All Roads Are Not Created Equal (July 13th)

Something a bit unusual happened to start this day’s ride. The sun was shining. And it was almost sort of warm. So much so that I actually began my ride wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I really don’t remember the last time I was cycling where I was wasn’t wearing some sort of rain gear. I’m not going to lie, it was pretty nice. That said, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.

I woke this morning very refreshed. I actually fell asleep last night with my phone in my hand while I was looking at route options. Between the cycling and my overindulgence at dinner I guess I was a bit tired. I also woke to clean clothes and a clean me. Ah, the joys of washing machines and showers. Plus, most of my devices finished charging through the night (Did I mention that I really should’ve brought two adapters?).

The plan for today was to get to the distillery in Cardhu which meant, much like yesterday’s ride, a trip through Inverness – although, thanks to the alternate route Hilary showed me there won’t be any backtracking. Well, not much anyway. Despite today’s plan, I likely won’t make it to Cardhu in time for a tour today but it should set me up nicely to begin tomorrow with a dram of whisky for breakfast.

After a leisurely breakfast, I packed up my gear, remembered to get a photo with my hosts, and was on the road shortly after 9:30. And as an added bonus, my pedal was silent. Today was off to a good start.

The ride to Inverness went very well. I took a bit of a roundabout way at the start to give me a nicer and more scenic ride. With less traffic. From there I joined up with a somewhat major highway but it was a highway with a separated bike lane. Oh, and it was essentially a long downhill ride into Inverness. Quite the opposite to how yesterday’s ride began.

As I made my way into Inverness I saw someone who looked familiar. This was a bit odd considering I don’t really know anyone here. But as I got closer the familiarity was confirmed. It was Nick. I know, I know … who’s Nick? Well, I think I forgot to mention that I had met Nick a few days ago in Broadford when I was taking shelter from the rain – you know, before the horribly rainy and windy tent setup. Anyway, Nick is from Texas and had some extra days in Scotland on his hands so he hired a bike to do some Scotland touring. His tour was ending today and he was on his way to return his bike hire. We chatted for a bit about the usual cycle touring topics before we continued on our ways.

Hilary and Dave gave me great directions on the best way to get through the city but I’m reasonably confident that I somehow managed to stray from those directions. As a result, my route through the city wasn’t as effortless as I had hoped. That said, I inadvertently ended up at a Morrison’s grocery store and figured I should stock up. I did. In fact, I may have stocked up a bit TOO much as I had to eat some of my inventory that wouldn’t fit into my panniers.

After my unplanned early lunch, I was back on the road. Next stop Culloden Battlefield. History Alert: The site was the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745 and part of a religious civil war in Britain.

In tours gone by, I typically have spent most of my time on the road getting from point A to point B. However, I am continuing to try to stop more often and see more sights along the way. This ended up being one of those sights. And sites. As a wise man once said, “Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” As part of this stop, I attempted my first “Photo Sphere” of this year’s tour – mainly because I’d forgotten about them. We’ll see if it works.
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With my tour of the Culloden Battlefield complete, I returned to the road. However, the sunny ride that I’d been enjoying all morning was slowly giving way to cloud cover. It was only a matter of time before the rain would return. That “matter of time” occurred at about the 50 km point. I was close to Cawdor Castle at the time so I stopped to take shelter. The shorts and t-shirt portion of my ride was officially over – it was fun while it lasted.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, the rain would be the least of today’s problems. In fact, the rain only lasted an hour and I was probably only riding in it for half of that. No, today’s challenge was navigational. And for that, Google gets a large portion of the blame. Yes, it was my choice to follow Google’s route and I accept that. However, Google’s cycling guidance algorithm still has a long way to go.

In hindsight, I should’ve trusted my gut and experience. I’ve followed enough of Google’s directions to know that they’re far from perfect. There are also some red flags that jump out at me when I review their routes. Today’s routes definitely had some red flags. That said, there were a few turns I was somewhat skeptical of and, admittedly, I was more than a little surprised that things were working out fine. Until they didn’t.

The first two concerns I had ended up being real roads. It was the third that was an issue. It started out okay but somewhat rapidly became not-so-okay. And by the time it became REALLY-not-okay I figured I was too far committed to go back. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have felt so committed.

