905milesinthesaddle

Donated Sculptures For Sale

// November 11th, 2009 // No Comments » // fundraising

These are the scultptures donated by Steve Blaylock to add to our fundraising pot. I’ve sold a couple of them to the fabulous Mr Galvin, but if you’d like to buy one of the remaining ones, then drop me an email to paul dot carruthers at gmail dot com - remember to replace the dots and the at with the correct symbol!!

The dragonflies all rest in a lovely chunk of beautiful stone…each sculpture is made from Sheffield stainless steel and I know they’d look lovely in your garden!!

Large Chelsea Bug - £65

Titchy Bug -£35

Butterfly on Leaf - £125

Small Dragonfly - £65

Large Dragonfly - £95

Courting Dragonflies - £125

The kindness of strangers…

// October 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // fundraising

Every now and again we meet someone who inspires us and re-ignites that faith in humanity that is always bubbling below the surface. A couple of weeks ago I met one of these people. Steve Blaylock.

I’d received a tweet a few weeks ago from Steve who offered me some of his steel art work to auction to raise money for our ride fund. I finally got over to Yorkshire to meet him and pick up the pieces.

Even though I’d only spoken to Steve a couple of times on the phone I’d been really humbled by his generosity towards someone he has never met, knows nothing about and has only chatted to a couple of times. I did, however, get a glimpse into the life of a man who seemed to be a wonderfully warm and happy guy.

At his workshop I chatted with him about his work and how his life had unfolded to this point. I quickly realised that those glimpses were exactly how he is. The hour I spent with him made me think a lot about what we get out of life and the path that we’re on may not always be the best one for us.

Steve donated a number of sculptures to our efforts and I’m incredibly grateful to him. You really should check out his work on his website and I’ll be putting photos up of the donated pieces here very soon.

As Christmas approaches and you’re wondering what to get people, get yerselves over to http://www.metalsculpture.co.uk and take a look at Steve’s great work.

-pc.

What it means…

// September 20th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // the ride

So, what does it mean? A hell of a lot is the quick answer.

We’d trained so hard for this and bettered our expectations of what we could achieve. We planned 12 days for the ride and did it in 10…we’d never cycled 80+ miles on multiple days, let alone 7 consecutive days of 100 miles. We’d learned a lot about ourselves.

To be honest, I’m still taking it all in. We’ve never challenged ourselves like this before and we didn’t know if we could do it. But we could, we did, we can and we probably will again.

Most importantly it means that we’ve raised some money for our charities. When the off line donations come in we should be over the £6000 mark in total. We’re incredibly proud of that and if it means that our efforts help raise awareness for Fanconi Hope and Rosemere then that’s all that matters.

The last day - Helmsdale to John o’Groats

// September 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // the ride

With the Navidale House Hotel wonder breakfast inside us and the fact that this was the last day we felt we could tackle anything and that climb that was to start the day was going to get in our way. Nor was Berriedale Braes.

Off we went and onto what looked like a nasty climb. In actual fact it wasn’t bad at all. Don’t get me wrong, it was very long and quite steep, but really nothing was going to hold us up today. I motored up it, gamely encouraged by Jackie at various points and with Peter just behind me we cracked on towards Berriedale Braes.

The braes are a 13%+ descent and an immediate 13%+ climb up the other side. About 3/4 mile in both directions these are probably the worst climbs on the entire journey. We’d got our plan in place though…and as I said nothing was going to stop us getting to the end. The strategy was simple…

Downhill - dabbing the breaks and keeping the speed down…no way I was going to risk coming off the bike at speed. Uphill???

WALK!!!

HA HAHAHAHAHAH - we hadn’t got off the bikes at all on any hills in the previous 9 days - even on the nasty hill up to the Clifton bridge so we figured that we’d take a liberty on this one and push the bikes up. So we indulged ourselves and walked up Berriedale. That was hard enough…no way were we going to knacker ourselves out. We were finishing today, no matter what. I find it hard to believe that anyone could cycle up that bloody hill. I’m sure many have, but we weren’t joining that happy band today.

