EDI-ELG/STAGE 2/BA-TORN*

When the weak, blue light filtering in through the pod window indicates it is a new day, I feel (“Was I really?”) relatively okay. Despite the exertions of the day before, the three(?) four(?) hours of sleep, the rumbling in my stomach, the damp morning and the crushing fear that I had mixed up which bottle I had used as my “emergency” the night before, I was okay. I thoroughly washed all my bottles, managing to fill them from the dish-washing hose outside the toilet block, packed up the bike and was on the road once more, albeit an hour or so behind schedule. 20 minutes of long-sleeved jersey and knee warmers was enough to get the blood flowing, and when I pulled into House of Bruar the sun had punched its way through the gloom. I decided after the previous night’s micturition-based dishonour I was no longer capable of experiencing shame, so “breakfast” was half a warm chicken pie, a coffee and most of a bar of tablet.

As the day heated up and the pie did its work I began to feel something like normal again, and after turning off left past another FLAT EARTH advert - nope, still not flat - I followed a bucolic, woozily-rolling path along the River Garry, stopping briefly for that morning’s wash at a little tide pool.

Before setting off, I had no fuelling strategy beyond the tried and true one of keeping on top of fluids, eating something small every 20 minutes and stopping every two hours or so to stretch and recalibrate. I had departed Edinburgh with only mildly-vexing doubts about how the road ahead would treat me - or I it, for that matter. This was entirely new territory and I assumed I was going well because the pedals were still revolving and I was still upright. Looming beyond the Cairngorms as I rounded the southwest corner, however, would be something to jolt my self-confidence and prove to be the hardest test of all; managing the delicate yet persistent battle with my own body.

Stopping at Dalwhinnie for water (bottles filled, remaining 250ml downed in one) and a Mars milkshake (downed in one) I saw a posse of barrel-bodied bikers removing leathers as quickly as their tubby fists would allow, one proclaiming, “Ah’m no’ bein’ funny mate, but ah’m fucken ROASTIN’.” Glancing down to double check that the temperature on the computer didn’t actually display triple digits (a mere 82deg F, or 27.7deg C), I pushed on past the (closed to visitors) distillery, soaking in the sweet smells of mash, washbacks and stills onto one of General Wade’s Military Road towards Newtonmore.

Rounding the bottom corner of the Cairngorms and finally heading true North again, the heat and effort was beginning to do strange things. It was pretty warm, and for probably the first time ever on a bike in Scotland I was hoping for a bit of wind to cool me down. Occasionally along the way, locations and times became a bit jumbled, and it can take some time for my mind to piece together the chronology, but I should have paid more attention to what my body and brain was telling me a good while back. Perhaps even the night before at Blair Atholl.

Around Dalnaspidal I had a bit of a moment again. More accurately, it became a series of moments that happened quickly one after the other, and which threatened briefly to derail the feeling of accomplishment that was pushing me onwards. Since I appeared to have successfully rid my body of all its water supply besides a thick, amber dribble, I decided to stop alongside the A9 to see if I could perform the other ablution. Luckily the only cameras around were of the average speed variety rather than those trained on the undergrowth, thus sparing a bored CCTV operator the sight of a hunched, sweating man straining to add to the brown-tinged undergrowth just to the left of the main road.

Poo talk notwithstanding, that very part of the road sent me back over 25 years to when I would catch the bus from Edinburgh to Inverness then on to Elgin to visit my folks. No matter which direction I was going nor what time of day, I would usually fall asleep on the Citybus somewhere around Aviemore. For some reason, 8 times out of 10 I would wake up when we were past/approaching Drumochter. There’s a bit when the glen opens up for the briefest moment as you rush past at 70mph and you can see for miles down Loch Ericht towards Ben Alder. So, I stopped here for a moment to take a photo/try to go #2, propping my bike (clumsily, it would turn out) against a swaying branch. I didn’t linger as this looked - judging by the carpet of discarded squares of toilet paper concealing other peoples’ chods - like a popular spot to, ahem, admire the view.

I was a couple of miles down the road when I realised my clip-on rear light was gone. It wasn’t disastrous, but it was a small comfort to have it blinking away on the saddle bag for the few times I was on busier roads. I’m aware of exactly where we parted company (I can give you a map reference but you may want to avoid the third bush on the left) but decide to push on regardless. I stopped to take a photo for my pal Graham - below - and carried on, passing a septuagenerian walker and wishing him good afternoon. Maybe unhitching all 92g of rear light was amplifying the sense that I was now flying along; I had Slint in the headphones and was feeling strong.