The road in question was a logging road. Not an old logging road. An active logging road – as evidenced by the logging truck I had to squeeze beside. The guy operating said truck actually had to pull in the side stabilizers on the truck so that I could get by. Surprisingly, he did so without any issue.

From there the road went from bad to worse. And when I say “road” I say that in the absolute loosest sense of the word. Fine for large trucks (aka. lorries). Not so fine for bicycles – well, not touring bicycles anyway. Or any other bicycle lacking any sort of heavy duty suspension system. Quite frankly, I don’t even know how Google would know about these “roads” – let alone consider them a cycling route!

This particular route extended for about 13 km and included a couple of closed gates, a zillion large rocks, narrow tire tracks with large puddles, steep hills, and more than a little tall grass on which my panniers regularly got caught. On more than one occasion, pushing my bike was the only option. And when I wasn’t pushing my bike I was wearing out my brakes trying to keep the bike under control while going down the rock laden hills. It was awful. Very awful. I’d have taken pictures but it was everything I could do to control my pending rage. Who am I kidding? “Pending” disappeared about 2 km along the route. The only saving grace was that it wasn’t raining. All I could do was constantly remind myself that in two hours it would all be in the past. Clinging to that mantra was easier at some points than others.

That said, nearly two hours passed and I finally found myself back on a real road. I looked back at the road, said something to Google, and left that nightmare behind me. From there it was just a short ride to Cardhu and much of it was downhill.

According to Google, I actually missed a turn on my way down one of those hills to Cardhu but after the fiasco of the logging road I decided to stick to the main road. Despite the nearly two hours I spent slogging my way along the logging route, I was in pretty good spirits by the day’s end.

Even though I knew the Cardhu distillery would be closed, I decided to stop by anyway. Along the way I noticed a small car park with a lone picnic table. I’m not going to lie, during that miserable stretch of non-road I which I battled for two hours my thoughts frequently drifted to where I would be camping tonight and all I could think was, “Just find somewhere with a table”. It’s funny how something so simple can have such an impact on your mood.

I continued on to the distillery which was conveniently located less than 1 km from the magical picnic table. The time, about 8:00 PM. Much later than anticipated but with the long hours of daylight still present, I really didn’t care about the time.

All of the distilleries I’ve been to so far have all had free WiFi so part of my reasoning for going to a distillery which I knew would be closed when I got there was to make use of their WiFi. Although, the main reason for going there was to confirm what time they would be opening tomorrow.

As I made use of their WiFi, the rain started to fall again. It didn’t look like it was going to be a long term rain but I didn’t want to risk it. It is Scotland after all. I quickly made my way back to the car park and picnic table and the rain subsided as I did so. Upon further review, the space beside the table was smaller than I hoped but I figured my tent would fit. It did. Barely.

As I set up my tent I started to feel like I was being watched. When I looked up, several of the cows in the neighbouring field had covertly made their way over to see what I was doing. Before long, about a dozen cows were lined up along the fence – some being more vocal than others. They seemed very curious as to who their new neighbour was. As such, I went over and had a little chat with them before returning to finish setting up tent.

With lots of daylight still remaining, I fired up my alcohol stove and made pasta with sausages (more like hot dogs) and maybe it was the two hours on a logging road but it was very good. Sure, it was a FAR cry from Dave’s beef lasagna last night but it will be pretty tough to beat that on the best of occasions. I ate my dinner as the sun was setting but soon retreated to my tent before the bugs came out to join me.

The plan for tomorrow is to do a distillery tour in the morning and from there, well … I’m not really sure. Whatever it is, I’ll be taking a very close look at where Google will be trying to send me. Although, depending on the weather I’d consider staying here a day just to get my blog updates written and posted.

As has become the norm, with the time approaching 10:00 PM the temperatures seem to have taken a sudden drop. I suspect that retreating to the warmth of my sleeping bag (and Jag Bag liner) is imminent. Oh, and the sound of rain is starting to tap my tent. Fortunately I don’t think I have to go outside anymore tonight. And if the rain persists, I REALLY don’t think I’ll be going outside anymore tonight.

For now I have to call it a night – I’m too chilled to type.

Today’s totals:
Distance travelled: 96.51 km
Ride time: 5:33:23
Average speed: 17.36 km/h
Maximum speed: 56.21 km/h