I suppose I should confess my sins of last month. I'm not proud of myself. I think I just won the Stupidest Person in Scotland award hands down.
I set off for Dores, by Loch Ness, and found a great car park to camp in. (I only saw the "No Overnight Parking" sign on the gate when I was driving out two days later, but I was far from the only one, there were quite a few people in tents in a nearby field, having driven there by car.) My first day's plan was a ride of 30-something miles to Foyers and back, going up into the foothills of the Monadhliath mountains on the way and back by the Wade's road by the loch-side.
When I got there in the late afternoon I realised I had left the cable I bought to padlock Hilda to a car tyre behind at home. I did have two smaller bike locks though and I didn't feel particularly nervous. However, the bike has a facility to disable the e-assist from the phone app as an extra precaution and I thought I'd just do that as well. "Only you can unlock the bike" says the app. You can probably see where this is going already.
I slept very well and slept in a bit and it was after eleven before I was all set to go, packed lunch and sunscreen and all. I headed straight up the side of Loch Ness from the car park. Here is the scene of the crime, top to bottom.
View attachment 38704
The road in question is the B862 leading out of Dores from the car park by the pub, with the 21 metres spot height, to the 193 metres spot height at the bottom of the frame. You can work it out. (The answer is about 570 feet. In two miles. The contours, which are 10-metre spacing, say it all.)
Even before I got out of the car park I was feeling the strain. I thought, maybe I shouldn't just have leaped on the bike and set off uphill without warming up. I wondered how much difference the weight of the range extender battery was making. I thought, I'm not as fit as I thought I was by a very long way. I even checked to see if the mudguard was rubbing a wheel, which it was a bit, but not enough to cause that sort of trouble. I walked, pushing the bike. I occasionally tried to ride sections where the gradient wasn't as steep, but every time I had to dismount whenever it got a bit steeper. The temperature was about 25C, which is a bit much as far as I'm concerned, and that wasn't helping either.
I began to decide that the Corrie Yairack, which isn't metalled, was completely out of the question. If I couldn't do this, I certainly couldn't do that. I kept checking the bike's readings, but the red indicator for maximum assist was showing, for sure. Bugger. I saw I wasn't using much battery but thought, well you're pushing the bike most of the time, that's not surprising.
I was determined to get to the farm just past that 193 metre spot height before stopping for lunch, and it took me two hours. I sat in the shade to eat my sandwiches and so on, thinking, well at least I've done the main steep climb, I should get on better from now on. It was only when I went back to the bike to get going again that a little light bulb went off in my brain. "Only you can turn the assist back on." I had the phone with me, but I hadn't done anything with it. I hadn't been using it to track the ride because the phone battery only lasts for a couple of hours if I do that. I opened the app and sure enough there was a big padlock showing over the screen.
If I'd thought anything, I'd have imagined that with the lock on the bike wouldn't turn on, or if it did, wouldn't allow you to select an e-assist mode. But it did. All the lights had been telling me all along that the bike was on and on maximum assist, so there was nothing to alert me other than the fact that this steep road was an absolute nightmare to climb. Well all I can say is that if even I can get that bike two miles up that sort of gradient with the "lock" engaged it is absolutely pointless and I will not be bothering with it again.
I did get on better after that! But I was tired and my back was sore with pushing the bike, so I didn't enjoy the rest of the ride as much as I might have done. And there was another unforeseen complication. The road into Foyers, which looked (and still looks) downhill on the map, has a climb of 12% into the village, which was definitely not on even with the assist on, in my fatigued state. A slightly awkward dismount because of a car coming the other way, and my right quadriceps decided to cramp. Thank you very much. Fortunately it wasn't as bad as it might have been and I managed to walk up the hill.
At the top(ish) was the village shop and Post Office, with a tempting sign outside about ice cream. I parked Hilda and reached into my saddle-bag, to realise that I had left my purse, wallet and bank cards in my rucksack back at the car. No ice cream for me. (Nor tea bags either, having realised I'd forgotten to pack these.)
My leg kept threatening to cramp, and I was a bit worried that I was pedalling harder with the other leg and it might go off as well, but I was able to keep it at bay all the way along the side of Loch Ness and back to Dores. About five miles out I saw the battery indicator on red, although there was still plenty enough to get me back to base. I got to the car about quarter past five, it wasn't that long a run and not a complete disaster, but I was whacked.
I went to the drinks cart outside the pub for a cup of tea, and remarked to the girl who served me that I was gasping for one as I'd left my tea bags at home. Was there a shop in the village? No, she said, nearest thing is in Inverness. Then she put three tea bags into a paper cup and said, there you go! Aren't people nice! It was absolutely first-class tea too, as she had said. Comes from Edinburgh she said. First I ever heard about the tea plantations on Arthur's Seat... As I stood up from my seat by the lochside both quadriceps went into cramp and I sat back down again rather smartly, but I didn't care by then, and fortunately it all passed over without bothering me overnight.
There were people swimming in the loch and it looked massively tempting. I hadn't brought a bathing costume, but a t-shirt and knickers make a reasonable substitute. Then I thought about getting cramp in the loch and having to be life-saved, and decided I'd done enough damage for one day.
I was getting a bit suspicious about that range extender battery too, which I hadn't used before, and which came with instructions that were all hieroglyphs. I had charged it up when I got it, as instructed, and not used it, so I had thought it would be fully charged. I charged the bike itself up before I left home, so I had thought I was all set. But I didn't know how to tell the state of the range extender charge. And given that I hadn't used any battery getting up that first hill it should have lasted longer than it did. Anyway, I plugged the entire shebang into Caliban and set about making the tea (chilli con carne), just unplugging the bike when I needed to boil the kettle. I had fortunately deciphered the hieroglyph that showed how to charge both the internal and external batteries together.
Getting near bed time I thought I would see how well the bike recharge was going. Opened the app, and a second SoC meter had appeared under the usual one, labelled "external battery". Both were almost full. I never saw that second readout on the ride. I have a crawling suspicion that the range extender had discharged itself before I set off. I thought it would hold its charge just the same as the car does when it's parked up for a while, but maybe not. I think I lugged an empty range extender battery all that way. And if I'd used the bike's battery going up that hill, I wonder how far I'd have got before it died? The entire route was pretty hilly - although I could have spared the battery to some extent by pedalling if I'd known it was draining, and I hadn't been so fatigued.
Well, the next day I lazed about a bit instead of taking on another 28 miles which had been the plan, then I went for a short woodland ride just to relax. moved on in the late afternoon to charge the car at Fort Augustus, then on to the car park by Loch Arkaig I had liked so much last year.
So now I still have no idea how I would have coped on these gradients if I'd actually been riding an e-bike! On one hand, I bloody did it. I got to the top. Of a hill I wouldn't really have thought of attempting on an ordinary bike. On the other hand, how do I know I would have been able to do it with the assist on? If it's too steep, it stops mattering that it's an e-bike, you still have to push.
I was tempted to go back for another go, this time both batteries fully charged and the bike definitely unlocked, but I have designs on a hilly route on Skye in about ten days so I'll see how I get on with that. I need some sort of achievement to wipe the memory of being the Stupidest Person in Scotland last month.
