Category: cycling

Following our successful tour in 1975 Magnus and I decided to do the same the following year only following a different route. We again planned to stay at SYHA youth hostels which as before we had to pre-book. The route took us from Aberdeen to Braemar, Perth, Edinburgh, Wanlockhead (Scotlands highest village), Ayr, Glasgow, Stirling, Glen Nevis, Inverness, Aviemore and finally back to Aberdeen. A total of around 591 miles (google maps).

The year before had been pretty exciting and we had no accidents or any mishaps, except for one puncture on the first day. 1976 however was very different, on route from Glasgow to Crianlarach (I think) we had a very nasty accident. We came speeding round a corner, Magnus in front and me with my front wheel only inches from his bike, when suddenly this woman jumped right out in front of him waving her arms. Magnus swerved and braked but I didn’t have enough time to react and my front wheel wedged between his pannier rack and wheel. The next few seconds seemed to go in slow motion as I remember my front wheel getting jammed and veering off to the right whilst I carried straight on and the rest of the bike followed me. I flew forward and started to tumble and hoping like hell there wasn’t any on coming traffic as I was heading for the middle of the road. I saw Magnus come to a stop as I landed heavily on my left shoulder with my bike following behind me. I thought at the time, “this is going to hurt because I don’t have a shirt on” . When we all finally came to a stop all I could think about was my bike lying in a tangled mess in the middle of the road. I had a few cuts an grazes but nothing broken.

The woman had been driving an old mini van which had broken down, after we had assessed the damage to my bike (a badly buckled rear wheel) we agreed to  try and jump start it. She agreed if we got it going she’d give us a lift to the nearest town to to get my wheel repaired. Well, we got her car going all right after pushing it for about 50 yards but then off she drove leaving us behind.We were left totally amazed that anyone could do that. We got ourselves together and walked a couple of miles and found a garage but they couldn’t help, but they did tell us the nearest bike shop was in Stirling.

I tried to adjust my wheel and tried to cycle but this was impossible so after walking a few miles more we left our bikes at a farm and hitch-hiked to Stirling, getting to the bike shop half an hour after it closed. This was turning out to be a very bad day. We headed up to the hostel near the castle in Stirling checked in and called the Crianlarach hostel to say we couldn’t make it. I those days you had to do chores when you booked out of the hostel so we asked if we could do ours the night before so we could leave early in the morning. We then made a bee line for the nearest pub because today of all days we needed a drink.

I don’t remember the name of the pub but it was not exactly a high class establishment, Magnus got involved in a game of cards and won quite a bit of money. Just when we thought our luck had changed and tried to leave with the winnings it was made very clear by the locals that we couldn’t leave until they’d won their money back, which they did…fairly quickly. We returned to the hostel and in a very drunk state tried to brush the hallway and stairs, in the dark whilst trying to be quite.

Next day, bright and early we headed to the repair shop and the guy kindly straightened my wheel for free. We then hitch-hiked all the way back to the farm where we left our bikes, which was somewhere near Thornhill I think. It was now nearly 13:00 and we had to get to Fort William. That was a very hard days ride sustained by mars bars and crisps we made it to Glen Nevis hostel at about 21:00 just in time to claim our beds, the place was really busy that night with people even sleeping in the hallway.

I have been cycling almost as long as I can remember, my first bike was a three wheeler at the age of three or four, I can still picture it. At the age of five I had an accident falling off a neighbours bike whilst messing about and badly grazed my face. As a sort of get well present my mother bought me my first ‘real’ two wheeler from Halfords in Aberdeen, they only did bikes in those days. I had this bike for years in fact it was handed down to both my sisters then brother and it was still around being used at my mother’s when I was in my late twenties. The next bike I got was second hand and had no gears and was nothing special. I spent a lot of time trying to make it look better but nothing worked and my mother wouldn’t even let me put drop handlebars on it.

At secondary school I met Magnus, still a close friend who shared my interest in cycling. We got talking about going for a tour of Scotland which I showed great enthusiasm for even though I didn’t own a bike at that point. We agreed to do a few training runs from Aberdeen to Braemar (about 60 miles), but first I had to get a bike. I scoured the local paper and picked up a Raleigh with five gears for £20 and that weekend we set off for Braemar. By the time we got to the youth hostel it was evident, in many ways that this bike was far too small for me, I was in a lot of pain and had blisters where you should never get blisters. It was clear that I could not tour Scotland on this bike so I had to get another but with less than two weeks till the school holidays time was running out. I sold the Raleigh and bought another (proper sized) bike which I had for a couple of days before I rode into the back of a parked car and bent the frame.

We were due to head off on our first tour of Scotland in less than a week and I couldn’t use the damaged bike. My mother, once again bought me a bike form Halfords, this time a full sized Carlton Corsa. This image is from an old catalogue but my Corsa was exactly the same as this, even the colour. I found out years later that my mother had to take out a loan to pay for this bike which was £65 but she realised how important this trip was to me.

So Magnus and I headed off on Thursday 3rd July 1975 on our first cycling tour of  Scotland which would follow a route through Inverness, Carbisdale Castle, Ullapool, Torridon, Ratagan, Glen Nevis, Oban, Aberfeldy, Perth, Aviemore then back to Aberdeen. The total distance (according to Google maps) is 697 miles, although we never measured it at the time. We Stayed at Youth Hostels all the way which in those days had very limited opening times and some were very basic indeed. I remember Torridon (Glen Cottage)

in particular which was a temporary hostel whilst they were building the new grade 1 hostel. We basically slept in a shed with a canoe slung in the rafters and a chemical toilet out the back. The most impressive hostel by far was Carbisdale Castle which was, and still is a magnificently impressive building. I remember the warden used to waken you at around 06:30 by playing bagpipe music on an old record player in the great hall. The Inverness hostel we stayed in which was near the Castle is no more and there doesn’t appear to be an SYHA hostel in Perth any more.

This was a fantastic trip for a sixteen year old I think it was our first real taste of freedom, no parents, no school and it was up to us what we did. The first day however, didn’t go that well if I remember I had a puncture outside of Elgin and although I had a repair kit I couldn’t find the leak, I even tried using a nearby burn. In the end Magnus remembered a friend of his fathers lived in Elgin so we went there and begged the use of a basin of water and had a welcome cup of tea.

I remember that summer being extremely hot in fact there were forest fires up around Aviemore and the tar on the road melted and stuck to our tyres. In those days I hadn’t even heard of sun screen except for the old zinc oxide paste our mothers used on us as kids, so consequently we both got very sunburned, me in particular. I remember stopping at almost every burn and using the water to cool us down we even tried cycling with no shoes, but this was too painful. Somewhere along the line I bought some calamine lotion to soothe the sunburn and at Ratagan hostel I covered my arms in the stuff. This proved to be even more unbearable then the sunburn itself so I spent the next hour or so trying to get the stuff off (very gingerly) using water from the loch, a sight which Magnus found highly amusing.