For Buses, Bromptons and paddle steamers Part I – Click here.
Day 4: Largs to Ayr – bike and bus!
Monday morning in Largs dawned bright and clear with blue skies if a little cold for the time of year and I was looking forward to the return trip to Ayr via the coastal path and NCN 7 as things often look different if you do a route in a different direction. I was also planning on making the time for a proper visit to the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine.
After breakfast and loading up, I set off on my way, stopping briefly to buy some supplies in a shop and having a last look at Largs harbour before before beginning my journey properly. The weather conditions were perfect for me and it was nice to be able to ride away from traffic. There were a lot of cyclists and walkers out on the paths and it’s good to see people out taking exercise. It proves that if useable facilities are provided, people will use them.
Then about eight or ten miles into my odyssey I became aware of something rubbing on the back wheel so stopped to investigate. I discovered that the tyre seemed to have come off the rim at a particular point and it was a miracle that the tube hadn’t bust. I couldn’t continue like this, I’d have to take the wheel off for further investigation.
I do like to promote hub gears but there is no doubt it is a derailleur geared rear wheel is much easier to remove at the roadside. There is also a chain tensioner on a Brompton and they have a reputation for being a difficult to remove the rear wheel but I think the difficulty is over-stated, it just takes a little longer and there will be the need to re-adjust the gear cable afterwards. (Try a rod-braked roadster with a chaincase if you want to experience a difficult to remove rear wheel!) You will end up with oily hands though after handling the chain tensioner (or perhaps I don’t clean things as much as I should).
What I found was that the tyre had seperated at the bead as the rubber had pulled away from the wire for about a two inch stretch of the beading. Why did this happen? I don’t really know. I had only fitted the tyre last August and it hadn’t covered that many miles. Perhaps it was damaged during fitting without realising or had been damaged in storage or delivery. Perhaps it was really old stock that had started to deteriorate or was a manufacturing defect. I’ll never know the reason and it doesn’t really matter but it presented me with a bit of a problem.
I atempted to use a tyre boot and it all seemed good until I had ridden another few hundred yards and the tyre had further seperated from the beading adjacent to where I had booted it. This clearly wasn’t going to work. What to do? There wasn’t really a huge amount I could do. I walked the rest of the way to West Kilbride in the hope that there might be a bike shop there but I couldn’t find one. There was nothing else for it. I removed the bags and folded the bike up and got the bus back to Ayr. I knew that there was quite a large bike shop in Ayr as I had rode past it on my way out of town on Saturday. I didn’t think it was very likely that they’d have a 16″ x 1 3/8“ tyre in stock to suit a Brompton but you never know and if not, I was sure they could order me one.
He didn’t have a tyre in stock and claimed it was impossible to get one. A search online revealed that there was a bike shop in nearby Prestwick but they didn’t open on Mondays. There wasn’t much I could do. I was luckily able to check in early to the B&B I had booked for two nights so I could get rid of my luggage and sick bike and go for a walk. I walked along the path to Alloway to the Robert Burns cottage. It was closed by this time (I knew it would be anyway) but I enjoyed the walk. I made the return journey to Ayr.
I’ve been in Ayr several times over the years and have always liked it as a town. Ayr can trace it’s history back to 1205 and it was an important harbour and market town in that period. It developed as holiday resort with the coming of the railways in 1840, both for it’s impressive beaches and it is also a famous resort for golfers. It is also famous as the birthplace of the world-renowned poet and songwriter, Robert Burns, who was born in the cottage his father built in the suburb of Alloway in 1759. Literacy tourists in search of Robert Burns is probably a big part of Ayr’s tourist industry. Ayr also has a lot of impressive architecture and beautiful building. There are some historical buildings too such as the remains of the Citadel built by Oliver Cromwell’s army in the seventeenth century.
Day 5: In the footsteps of Robert Burns
The following morning after breakfast I took a bus to Prestwick to visit the bike shop in the hope that they might be able to help. I could have phoned but I had time and it was only a very short bust bus journey of about ten minutes. It was a wasted journey though as again, they had no tyre and stock and claimed they couldn’t get one until at least next week which was no use to me. I got the bus back to Ayr. This would be my last day in Ayr anyway. I had booked a B&B in Stranraer for the following night. I decided I had two options, I could visit or phone every bike shop in Ayrshire and they probably couldn’t help me anyway or I could order a tyre from Ebay for click and collect at Argos in Stranraer for me to collect when I got there. This is what I did. I would have been happy to have paid extra for next day delivery but nobody selling Brompton tyres seem to offer that service. I’d have to wait until Thursday for my tyre.
It was still quite early. I walked to Alloway again with the intentions of visiting the Burns museum, something I had originally planned to do anyway. I had a route of around thirty miles planned that would have taken in things related to Burns as well as seeing the Electric Brae and other sights on the Ayrshire coast but obviously that as well as my planned day on the Isle of Arran weren’t going to happen without a tyre.
