wobbly" but I hadn't seen it. However, when we went to change onto it again we had another horrible noise and the chain came off again. Looking at it again I could see a horrible bend in the big chainring. At least it wasn't the small one so we could ride on.
The one advantage of the mechanical disaster was that we needed to coast down all but the shortest and least steep inclines. The Stoker was happy with this. To be honest my legs weren't that unhappy either. And in this way the simple run for home went very smoothly. The views of the Cuillin were great again.

The Ride

Postscript

A little bit of faith (in Sheldon Brown and the internet), a large wrench and a tiny bit of persuasion brought the chainring straight enough to ride again so we will be able to build some speed again on some of the hills round here when we go out again.