Families

There is an assumption in the social hierarchy of our world that we start as children, grow into parents, then become grand, or even great grandparents. Inevitably though there will be those who, for whatever reason, do not follow this beaten path through life but can still experience the joys that go with the grandparent role. For this to happen the same level of trust must exist between adult and child despite them not being related to one another. The trust might take longer to build but it is entirely possible and as it happens this is the position we find ourselves in since our own lives have not taken the path towards becoming grandparents.

Some years ago we got to know a growing young family, which now consists of no less than four children, and we have been a part of their young lives as they have grown taller and wiser, this being something that children do. We think of them as if they were our grandchildren and to an extent we fill that role in their lives since they now live quite close by whilst their 'real' grandparents live many miles away in the south of England. The trust that they have in us must be handled carefully, as is true in many other situations but the pleasure that comes from being with them is immeasurable.

Which was how I found myself teaching a ten year old boy how to ride a bike in our local play area. The bike involved, my old mountain bike with knobbly tyres and front suspension, had been at home sitting around unused for some years but after a bit of cleaning, fixing a puncture and then lowering the saddle it found a new lease of life in the hands of this young boy.

So how does one go about teaching someone to ride a bike? Well fortunately we had a head start since a 'balance bike' had been part of his upbringing so we started by discussing brakes - what they do and how to use them. Our first riding session was in the road outside our house, which is on a slope and therefore far from ideal, but with me supporting the saddle from beneath he wobbled his way slowly downhill as he got the feel of using the brakes to slow down. Next came pedalling, the most difficult part being setting off from a standstill. We took this in steps. First, balance the bike with one foot on the ground (holding the brakes if needed). Next, the other foot is used to lift the pedal close to the top of its stroke then place the foot on it, ready to push. Finally on the count of three pedalling starts and one might think the rest is easy but it is not. Each action requires concentration and whilst correcting a wobble with the handlebars his legs temporarily pause until he remembers what they should be doing. What he did understand from the start is what he called 'muscle memory', the idea that he could focus on doing one thing whilst another part of his body continued doing something else, and this helped him a lot by encouraging him to keep trying to ride, each time getting better. By the time we got to the play area later in the day he was pushing off without my support, using the steps we had gone through to get going and riding on his own with only my verbal guidance and encouragement as I jogged alongside him.

I have no memory of learning to ride a bike myself. It is a skill that once learnt at a young age lasts a whole lifetime without any conscious effort. The thing we refer to as muscle memory is what enables us to do both simple and complex tasks like swimming, playing a musical instrument, even just walking, and it can last forever. I had no preconceptions about whether I would be able to pass on my own knowledge and skill but I seem to have managed it and found joy in doing so. I look forward to his next visit then perhaps one day soon we can take him on a ride with us so he can master the basics of riding on roads and coping with all the hazards that go with this.

Electric power

Big changes in our lives have been taking place recently. If I were to spell them all out here then most people would switch off or go away and do something more useful with their day.

But as it turns out many of our lifestyle changes are associated with electricity in one way or another. Take our bikes, for example. From riding on machines for most of our lives which moved about solely by the power of our leg muscles we transitioned to ones that can move easier and quicker through having a small electric motor. After we moved into our our present house we changed it from one heated by gas to one using electricity both for heating and for cooking. This made even more sense (to us) since the house came with solar panels on its south facing roof, the effect of which is that when the sun shines brightly a lot of our electricity needs are met at no cost. We make best use of this by timing some things so they switch on at around midday when the sun gives us most benefit. As I am writing this the sun is beaming down outside and as a consequence we might be tempted to monitor this constantly so as to switch things on to coincide with the sunshine, making best use of the electric power coming from our roof. But we choose not to live in a sort of electricity paranoia, waiting for the sun to shine before boiling a kettle. Instead we take the more relaxed view and accept some of the inefficiencies that go with this.

Things began to get even more exciting for us when we reviewed our transport needs and we realised that after transitioning to folding bikes our large road vehicle no longer made sense. Once folded, the bikes could be carried inside a much smaller vehicle. We began thinking more about this as we realised that although our small village does not have a petrol station it does have electric vehicle (EV) charging points, six in total at three different locations. If we decide we need a car, surely it makes sense to have a small electric one (indeed one wonders why every local car is not electric). We clearly needed to learn more about these relatively modern machines and inevitably when you start searching the internet for advice on a new topic you soon get bombarded with offers of all sorts. I believe this is called 'marketing'.