A mile or so further I go to take my phone out of my zipped rear pocket. Zip is open. Phone is gone. There are quite literally only two folk - Old Man Hiker and me - on this road, so I know I can double back and (probably) find it, but I’m cursing myself for two things going wrong within a few miles; not checking everything was still attached to the bike when I stopped at Turd Valley and not checking my pocket was properly zipped. For the first time that day I experience waves of panic and annoyance in equal measure. Mercifully, some way back up the track, only a hundred or so yards past a slow-moving Old Man Hiker (“Afternoon again. Dropped something. Back there.”) is the phone, lying face down in the sun. A frisson of joy as I pick it up to find a few dings in the housing but the screen miraculously free of any cracks. Sixty seconds later I go back past Old Man Hiker (“Afternoon. Again. Found it!”) and ride on.

A wee while later “Hello Sunshine” by Super Furry Animals announces the arrival of some kind of internal dam bursting. I am, for the first time, properly reflecting on what this ride really means rather than performing the balancing act of taking in the heart-melting beauty of the scenery rushing past, keeping the pedals turning and looking at the computer, trying to comprehend how far I still have to go. I start to sniffle at first, then the tears just pour out and I am hacking thick, dripping waves of snot onto my chin, my shoulders heaving so much I am having trouble keeping the bike upright - I am still riding throughout all this of course, those miles ain’t gonna do themselves after all.

Far from demoralising me, it’s a proper moment of catharsis or gratitude or just being able to let go and enjoy the experience. Remember to look up. I think of my parents and why I am riding to see them, of all they’ve done for me and what a heartbreaking time they have had during the past six months. I think of my sister whose 7:50am phone call that morning ripped me out of my slumber with such force - since most phone calls over the past six months had been the harbingers of bad news - but which I know was made out of concern for how I was doing. I think of all the people who have sent words of encouragement and disbelief and love. I think of all the miles behind me and that the ones ahead will be now somehow easier. I think of seeing my wife, who’ll be driving up this very same road the day after. I think of the number of times I have been been up and down this often murderous road, no more than three feet away in places, and how I imagined in both dreams and daylight what it would be like to do the whole bloody thing to the end by myself, on two wheels. I think of people I have known who have died before their time (far too many) or exactly at the right one (probably just about right). I think of my body - particularly the legs - and how far they have carried me with few complaints and I am laughing, slapping my thighs with my free hand, the tears dripping there too. I am over halfway home now and I can think of that first hug with my folks and the end of the journey. It’s almost as if the bike and me are - discounting for a moment the numbness in hands and feet, the sit bones throbbing - in perfect unison. I can taste salt and watermelon in my mouth. I do not need to pee. I am racing towards the outskirts of the Cairngorms and I have cycled along the highest road pass in Britain along the way. I think; I am just thinking.

Looking back over the data of my ride, there was a fair amount of climbing. Nothing to trouble any cyclist worth their salt, but enough to register the cumulative effect on the legs. Mile-for-mile, the first stage to Perth contained just as much climbing as the one I was on to Tornagrain, but now each lump in the road was a tiny wedge carving into my confidence and slowing down my average speed. I decided that I would turn off the elevation screen on my computer so that I couldn’t see which climbs were ahead. In any case, it only seemed to register 25% of the actual climbs on the route, so I would find myself ascending where I had not expected to, conscious that each incline was putting me further behind. Since I had lost the rear light and started off late that morning in less-than-tiptop shape, I wasn’t relishing the prospect of trying to make my final destination of Tornagrain in the dark, delirious and battered by the 140+km that I had already spent in the saddle. To make things worse, the climb out of Carrbridge was only 1.5km or so yet felt like the worst of that day, intensified by the few twattish drivers I encountered, mainly on blind bends. At points on that long, infernal ascent I was down to less than 10km/h anyway, so any close-pass would have caused me to just slowly tumble sideways into a gorse bush, and I was too tired to swear at anyone bar myself anyway.
So, the majority of the bastard climbs now receding into the distance, I made another deal with myself. I wouldn’t look at the bike computer for 200 seconds. Remember to look up. For the next 14/15/16/17 miles I counted down in my head from 200 and when that had elapsed I would see the numbers had ticked down towards Tornagrain. It began to work; I was paying more attention to the incredible views on all sides and the legs were just doing their own thing. I may have overestimated just how fresh and carefree I was feeling when I came through Tomatin.

