Sunday 21 June 2009 - Thurso to Helmsdale

Thurso - John O’Groats - Wick - Latheron - Helmsdale

The first day of the ride dawned bright and sunny, heralding a period of fine weather which was to remain with us almost throughout our journey. We soon saw off our rather parsimonious breakfasts and set off for John O’Groats along the gently undulating A836 with the wind against us. A couple of hours saw us at our official starting point with its unforgivably run down architecture backed by the Orkneys across the Pentland Firth. After the obligatory photos at the signpost and an expensive coffee, we were on the A99 south by 11am, still hampered by the south-east wind.
Maritime Caithness is lush and verdant, in contrast to the stark hinterland of the Flow Country. We were uplifted by the views of the rocky coast plunging into the azure North Sea and the distant Sutherland hills beyond the moorland.
We had decided to stop for lunch at Wick, so once we reached the ancient burgh we began to look for a café or pub with outdoor seating. The crime rate north of Inverness is probably negligible, but as Derbeians we imagine thieves everywhere and we wanted to be able to keep our eyes on our bikes and belongings. We found no such café or pub so the Aldi store at the end of the town had to suffice.
John eventually emerged from the shop with several baguettes and packets of various sliced meats, which we ate in the Aldi car park. Paul and John both have excellent teeth, even though Paul once went for 100 years without visiting a dentist, and their baguettes, though dense and unyielding, vanished within seconds. I, on the other hand, was subjected to decades of inept, brutal and unnecessary NHS “dentistry“, leaving me with fragile, collapsing and missing teeth which struggle, like Father William, with anything tougher than suet. I resorted to picking out the cotton-wooly stuff and tried with limited success to eat that. My dental handicap also meant that apart from this first morning I hardly ever ate all of my breakfast, as Paul’s and John’s plates were always clean before I’d finished my first rasher of bacon, and I didn’t think they’d want to wait another half an hour for me to nibble my way through the entire plateful.
Fortified by the gastronomic delights of Aldi, we continued along the A99, grinding climbs alternating with gradual drops almost to sea level, through Thrumster, Whaligoe and Lybster.
From the outset, the pattern of the ride was that Paul and John would zoom ahead of me while I plodded along at my pedestrian rate. Every ten miles or so, they would stop and wait for me to catch up, whereupon we’d have a brief chat and set off again. Sometimes I’d go so slowly that they’d get fed up waiting, and I’d see them put on their helmets and cycle away as soon as I came into sight. This didn’t save any time, in fact it took longer because I always stopped for my break anyway, and it lasted longer if they weren’t there to supervise.
However, along this stretch of road it became apparent that John was having some difficulty. Not only was he within sight, I was actually catching up with him. It transpired that he was experiencing severe problems with his right knee. He had been coping valiantly but had now reached his pain threshold. He limped along, pushing his bike up the hills, to Latheron where we stopped at a farm gate.
The A99 joins the A9 at Latheron, and twenty miles of that rollercoastal highway, including the vicious Berriedale Braes, lay between us and our destination at Helmsdale. John clearly wasn’t going to make it and was aghast at being stopped by injury on the first day of the ride. It seemed that he might have to withdraw from the trip altogether, and Paul doubted his own motivation to continue under those circumstances.
The kindly farmer, on hearing John’s predicament, gave him a lift to Helmsdale while Paul and I continued sombrely on along the A9 until it suddenly dropped off the edge of the world just before Berriedale.
Having reached the bottom of the edge of the world via a hairpin bend, we were faced with the climb back to the top again. Neither of us even considered trying to ride up. We pushed our heavily laden bikes uphill a bit, past the northbound escape pit, then had a rest. Then uphill a bit more and another rest…
Seemingly hours later, the gradient eased and we got back on our bikes. The road continued relentlessly uphill for miles until we were presented with the delightfully long plunge down towards Helmsdale, which we descended with great glee. The hostel, our home for the night, was in the centre of the village and there we found John, now in a much better frame of mind and hopeful of being fit to ride again the next day. The renowned hostel was full of nice people, all familiar with the rigours of cycling and mountaineering, and they had obviously managed to raise his spirits.
We went out and dined again on fish and chips, which were inferior to those at Thurso and half of which I threw away. Back at the hostel, we finished the Talisker as our fellow hostellers regaled us with accounts of their various epic adventures. A few hours later in the dorm, they lulled us to sleep with a symphony of snoring and farting.