Despite this we carried on and, once we had discovered the cost of using those public charging points, we realised that it would be cheaper to charge up an electric car at home by connecting it to our home electric supply, especially if we could arrange a cheap overnight rate. Home charging an EV might sound simple but in fact for us it was not, due to the position of our house above and away from the road - an overall distance of over ten metres. Worse still, our electricity supply enters the house at the rear, about as far away from the road as it is possible to get, and since wires that carry electricity longer distances need to be thicker, this adds to the cost of setting up a charging point in order to get those kilowatts into a car. Our EV investigations suddenly came to the fore when we agreed upon the date on which we would bid farewell to our campervan; soon to be sold to someone who will make better use of it.

It seemed to us that implementing such a change in the way we live our lives was less straightforward than we might have wished but we pressed on regardless, taking one step forward at a time. 

One thing that has come sharply into focus is the way cars have been 'spreading' in recent years, something that is particularly relevant to us given that a lot of our cycling is on narrow roads where the competition for space is limited. We soon discovered that there are only a limited number of small electric cars available in today's marketplace, although once again this research led to intensive marketing from enthusiastic car dealerships.

One thing that separates electric vehicles from those with internal combustion engines (these can be regarded as fossil cars) is the 'range', the distance one can drive with the amount of charge in a battery. This figure is always quoted in the vehicle specifications as if it is cast in stone and can be relied upon as being accurate - which it is not. (Strangely our electric bikes have a small display screen which also shows a 'range' figure, ignoring the fact that cyclists can use their legs to extend the range quite easily, not something that is possible with EVs.) Most batteries work better if they are warm, something that might increase the range just as on a cold day the temperature will decrease it. Energy is also needed for the heater, for the windscreen wipers, cooling fans, lights, etc., and it appears that some of these things run off a separate twelve volt battery mounted under the bonnet of an EV. Charging this from the traction battery that moves the car about must reduce the range to some extent. None of this has ever been relevant in those fossil cars where a heater makes use of waste heat from the engine and electric power for the wipers, lights, etc., is produced by the engine spinning an alternator and the energy for this is never measured. It seems that the only vital figure here is the number of miles that can be driven on a gallon of fuel, although this is a number which one might expect to decline as vehicles become bigger and heavier.

The whole world of EVs has been one of discovery for us and a steep learning curve fraught with misconceptions and steered by biased car enthusiasts. Nevertheless it was at this point that we committed ourselves by putting a deposit on our own small EV.

Having done this the next part of the process began with some space reorganisation, starting with the garage, where we planned to store the car. Again, it is a strange feature of modern life that few garage owners (nobody we know) keep their cars inside. Could this be due to the car-spreading phenomenon mentioned above which has rendered garages unsuitable for car storage?

Next we committed to some investment, getting an electrician to fit the electrical wiring through the house to give us an external socket at the front that we can plug into. A lengthy connection lead was also ordered although there was some doubt as to whether this would arrive before we had the car so we waited impatiently until suddenly, both the electrician and the lead, which fits into a rather nice bag, arrived on the same day. We solved the conundrum of getting the heavy car charging plug across our steeply sloping and overgrown front garden to the car by means of a zip wire which allows us to slide it safely downwards. We emptied our garage and measured the internal space carefully then finally, one rainy morning, we set off to catch the early bus to Dumbarton where 'Bob', as we decided to call him, was waiting to meet us.

We were confident that Bob's range would get us home without needing an electric top up but as soon as we drove away from the dealership the rain started, torrential bursts which swept across the busy road. Frantically we searched for the controls for the wipers and the demisters so we could see out of the windows and avoid bumping into anything but in the end we decided to pause in a layby so we could work out where everything was. Like all modern cars there were switches on stalks behind the steering wheel with meaningless symbols on them and these had little in common with those we were used to on the campervan. A short while later we set off again and thankfully made it home safely, still with a comfortable thirty three per cent of battery power remaining.