After Berriedale we trundled on to Wick. The weather looked a little threatening and just 25 miles from john o’Groats we got completely drenched. With no waterproofs in sight (they were in the van in Wick) we carried on, moaning about the weather. A bit ridiculous really considering we’d done 9 days and not had a sniff of rain.

A quick stop and change in Wick and we set off on the last 17 miles. The weather tried to get us again and blew a nasty headwind at us. Again, we complained…and we had no right to moan as this was the ONLY headwind we’d had (apart from coming down Glen Coe and that doesn’t count) - the whole way the wind had been at our backs. Quite remarkable.

Over the last headland and the Orkneys came into view with John o’Groats nestled at the end of the mainland just below us. We freewheeled down, Peter called his wife Kay and we rolled into the village looking for the finish line. It’s an underwhelming place to finish and after cycling around the car park we spotted Jackie waving and gesturing at us to head to the derelict hotel at the back of the car park.

Arms aloft we rolled across the line. It was over. 905 miles, 10 days and hours and hours on the bikes and we’d done it. Months of training had gone into this effort and we’d finally pushed the pedals for the last time.

Completing something like this feels odd in the moment. A bit of disbelief, a lot of joy and an instant lookback at all the miles, all the training and all the effort that’s gone into it. The pride in what you’ve achieved comes later.

A big hug from Jackie, a shake of the hand with Peter, a few photos and we pushed the bikes back to the van for the last time. With the book signed we’d completed our end to end.

It was done and we did it.

Day 9 - Inverness to Helmsdale…

// September 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // the ride

Only two short days to go…the first up to Helmsdale, which would only leave us 53 miles to John O’Groats for the final day.

Busting out of Inverness took us across the bridge and across the Black Isle. I’d been wanting to go to the Black Isle brewery since I was last in Inverness, but couldn’t really carry the beer on my bike, so I asked jax to call in on her way through. She couldn’t spot the sign on the A9 so she missed it too. Dagnammit. Perhaps we could call in on the way home?

Anyway, the Black Isle gave us a bit of a hike up to 500 feet and a lovely descent down to the Cromarty Firth and the second bridge of the day. What followed was a pretty dreary ride along the busy A9 neither in the countryside nor by the coast…you know that ‘inbetween’ kind of place where there’s really not much going on.

Jackie did get to stop at Dornoch, a pretty little place on the firth that certainly took her fancy. When we met for lunch she was full of tales about how nice it was and how pleasant the people were. We didn’t get to see it…only the relentless pavement of the A9 as we headed further north.

Even the terrain was a little boring. No climbs to speak of, no descents, no excitement at all. As we got a little closer to Helmsdale the road joins the coastline again and it does get a little nicer - passing Dunrobin castle and heading into Brora the weather brightened and I found it a little more pleasurable.

Another lovely tea stop in Brora and the last leg was upon us - a short 11 miles up to Helmsdale. It was starting to get a little more undulating which was to be expected as we knew that the renowned Berriedale Braes were waiting for us tomorrow. TBH, it was fine…and the only problem was that I’d not eaten enough at lunch time and I felt a little low on energy.

Peter had sped on ahead and as I trudged towards Helmsdale I was feeling a little fed up. Cursing the coronation chicken sandwich that I’d had at lunch I carried on.

Helmsdale has a nasty climb (about 8%) on the way out and as we were staying at the Navidale House Hotel we had to get our backsides up it. I found Peter at the entrance to the hotel just looking onwards. Kinda strange I thought. As I pulled up he said “Just look at that for tomorrow!” - as I swung around to take a peek all I could see was a massive climb sweeping along the coastline and disappearing into the distance. This wasn’t Berriedale, but it spooked us for the rest of the day. Staring a bike ride with a long climb isn’t ideal as you’ve not had time to warm up.

But that was for tomorrow.

I should mention the Navidale House Hotel. It’s great - an old hunting lodge that was frequented by the Earl of Sutherland and is now the domain of a cool dog called Archie. He’s the owners dog and is probably the coolest Westie you’ll ever meet. We also had a really nice evening in front of the fire chatting about Whiskey and all kinds of other stuff with the proprietor, Larry.

In the morning Larry made us the best breakfast of the entire trip, which was just what we needed to send us off on the last day.