applecross
late summer of 2018 my wife, Judith and I did a holiday roadtrip through Great Britain. The first week of our vacation we spent in the scottish highlands. We rented a house by the seaside on the Applecross peninsula. From where we did a cycling trip around the peninsula. Starting from a place called Fearnmore we headed east. For the first 30 km there wasn't really a longer climb, but we immediatly figured out that roads in scotland are completely different to what we are used to from home. The tarmac was pretty rough most of the time and it was a constant up and down with rather steep ramps. So although the climbs were short, after pushing up plenty of them we weren't that fresh anymore once we arrived at the hardest part of the loop. A mountain pass called "Bealch na Bà" which is known as scotlands toughest climb. So it really was though or as someone could also say, epic. The climb is basicly one rather steep ramp with only 3 small switchbacks at the very end and while were pedaled up we were constantly fighting against headwind and rain showers. Once arrived at the top looking down the road with view till the seaside was pretty amazing but we couldn't really enjoy the view for long because of fog and also it got pretty cold, so we went down to the town called Applecross. It's a cute seaside village with old houses. If you ever happen to come to this area we would totally recommend having a beer and some local fish at the Applecross Inn. From there it was another 20 km of up and down road along the seaside and through vast landscapes until we reached our house again. The loop was fantastic with very little traffic. We did see way more highland cows, sheep and also some deer than cars. As it is with riding bike in any northern country, good clothes are mandatory and you can prepair yourself for some wind on the ride. One thing that we also learned from the highlands was that you really need to check the forecast for the so called "midges", tiny mosquitos which come in swarms of hundrets of them. aren't dangerous but just super annoying. You can use lotion against them but only a net really helps a 100%. Luckily there weren't any on that ride but we experienced them first hand on many other occasions during our stay in scotland. Here is the roadmap from the ride.
isle of skye
this is probably the most known island of scotland with it's crazy rock formations and the sea just right next to it. A place called "old man of storr" is the most famous location because they shot movie scenes there like for "Prometheus" for example. Therefore it is a lot more touristy with more traffic there than on the applecross peninsula. Nevertheless we were tourists too and wanted to witness these cool places on our vacation. One road that looked stunning I found in a magazine called "Curves" and it is called "quiraing pass", so we decided to give it a shot while we were on the isle. We slept in our car directly at the seaside at a place called Staffin Beach which is located on the bottom of the quiring pass basicly. As we had rather tight shedule on our roadtrip and we also figured out on the day before that there was quite a lot of traffic, we decided to just do the smallest possible loop (33 km) heading north after the pass. You could also do a loop going south which is about 67 km, or combine both loops. All the roads and scenery is simply stunning but as mentioned quite busy as we experienced it. The quiring pass itself wasn't really that challenging but the view was awesome. After the pass we rode through a wide open plateau to the tiny village of "Uig". Located in Uig there is also a small harbour where we did see the ferry from/to the "Outer Hebrides". From Uig back to Staffen via the most northern part of the island was a nice ride with short climbs and decents along the seaside and through wide fields mainly. Here is the roadmap from our ride (and the longer southroute).