Bob seems quite happy with us and is delighted to be out of the rain in a home of his own.

Rained off

Having just re-read my previous blog entry I find myself asking why we haven't been spending all our spare moments riding our new bikes. 

The explanation is summed up in the image opposite, an illustration that highlights clearly a distinction between England and Scotland's weather. And this is not just about rainfall. There are similar maps showing temperature variations across the same area which show a pattern highlighting the places across England and the European countries further south that are experiencing heatwave conditions similar too, or worse than, what brought our cycling holiday to an early close a few months ago. However this grim picture painted by the weather forecasters does not necessarily represent a reality for us. Movements within the earth's atmosphere must make forecasting the weather for the days ahead difficult, especially for those places which lie close to the border between the wet and the dry, or the hot and the cold. The south west corner of Scotland that we live in frequently lies on that border, the Atlantic Ocean bringing a milder air stream which reduces the impact of European weather systems.

So it was that just days after the rainfall accumulation image was released the sun emerged from behind the clouds and soaked us with its radiation, which was soon to become rather too much.

Typical for where we live would be variable weather, difficult to predict days ahead, but recently we have been locked into one weather pattern or another, days of rain or days of heat. To avoid the heatwave that found us whilst we were on holiday we took avoiding action - an early ferry back to a cooler place called home - but this solution is not available to those living in France or Spain any more than avoiding endless days of rain is possible for us.

Our solution when it comes to cycling has been to grab whatever short interval we can between showers and ride locally on the few quiet roads we have. The road through our village ends at a beauty spot, a viewpoint where there is a bench looking out across Loch Fyne, and it has become a convenient place to ride to when the clouds threaten but the rain just about holds off. Then again we have carried the bikes folded up in our van to the start of a ten mile bike ride on the level towpath to Crinan where we grab a coffee before returning the same way. We now have kickstands fitted to both bikes which make things easier when we stop for a rest and we are both getting used to the folding up process too. There is a four part sequence of moves that follows the acronym 'BFHS' (Backwheel/Frame/Handlebars/Seat in case anyone is interested). In order to remember this we say 'Brompton Folding Has Stopped' whilst performing the fold. (Unfolding has a slightly different sequence so we have to remember 'How to Start a Folded Brompton'.)

 

We are trying to avoid the temptation to attach accessories to the bikes beyond what is necessary, particularly anything that might constrain the folding process. Every gram of extra weight is important as once folded the bikes become luggage that has to be carried. However a well designed bag attached to the rear carrier is a must for carrying essentials like extra clothing or snacks on a ride. Fine details like getting the right tyre pressures and saddle height for maximum comfort also have to be resolved, these all being part of our Brompton journey. As it happens the makers have thought of this last one, an elegant solution which enables the saddle to be returned back to the same position as it was before being folded away by means of a piece of plastic, cut to length and inserted inside the seat tube. This is just one example of the many clever features that our bikes come with.

So to test out some of them we needed a ride that would challenge the bikes and enable us to know our limits whilst riding them.

Finally the weather delivered us a run of dry days although the south of England was suffering a heatwave which was threatening to creep northwards towards us. We made a decision to take the ferry across the loch and ride ten miles northwards to Otter Ferry. The name implies a crossing point over the loch but this no longer exists although there is a pub there, the 'Oystercatcher', which was open when we arrived. Was this the challenge we wanted, just ten miles? Surely not.

Had we looked more closely at the route we might have noticed the rivers we'd be crossing en route and realised that these run in valleys between hills, some of them being quite high. Then just after setting off from the Portavadie ferry terminal the route offered by the app on my phone sent us along a steep gravel pathway through the forest which had us bouncing about and worrying about how long it would be before our tyres punctured. Thankfully the full heat of the day had yet to arrive so we managed this part quite well and the bikes just seemed to take it in their stride.

We did decide, however, to stick to the tarmac roads for the return and this was just as well since by the time we had lunched at Otter Ferry, chatting with a motorcyclist outside the pub in the sun, the day had warmed up to the point where we would normally decide not to go riding.

We set off again from sea level, inevitably up a long hill, then on reaching the top we took off downhill again at speed, although we could see the road ahead where it went uphill again. Indeed the hills seemed endless and although there was a cooling breeze we were riding straight into the wind for the whole return, not making it any easier.

