You may, dear reader, have perused my section on the early days of my cycling hobby. There you would have noticed that my formative cycling years featured a bike called a Hercules Jeep. Now if ever a name was appropriate, this was it. Not so much a bike as a tank, complete with whirs and clanks, no gears, unstoppable when on a descent and unstartable on an ascent. (On an aside, I am amused by the current fashion for single speed bicycles. They are the modern incarnation of the Hercules Jeep and its ilk and all the pain they brought with them.) You may also remember from that section that an early memory was of being the last one up the mountain that is the Larkfield Road in Greenock, mostly because I could not make it up while in the saddle – unlike my pals who raced away over the horizon before I’d so much a puffed my way to the first base. It has remained with me as a symbol of my failure as a pedaller – an albatross on two wheels.

So, on the first anniversary of my reborn cycling career, I thought I’d celebrate by seeing if I could lay this old ghost to rest. Under the guise of a cycling lesson for my good friend Jill, we came back from our grand tour of the Esplanade via Gourock Pier and thence to the foot of the Larkie.

And then, like a phoenix from the flames, I set off up the hill at top speed and raced without missing a breath to the top.

Well. Maybe not. But I did get up it without pushing once. The foot went down a couple of times.

But, dear reader, I made it. And, I rather suspect that my pals were at it when they said they cycled the whole way up it.

Yeah!

Now I’m not one to name-drop, as indeed I said to Lance Armstrong the other day, but there I was minding my own business today at the Glasgow Sky Ride when who should come along and insist on meeting me but Chris Hoy – Sir of that ilk.

Well. Maybe that’s not quite how it happened but it does make a good story. My taking part in the Glasgow Sky Ride part was accurate; three hours handing out information about Sky Ride Local to the great west of Scotland public plus two wheechs round the actual ride route with my fellow Trekkers Alan and Matthew. Now, it is really great to see 13,000 people getting on their bikes and the fact that the majority of the Sky Ride Locals are fully booked is equally brilliant. Anything that gets the Scottish public away from their wiis and Big Brother has to be good. We’re a long way away from the Dutch level of cycling involvement but this is a start. Bu there dos need to be a co-ordnated approach and why get kids interested in cycling only for it to be too dangerous for them to do so much as cycle to school.

For me, a good day in that I got to know some of my Sky Ride colleagues and felt that I had actually contributed something to the proceedings. Looking forward to my first “official” ride leads.

A Hoy there

Trekkies go Local

Oh my! A big day today as it was my first “proper”ride hanging in among the Walkers big guns. Myself, Sandy Muir and Colin Doyle had agreed among ourselves that we would form a “slow” group as we had always wanted to do the legendary “Three Fairies” Ferries ride. For the uninitiated, this is a route that takes in the Gourock-Dunoon ferry, a huckle over the hill to Colintraive, the ferry from there to Rhubodach on Bute, a quick belt round to Rothesay, then the ferry back to Wee Mrs Bay. Easy, I hear you say – half the time you spend lazing about on boats. Wrong. The hill I mentioned is a mere 20% and there are some additional undulating bits before and after it.

We met up at with the A and b groups at Gourock and off we set. A spot of drafting for the first stretch and I felt good – pootling along at a comfortable 19mph. “Great,” I thought, “I’m one of the big guns now”. Well, I was for about half an hour before getting well and truly dropped on the first set of hills. Thereafter myself, Sandy and Colin were definitely the C group. We got to the big hill after a truly sensational (in all senses of the word) downhill from Loch Tarsan. Colin and I adopted a position at the back as Sandy attacked the slope. We had just congratulated ourselves on struggling up the first incline when we rounded a bend to see Sandy off and pushing. That was the psychological advantage well and truly gubbed, I’m afraid and a spell of pushing became necessary. However, we did get back on for the top strech and made it to the top in the saddle. a smashing down then followed and a sprint (yes, a sprint) to the Colintraive ferry. The road over to Rothesay allowed us to practise some chain ganging (another new skill learned) and we managed an average speed of 17mph right over to the lunch rendezvous point where we met the B group already ensconced.

The day ended for me with the ride back from Wemyss bay to Gourock where I had left the car, and again a decent average speed of 17mph was achieved. 41 miles in total at an average speed of 14mph. Pretty good – especially in light of the hills.

So home I got, knackered and hot but reasonably pleased. Today was about testing myself over distance and routes that the top riders in the club would do. This was a hilly route I don’t think I did myself any disservice, and I now know what I have to do to become a cyclist rather than just someone who cycles. Thanks to the top guns for letting us tag along – this is why I like Walkers CC.

A,B and C on the Gourock ferry

Sandy and me on the Colintraive-Rhubodach ferry - Still smiling after the FGH

Victorian toilets?