A wee boy and his dad were out for an early evening walk, the kid on a little bike scooting along the pavement, the dad making sure he wasn’t straying too far from the path. I pulled alongside the kid, and smiled, offering a light and cheery “How do you fancy a race young man?” In reality, he had been on a nice little stroll with his daddy - maybe to try and clap some of Mrs Laidlaw’s rabbits if they weren’t in their beds or watch the trains rumble over the bridge - when a gasping wild-faced man had materalised from thin air, piloting some kind of whirring machine, several dusty bags attached to two wheels, with a nearly full roll of toilet paper strapped to the back and various castoffs and snack wrappers dotted about. The man had pulled alongside him, weaving maniacally along the road, his salt-caked jersey flapping about his torso, crude white daubs of ointment on the seat and crotch of his shorts, flecks of spit and malt loaf smeared across his chin. One of the arms of his cheap sunglasses was bent at an unnatural angle - it appeared to be held together with wound-dressing tape - and it sounded as if he was counting down under his breath. Staring directly into the child’s eyes, he had screamed “D’YOUWANNADOARACEWITHMEWEEMAN?!!” The boy’s initial look of confusion turned to fear, his bottom lip starting to tremble as the wolf-bike-man thing windmilled its free hand, shouted “NOOOOOOOO?! WELLOKAYTHENBYEWEEMAN!!” He turned to look at his daddy but he was on his phone and the scary bike bagman had receded into the distance within a few seconds and he didn’t know if daddy had seen the scary bike bagman or not and then he wanted mummy.

There would be one more testing battle on the remaining miles to my pals in Tornagrain, ironically only a mile or so near Culloden Battlefield. Whilst no limbs were hacked off by red-coated Englishmen, it would still be vaguely traumatic and unwelcome - I had turned off the elevation screen some 20 miles back - and it would be the one and only time I would push my bike up a climb during the entire trip.

I was close now, as in “I can actually see my destination” close, but there would be one more snafu before the relative comforts of modern central heating, hot food and welcoming friends could be enjoyed.

Today, the technologies available for researching places new has resulted in a tendency to feel as if we have experienced something in advance of the actual act of arrival. Twenty years ago, planning your average trip to somewhere far away/new/undiscovered would rely upon a tattered Rough Guide, perhaps a recommendation from someone with prior knowledge of the place and the realisation that at some point your A6 map wouldn’t be enough to prevent you from getting utterly lost. Nowadays you can - from the comfort of your own sofa and with your own hot beverage of choice served in your own favourite mug - perform a multiple-window fingerdance with streetview, online reviews and a virtual tour of some far-flung gallery with the result that you can at least simulate the experience of going somewhere without leaving your front door. Since no-one with even an ounce of sense/compassion for their fellow human is going anywhere any time soon, this is equal parts good forward planning and something temporary in satiating our inbuilt wanderlust.

I had only seriously contemplated the logistics of riding to Elgin a month or so before setting off. There followed a few weeks of employing the aforementioned technologies to at least ensure I would know which roads led to where, which stops I could make along the way and what gear would be needed. And I had, by the time I got on the road that first day, thought I had successfully navigated the delicate balance between knowing where I was going yet maintaining the possibility of the new, of doing something I had never done before. By the time I had pushed my bike over the climb at Culloden and saw the Moray Firth through the evening mist I was confident the last 5 miles or so towards Tornagrain would be a breeze. Stopping at a farm track to check my phone I see a message from Steven saying he would meet me at Croy and we could make our way from there. It’s getting dark at this point, and the temperature is dropping. I don my gilet - wrestling it delicately over head since the zip had bust a few hundred miles back - and decide to phone him to confirm where I am. “Where are you?” S asks. “I’m at Mid Feabuie.” “Mid Feabuie?” “I’m not sure where to go from —“ And then my phone just switches itself off. Despite giving it enough charge each time I stopped, it has inexplicably just turned off and I am stuck, no closer to meeting S or even able to do a map search to locate where I actually am.

Mercifully, the phone powers on again, and I send a screenshot from my Garmin to S. We’re both still non-plussed as to which wrong turn I have taken, and how to navigate back towards where I am supposed to be. Then, a dawning realisation after another check of the map.

All my prior planning had neglected to register the fact that S & S live in Tornagain (New Town), a beautiful Scandi-style settlement some 5 miles away from the O.G. Tornagrain, and I hadn’t asked for their postcode when I had plotted the route. So, after some rerouting advice from S I retrace my steps, turning left at the Keppoch Inn where the Garmin had taken me the other way, to the other Tornagrain. The gloom descending, around a bend I see a pair of neon pink socks and hear the thousand-furious-insects zzzzzzzzzz of his freewheel hub as he slows to a halt. Rarely has the sight of a man at the top of his sartorial game been so welcome and we renact a hug that Grand Tour stage winners would have been proud of.