The ferry was a welcome sight at last and here we chatted with a friendly Dutch couple to whom we were able to brag about our adventures in their country. They were visiting Scotland in a large campervan but without bikes, which seemed strange, coming from a country that lives by them. When asked they confessed to being put off by the thought of cycling up Scotland's hills, something that actually made us feel quite good about our achievements that day.

First rides

The day we made the bus journey into Glasgow to collect our new bikes turned out to be a wet one, heavy rain all the way there, the bus splashing through the enormous puddles that had formed overnight. It had eased a little by the time we left the Buchanan Street bus station for the short walk to our bike shop and as soon as we walked in the door the weather outside was forgotten as our two Brompton foldies were lined up in front of us ready and waiting. Our first attempts at folding them up were laughable - there is a technique which involves lifting and twisting each part in the right way - but we had guidance from the staff and were shown how to fit and remove the batteries too. We also experimented with fitting them into the bags that came with the bikes, these being needed for our return bus journey home None of this took long and soon we were mounting up outside for the short ride back to the bus station.

We had quite a long wait for our bus, time for some food and also time to speculate on whether we'd be challenged by the bus driver when we tried to load our bikes. Folded in their bags the bikes still represented a large piece of luggage. Then there is the issue of them being electric, the batteries being in rather attractive bags which we carried inside the bus as hand luggage. None of this turned out to be relevant and if the driver knew they were bikes, he never mentioned it. We felt a sense of relief once we had set off, knowing for certain that we now had bikes that could travel anywhere with us on public transport. This had always been an essential part of the plan.

Several days later another heatwave landed on Britain, something we had had experience of whilst touring abroad earlier in the year, but for some parts of the UK the temperature went significantly higher than what we had then experienced, and escaped from. Scotland avoided the worst of it but it was still much hotter than normal. Living here means we are not used to the heat, even in the height of Summer, so we notice its effect on our bodies when it comes.

Before the worst of the heat kicked in we took a ride to try out our new beasts, to test their performance on the flat and also try them on a few hill climbs. We needed to assess their riding comfort, to make sure we had our saddles set at the right height, to see how the smaller wheels coped with road potholes and gravel and also to consider whether we should fit a smaller chain ring which would give us lower gearing for our steeper hills. All of this was in our minds as we set off along the Crinan Canal towpath and on reaching the sea at Crinan we paused to take stock. Our riding speed on the flat seemed to be roughly the same as with our larger bikes (once we had discovered how to convert from kph to mph) but we both were using just our lower gears (we have a choice of four) which suggested that a switch to a smaller chain ring might suit us better. Starting off on a hill, even in the lowest gear, seemed to require a lot of effort unless we used a boost of electric assistance but this might just be down to us getting used to the bikes. As to the potholes... the ride comfort felt a little different from what we are used to due to the more upright riding position. The steering is also more reactive as one might expect with the smaller wheels but we both felt we could easily get used to these differences. We tended to use electric power when the gradient increased but for flat roads this wasn't needed at all. Switching off the 'pedal assist' is what we were used to doing even when our old bikes were fully loaded with luggage so there's no real change there. One good thing is that our foldies have hydraulic disc brakes which were powerful enough to slow us on the steeper downhills so all things considered our first ride went well. Folding up the bikes still needs more practice but we are getting better at this too.

One thing we both miss is our kickstands. Reluctant as we are to add anything that will increase the weight of our bikes, the ability to stop anywhere and prop the bike up on its own stand when there is nothing to lean it against is something we miss.

Then there is the absence of the rear wheel bike locks which we had fitted to our old bikes during the first Holland tour. These come as standard on nearly all Dutch bikes. Sometimes known as 'cafe locks' they were so easy to set whenever we stopped somewhere and they allowed us to walk confidently away from our bikes knowing that they would be safe. Regrettably they cannot be fitted to our foldies without impeding the fold so we need to come up with another solution, something light but just sufficiently strong to deter a passing thief. We are on a learning curve, discovering more each day about our new bikes. Storing them at home, finding a place from where we can easily unfold, jump on and ride away, has taken us through several different solutions. The flexibility offered by their prime feature, foldability, gives us so many new ideas.

