Author: Rob Ainsley

I followed quiet, rolling back lanes in the morning from Penrith to Kirkby Stephen, in the shadow of the Pennines. Some of the roads were surprisingly busy with traffic (picture). That’s rush hour just outside Appleby… Handsome Appleby is just about to play host to its famous annual horse fair, when lots of travellers come…

A rest day in Penrith today, sitting out indifferent weather and doing service-town admin such as haircuts. The hostel (Wayfarers Penrith) is excellent, and possibly the best for cyclists I’ve ever stayed at – it’s aimed at Coast to Coast groups. It has a fine bikeshed-cum-workshop in the basement (picture), with workstand and tools and…

A very early start – I had taken down the tent and was out from the campsite in Moffat by 6am – so that I wouldn’t have to lay in bed being disturbed by early risers taking down their tents. Sound travels in campsites. I had breakfast at Lockerbie, where I was not impressed by…

I left Ayr without further investigation. I’d done all the jokes about Robert Burns and John McAdam I could think of last year, when I passed through on my multiple End to End trip. Today was always going to be a bit of a slog, east across from Ayr to the old A74, and then…

A short day today – a measly forty miles – thanks to rain. And laziness. From Lochranza it was a long slow climb up Glen Chalmadale (picture) before a short fast descent down the other side to a few miles of lovely waterside cycling. The road was often unfenced right over the water’s edge, so…

Another day of endlessly beautiful lochside cycling in fine weather. Plus a deer, a seal, a canal, the smallest ‘bar’ in the world, and a bizarre place name. I started cycling up the Crinan Canal towpath to Crinan, where it opens into the sea (picture). It’s a playground for deer: I saw one on the…

Another gorgeous day of fine weather and stunning scenery. I was ignoring Sustrans Route 78 for most of it, but I inadvertently followed it out of Oban (picture): a 12-mile slog into a headwind over hilly pasture. Most of the day was a glorious lakeside circuit of Loch Awe (picture). The B840, running flat along…

A long day – almost 12 hours’ cycling – of endlessly beautiful loch views. I cycled north out of the sea-level campsite at Strontian at 6am and got up to 380m (picture) on just a banana and Twix. Sounds pretty efficient fuel consumption to me. A huge descent took me past Loch Doilet, which is…

My dorm-mate last night turned out to be from Hull, which seemed appropriate for this trip. I guessed he was from Hull before he even opened his mouth because he’d blagged two extra whiskies over the two-shot allowance in the tour of Tobermory Distillery. It rained hard till half ten, so I sat it out…

A fine day of Hebridean scenery and single-track roads, that took me up the west side of Mull destined for Balam – er, Tobermory. I kept running into minibus tour parties staring with binoculars at distant wildlife such as eagles, otters, and less elusive fauna such as Highland Cattle. Not far from the island of…