We make it home, chasing the sinking sun and once their usually-mellow spaniel Mabel stops barking (an unheard-of event, but I too would be screaming my head off at the sight of this desperate shivering mass showing up at my door) I can begin to unwind. It is so nice to see them and not just because it brings to an end some of the suffering and emotions of the journey I’ve been on that day. Steven was the year below me when I studied photography some 13 years back and is a man with an intuitive eye for an image; one of his prints - the rear of an advertising hoarding in the wilds of Kazakhstan - hangs proudly in our hallway and is the first one you see as you come through the front door. I often wonder how many delivery folk over the past six months have glanced at that image and appreciated its desolate beauty. His wife Sarah does wonderful things in speech therapy - not to mention putting on a Persian feast worthy of any Noma tasting menu - and their wee guy Fraser is an absolute demon on a bike. He wants to be Danny MacAskill when he grows up, and assuming his undercarriage survives the repeated hammering from his saddle after one-too-many jumps, he’ll probably be well on his way to creating MacAskills v3 should he go down that route.

I take a delicious, use-all-the-products shower which may have gone well beyond the 10 minute mark - it’s hard to tell at this point - and emerge prune-fingered and shivering uncontrollably despite cranking the thermostat beyond the “may strip skin from bone, exercise caution” setting. A gin and tonic awaits me, but I have trouble drinking it and I find myself just picking at the amazing food set before me. Normally after a longish spell on the bike I collapse somewhere soft and horizontal before attempting to eat all the solid food within a 10 foot radius, but I just can’t seem to get the food in; I am acutely aware that my body needs it. There’s a kind of blockage in my throat that only allows small amounts of solids and fluids through; each time I try to gulp down some water I can feel it sitting in my gullet, not making the full journey to my stomach that feels simultaneously empty and bloated. I’m feeling a bit spaced out and flu-ey, maybe due to the energy bar, Coke and sweet, cold Highland water I downed lustily just after arriving, but it’s more likely that my body isn’t fully adjusting to being off the bike and I know I am in calorie deficit again. I am certainly sleep deprived, I am sure of that. I receive a text from my best mate Dave that reads “TORNAGRAIN OR TORNAMUSCLE?” and I am unable to respond with anything funny or even meaningful.

Nevertheless, we chat for a few hours and I have a bowl of ice cream that slides down no bother. Decamping to bed - at this point I will happily sleep anywhere, even in beside Mabel - I find my emotional state oscillating again, just like the night before at Blair Atholl. The uncontrollable urge to pee has returned but is now accompanied by the impossible-to-ignore need to puke. Tiptoeing downstairs to the bathroom I figure will be best insulated against the sound of me retching, I start by kneeling over the bowl, only succeeding in bringing up a few mouthfuls of fluid. Within seconds I am rueing my lunch decision from earlier, a spicy salmon and couscous pouch that I had wolfed down in a forest clearing somewhere near Feshie Bridge (where I filled my water bottles from the silvery Spey and which some part of my brain is convinced has brought on the vomiting, not to mention the fact the salmon pouch had been gradually warming itself in the tropical slow cooker that was my feed bag over the previous 18-odd hours of sunshine). Dessert was the rest of the chocolate brownie from Bruar some 9 hours ago and now it’s all making a reappearance; I’m straining so hard to void my stomach I can feel my temples throb and the blood vessels in my eyes are doing their best to replicate Arnold Schwarzenegger’s in the zero-G scene from Total Recall. Five minutes or so of this and my stomach is properly empty and I am able to get some water in, but the salmon making its return journey upstream and out has horribly affected my throat and my teeth are furry with bile. I pee a couple more times and attempt to sleep, but I am too wired and I feel a tinge of what is probably shame. S and S have been so hospitable and such a welcome end to the penultimate leg of the ride but I am so wrecked and tired I feel the final part may be beyond me, even if it is a mere 67km recovery ride on top of what I have already covered to that point. The final ignominy is that I cannot find my little tube of toothpaste, so to mask the taste in my mouth I have to use a bit of Fraser’s berry-flavoured stuff to brush my teeth with.

I endure a few hours surfing the undulating waves of sleep and consciousness and feel awful that I am not up with the rest of the house the next day. I pack my bags again - each time becoming more proficient at cramming everything in - force down some (absolutely delicious) porridge that S makes and get Team Gallagher to pose for a few photos. I’m sad I won’t see them again for a while - they will have sold their amazing house the afternoon before to move closer to family in Inverness - but it is back on the bike for the last time, and the final triumphant ride home.

NEXT : STAGE 3 / TORN - ELG