Time to think

There are many unpleasant things going on around the world at the moment that are having an effect on our lives, not directly perhaps, but we are sensitive to what we hear and read about and these events do make us consider our own lives and how we are living them. Wars are being fought which are impacting on the stability of human societies around the world as well as the resources they need to sustain that stability. The world's climate is also changing, something we discovered first hand on our cycling tour earlier this year, and all these things can have an influence upon the way we live our lives on a day to day basis. We could simply carry on as before, ignoring the world around us, or we could make changes to the way we live, changes that make us feel we are doing something better even if they have little effect upon anyone else.

We have a large road vehicle, a campervan, but it has dawned on us that we make little use of it as a mobile home. We use it for short local journeys when we need to, maybe the odd shopping trip, but we are aware that we could manage these things just as well if we had a smaller vehicle and if we wanted to go away somewhere we could probably find somewhere to stay overnight for less than the cost of driving our big vehicle to the same place. So is it time to rethink things? Could we manage with something smaller or indeed could we manage without a vehicle of any sort?

But then of course there is the cycling. We both enjoy this although we are conscious of the fact that the area we have chosen to live in is a place that has few easily accessible places for safe cycling if, like us, you wish to avoid busy main roads. So we use our campervan to carry our bikes away from home to places where we can enjoy the type of cycling we like, far from the roar of the traffic and the stress of not knowing if the next driver approaching at speed from behind will respect our vulnerability and slow down to pass giving us a decent space. But without a vehicle big enough to carry our bikes this might not be possible any more. The solution to this conundrum and indeed the other issues mentioned above were explored here before and during our time away on a cycling holiday we have given these issues much more thought. Then, strangely, just before we left to go on holiday we met a couple of friends who seemed genuinely interested in buying a campervan, ours in particular. Read on to see where all this is going....

We awoke early and arrived at the bus stop at around seven in the morning just before the scheduled arrival of our large but comfortable conveyance. Our plan was to travel into Glasgow by bus, a journey lasting nearly three hours on our narrow twisty roads, and after arrival at the Buchanan Street terminus to make the short walk to Dales Cycles, a shop which just happens to be the nearest dealer for Brompton folding bikes. No appointment was necessary; we had been told we could just turn up to test ride on the foldies they had in stock.

On arrival we met Krister, their Brompton expert, who immediately took us to the shop's Brompton corner and introduced us to an electric version of the G-Line bike we have been looking at online. We had a list of questions for him, all of which he was able to help us with and then we went outside in order to test ride the lovely orange machine up the hill in the street. He seemed quite impressed with our recent cycling adventure and also recognised our needs so far as the type of terrain we might encounter close to our home, making recommendations as to the gearing we might need for some of our hills. By the time we left the shop we were both convinced as to what our next step would be. We would be ordering two new bikes.

Then, quite by chance on the bus home, another three hours of being rocked and bumped about in our seats, we received a follow-up message from our friends confirming their interest in buying our campervan. All this in one day. It was almost too much to take in.

There will be more to come here but we could not resist this image. When folded away this is what our bikes will look like, one in orange and the other in green. The folding up process is easy but our first attempts in the shop were clumsy so we'll need to practice until we can do it slickly, like proper Brompton owners. There is little more exciting (to our way of thinking) than buying two new bikes and as I write we are just days away from their delivery to our Glasgow shop. Once they have been checked over and we're told they are ready for collection we'll be on the bus again to pick them up and bring them home with us. We'll have bags to put them in, folded up, so they will go in the bus's storage area underneath.

Next steps....sell our present bikes, of course. We can't have them lying around getting old, so we have done a thorough clean up job on them and taken lots of pictures. We are told that there is a thriving market for electric bikes at present and since ours are only a couple of years old we live in hope that they will go quickly.

Meanwhile we have plenty to do around the home. The garden is still wildly overgrown but with day after day of rain we are not keen to go and tidy up. And there is also a midge cloud out there waiting for us, one of the joys of living where we do.

Our village

Someone, somewhere, clearly thinks that the village we live in is worth spending a lot of money on. Tarbert is among a small handful of villages that have recently been granted substantial Scottish government funding to help regenerate the 'local infrastructure'.

How did we qualify for this? Well it seems that what we have here is somewhat unique and worth preserving. 

So let us list the attractions...

- Tarbert is a small, self-contained village and a natural harbour, protected by steep hills on either side with a narrow entrance suitable for small sea-going vessels;

- This safe haven has been home to a small fleet of fishing vessels and related businesses that have existed here for many hundreds of years;

- Today we also have a modern marina with facilities for visiting pleasure craft of all sizes. Outside the harbour Loch Fyne provides deep, relatively sheltered waters which connect with the lochs and islands of the Clyde and beyond;

- Tarbert also has a quite famous castle (largely a ruin today) which overlooks the village in a rather dramatic way and which attracts many visitors in its own right;

- Although situated quite remotely the village lies on a main road which leads on to several Hebridean island ferry routes and it is therefore a convenient stopping point on this journey;

- The whole area has a temperate rainforest climate (relatively mild with heavy rainfall) which enables unique types of wild vegetation to grow here. Wooded hills and valleys give this part of Scotland a unique look.

A census in 2001 recorded Tarbert as having a population of around 1,300 people and this remains roughly the same today. Tarbert is classified as a village but we came to live here having previously lived in an even smaller village so in many ways Tarbert feels more like a town to us. The inhabitants do, however, behave like one would expect in a small village - they are friendly, always willing to help and willingly stop for a chat in the street. There is a simple way that we distinguish between a 'local' and a visitor and this is the eye contact followed by a greeting or a smile. This behaviour does not happen with passers by in a city where eye contact is generally avoided and visiting 'townies' will behave this way here since this is what they are most comfortable with.

We have become involved in village life as volunteers in a variety of ways. Beach cleaning sessions can be exhausting but also quite fun and provide an opportunity to visit different places and to meet up with other like-minded locals.

Then there is the castle which is run by a trust and needs volunteers to keep the surroundings tidy and to look after the sheep which live in the castle grounds and whose job it is to stop the grass from growing too high. Sometimes the work parties can be quite physically demanding (this photo is me trimming a hedge in the orchard) but we welcome this so long as we can rest and recover before the next volunteer mission comes around.

I have gone a little further by volunteering to help the setting up of a local 'hub' in an unused building close to the shore, again purchased by a local community trust.

Refurbishment has involved stripping back the existing interior decor so that it can be replaced and then getting the whole place rewired. This has been rather dusty, dirty work at times but with grant money available for some professional help the place is now beginning to look more homely. Currently the volunteers are decorating the walls and the ceiling to make everything look brighter and more cared for. Once we are done the space can be used by local craft businesses who need workshop space. Again much of the pleasure comes from working as a team alongside others and exchanging jokes to make the day pass by more easily.

So what about the downside of living here. Well many people might describe our location as 'remote' in the sense that we are some considerable distance from any major conurbation. The roads leading to and from the village are just wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other and they follow the contours of the land so there are many twists and turns. Our closest dual carriageway road is around sixty miles distant and it is a further twenty miles to the nearest motorway. But Tarbert first became a place to live due to its accessibility from the sea, long before any roads were built on the land so the idea that wide roads should define a location does not seem right to us. What we would like, however, is a few cycle paths away from the busy main roads so that we could ride safely around the lovely area we live in.

Fyne Tyne to Rhine - 6

Our last night away from home had arrived. The hotel receptionist in Dunoon welcomed us in, dripping wet though we were, and was happy for us to bring our bikes into the hotel lobby so they were out of the rain. We quickly organised a meal in the restaurant where we sat with a large group of tourists travelling by coach around Scotland. All that was left was to brace ourselves for the ride home the next day, one we knew would be a tough one.

As soon as we were ready after breakfast we set off along the coast beside Holy Loch. We had the roads almost to ourselves and it was cool and sunny although there were clearly rain clouds threatening in the distance. Our cycling distance for the day was forty seven kilometres but that meant nothing as we were well aware that despite both starting and finishing at sea level we had to cross some major hills on the way. The cycle route is a recognised signposted one which has five hundred and eighty seven metres of ascent (and one less on the descent, strangely) but the steepest part came after we reached the end of Loch Striven. Up to this point our electric motor assisted bikes were managing to cope with the gradients although we still had to pedal quite hard and our legs were beginning to complain despite all the riding we had been doing over the previous weeks. But beyond the loch the road turned a corner and aimed up hill, a small sign warning of a 12% gradient. Our bikes have different power levels but none of these gave our loaded bikes the power they needed so we dismounted and pushed, just like in the days before electric bikes were invented. Soon we were gasping for breath and our leg muscles were complaining loudly. Each corner revealed more of the road ahead which went up and up. The road seemed to get steeper and steeper until we saw another sign, this one pointing down the hill, revealing that the gradient we had just climbed was 20%. We both felt like collapsing but after a series of false summits we finally reached the top. Not that this meant all downhill from there onwards but we had overcome the steepest section of the route.

We stopped for coffee and cake at the Station Cafe, a former police station, then went at it again up another gradient. My strategy of not using brakes on the downhill sections put me some distance ahead and when Portavadie was in sight I wasted no time riding to the ferry terminal. I looked back up the road for Catriona but she was not in sight. Eventually my phone pinged and I read her message: "Chain has come off". This had happened before on a number of occasions as our bikes were getting dirtier each day. I knew she would fix it and was relieved to soon receive another message saying " OK coming now".

Both our bikes were in need of a service and we had almost no battery power left for the final hill up to our house after we had landed from the ferry at Tarbert. But we had done it! Home safe and back to a garden in which everything had gone wild in our absence. We had been away just three weeks during which we had ridden around six hundred and fifty kilometres through three European countries. The whole experience was terrific. We had met so many kind and lovely people we cannot possibly do them justice here and the joy each day of seeing something new as we rode past at our gentle cycling speed can barely be put into words. Roll on the next adventure.

It wasn't until after the third day at home that our bodies felt as if they had returned to normal; two long nights resting in bed, going to bed early and rising late. Our last day of riding hit us hard but there were other things going on in our heads too. There was the clock going back an hour from European time and then there was the increased daylight, a consequence of rapidly moving around four hundred and sixty miles (740 kilometres) northwards from Antwerp to Edinburgh, a place where at this time of year the nights are significantly shorter. Our minds and bodies were struggling to cope with all this. In the space of just two days we had transitioned from a heatwave in Belgium to a cool and wet climate on the west coast of Scotland and the days that followed showed us just how wet it can be here. In the past one could rely upon the month of June being one of the driest of the year but since we returned home something seems to have gone wrong. It serves as a reminder to us that we can no longer take our past weather patterns for granted.

Fyne Tyne to Rhine - 5

So there we were, about to set off on an early return home from our European tour in order to escape one of the fiercest heatwaves ever seen at this time of year. Ending the holiday was a tough decision to make but we knew it was right for us. My own body was shouting at me angrily and showing no sign of improving - the streaming nose seemed to have become a part of my life - and much of the pleasure of riding had therefore been taken away from us. Our luxury stay in Nooz, close to the town of Grobbendonk in Belgium, where we had air conditioning that we could use to cool the room throughout the evening and night showed us that it was indeed the heat that was affecting us because by morning most of my symptoms had disappeared, at least temporarily.

So it was that the next morning we started off on what was to be our penultimate day of European riding, into the centre of the city of Antwerp so that we could catch a train to Schiphol, just outside Amsterdam. Almost immediately after leaving the Nooz hotel we found ourselves riding beside another canal, this one being quite small and much more like what we are used to seeing in Britain. The smooth towpath took us beside a field full of bison along with their young! We left the canal on the outskirts of the city, once again making cycling infrastructure comparisons with the Dutch cities we had been through and regrettably we have to report a number of failings. Some of the bike lanes, alongside busy roads, were quite narrow and we had no real protection from the speeding lorries overtaking us and passing close to our left elbows. But things did improve as we neared the station and then once on the train itself we had plenty of room for us and our bikes.

We had decided to travel by train to Schiphol (home to Holland's international airport) simply because it is quite close to the city of Haarlem where we had arranged to spend our last night in Holland. The train journey took us rapidly northwards and already it seemed the air was slightly cooler, a light breeze helping somewhat.

This made the final ride of the day, another hour of cycling, much more comfortable and when we arrived at our hotel in the centre of Haarlem we once again admired the view from the hotel window which gave us a memorable picture of Dutch roads and cycle paths, just one of the things we will always love about this country. At the hotel our bikes were stored away in a locked shed provided free by the hotel and here we charged up our bike batteries (also free) so they were ready for getting us home once we arrived back in the UK.

The ferry from Ijmuiden departed at five o'clock in the afternoon (local time) so we made a late start the next morning, the terminal being only about an hour's riding away. But to make it more interesting we rode through the forest park along the same cycle paths we had used when we arrived in Holland. This time the air was hot and very humid - thunderstorms were even forecast.

We paused for lunch and met some of the local wildlife who were hoping for a feed from the clients of a small cafe. The birds spent some time hopping around on our bikes, one even leaving a small deposit on my handlebars - thank you bird.

There were very few bicycles in the queue for boarding the ferry but dozens of massive motorbikes, most of which were en route to the Isle of Man for the TT races. However we did meet a lovely Dutch couple, Leew and Mariella, who were about to start a cycling tour of Northern England and Ireland, putting our cycling efforts to shame!

What more can be said about the ferry crossing to Newcastle? The sea was smooth and we slept very well in our tiny cabin, ate our fill at breakfast then walked off the ship onto British soil ready to set off homewards. Little did we know that what lay ahead would turn out to be the most complicated day of the whole holiday.

Our experience last year of having ridden from the ferry terminal at North Shields into the centre of Newcastle to catch a train home had persuaded us to come up with a different plan this time. Cycling up to the station from the quayside cycle path is dangerously difficult on loaded bikes so we thought it made sense to take a detour this time.

We had heard about the Coast and Castles cycle route that runs all the way up the coast between Newcastle and Edinburgh, a properly signed cycle path, so we thought we would try the first part of this and then swerve off to a station a little further up the coast, at a town called Newsham. We had pre-booked our tickets on connecting trains from there to Glasgow and then on to Gourock from where we planned to take a ferry across to Dunoon and spend the night there. From there, the following day, we would cycle westwards across to Portavadie from where we could get another ferry to Tarbert, home. Simple really, although the plan did assume all the ferries and trains would be running on time.

Although our ferry from Holland docked on time the small group of cyclists had to wait for over an hour before we were allowed to disembark. Bookings for travel on trains in England require spaces for bikes to be reserved in advance which meant we had be at Newsham at a specific time to catch our train. We therefore set off at a rush which meant we had little time to admire and appreciate what turned out to be one of the best pieces of cycle infrastructure we had experienced anywhere in Britain. We started riding along a wide path surfaced with smooth red tarmac which was separated from the road and from pedestrians. Later on we shared space with the pedestrians walking on the promenade and there were signs asking cyclists to be courteous, which we were, of course. A gentle 'ping' on the bike bell serves well to catch the attention of the pedestrians in front. In places the route dodged away from the coast then rejoined the promenade later but it was all clearly marked. This was as good as anything we had met in Holland and thankfully we made it to Newsham with time to spare... largely due to the fact that our train was running a little late.

At some point after making all the bookings online we realised that our train No.1 from Newsham would take us back south to Newcastle so that we could board train No.2 for the journey to Edinburgh. But at least we had avoided that horrible bit in the city centre. Our first train running behind time made making the platform change in Newcastle somewhat stressful but we made it, just, and hung up our bikes in the onboard storage cupboard in train No.2 as instructed. It turned out that this train was also running a little late which meant the change to train No.3 in Edinburgh was again somewhat rushed and it was not made easier by the crowds fighting for space alongside us. Train No.4 involved a switch from Glasgow Queen Street station to Glasgow Central, a short walk which put us out onto roads heaving with pedestrians and traffic but by this time we were ahead of the game and we even managed to jump on an earlier train to Gourock, cycle space reservations not being required this time. We knew the ferry across to Dunoon ran until late at night so once on this last train we could finally start to relax and it didn't seem to matter at all that it had started raining just after we boarded the ferry which made the short ride to our hotel a little wet. Looking back on the day we still find it hard to believe we had successfully managed such a complex journey.