I enjoyed the visit to the Burns Museum though. As I arrived in Alloway at around 12:30 and I decided to eat in a local cafe before visiting the museum. Afterwards I made my way to the visitors’ centre. I’ve long been an admirer of his work. He was born in Alloway in 1759, the oldest of seven children. At the visitor centre you can learn about what life would have been like in the eighteenth century and some of the things that inspired Burns as well and what his life would have been like. There are really several parts to the a visit to the museum. There is the modern building which traces his life, the thatched cottage where he was born and the Burns Monument and Memorial Gardens, and also the famous “Brig O’ Doon” and “Alloway’s auld haunted kirk” which both feature so prominantly in one of Burns’ masterpieces – the long, ghostly narrative poem, Tam O’ Shanter.
The Burns moumument was built in the early 1820s on a slope overlooking the River Doon. I believe there were already gardens there prior to the building of the monument. It is an impressive monument, now recently restored. You can climb steps to the top where you get a good viewpoint over the River Doon and the Brig O’ Doon, a single arch stone bridge which dates from the fifteenth century and it was this bridge Tam O’ Shanter had to cross on his drunken, ill-fated journey home from Ayr. The bridge is very narrow and was replaced in 1816 with a new bridge nearby and the plans were to demolish the old bridge but the growing popularity of Burns and influx of literacy tourists so it was saved (thankfully). The haunted Kirk was already a ruin by the time of Burns’ life so it fitted into his story. His father William Burnes is buried in the Churchyard. Burns himself is buried in Dumfries. Part of Alloway Auld Kirk dates back as far as the thirteenth century although most of it dates from the sixteenth century. It fell out of use in 1690 after the parish joined the Ayr congregation and has been a ruin ever since.
In Ayr itself you can visit the Tam O’ Shanter Inn which is probably the hostelry referred to in the poem. It dates from 1749 and has a thatched roof and is a very characterful building. Of course they use the Robert Burns connection to their advantage and there are many inscriptions and references to Burns in and around the building. Burns, without a doubt, is one of the most important figures in the history of Scottish and English literature with many of his poems and songs still being widely known over two hundred years after his death. At the museum you can see a list of others who have claimed to have been inspired by the Bard of Ayrshire. The list includes William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ludvig Von Beethoven, Maya Angelou, John Steinbeck, Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan. Praise indeed for the “Heaven-taught ploughboy.” What is also impressive was the sheer volume of work he produced in his short lifetime. Such is the regard that Burns’ is held in internationally that the Soviet Union even released commemorative stamps featuring Robert Burns.
I just had a relaxing evening when I got back to Ayr but had an amazing sky to watch again on what was actually the Summer Solstice. I enjoyed watching the sun start to set over Ayr harbour. My phone camera doesn’t do the sky colours justice.
Day 6: Ayr to Stranraer
The following morning, my options for things to do were a bit limited as I had to check out of my B&B and I had a bike I could wheel around as a luggage carrier. I enjoyed a bit of people watching on the seafront and brief chats with random dog-walkers and other cyclists. I decided to go to Stranraer early and hopefully check in early to my next guest house so folded the Brompton up and got on the bus. I couldn’t manage to reach the B&B on the number provided so I was unable to make arrangements to leave the bike there so all I really did when I got to Stranraer was to sit outside a cafe, watch the world go by and eat too much cake until I was able to get in touch and get checked in. My tyre was due the following day before 1pm, I was hoping it would come as early as possible.
Day 7: Stranraer and Portpatrick
The following morning I went for a walk along the Loch Ryan coastal path for a bit and then went back to town and visited the park, museum and castle. I had considered taking a bus Girvan and maybe a boat trip around Ailsa Craig if possible but decided against it as too much hassle and more than likely as soon as the bus left town, I’d get the eagerly anticipated text to inform me that my tyre had arrived; which was why I decided to see what Stranraer had to offer.
Quite a lot actually. Stranraer (An t-Sròn Reamhar in Scots Gaelic – “the broad headland” ) is the second-laregst town in Dumfries and Galloway and is located on the shore of Loch Ryan. Until relatively recently it was a busy ferry fort to reach Northern Ireland until P&O and then Stenaline moved their operations to nearby Cairnryn, I think the reason was because Stranraer had a tendency to silt up. It’s a shame though as the port connected with the railway line which would have made the sort of trip I was doing very convenient. Stranraer played a large role in WWII and was a base for flying boats which helped protect the North Channel during wartime as it was the main shipping route to both the Clyde and the Mersey. Going back further, Robert the Bruce began his campaign to reclaim his kingdom from here in 1307. The Castle of St John or Stranraer castle is an early sixteenth century tower house, built by Adairs of Kilhilt who originated in Ireland. The castle has survived and served a number of purposes over it’s long life. In it’s time, it has been used as a home, a court, a police station and as a military garrison during the “Killing Times” of Covenanter persecution in the 1680s. During the Victorian era, the castle was modified to serve as a prison, and it was used as an ARP base during the Second World War. The castle was refurbished in the late 1980s and is now a museum. I enjoyed my visit to the castle and it is well worth negotiating the rather tricky spiral staircase to get the great views of the town and Loch Ryan from the top.
The town’s museum is also well worth a visit. You can see a lot from down through the ages – from stone age and bronze age axes and other tools and weapons right up to stuff from the twentieth century. The importance of agriculture in the area is also seen with examples of old wooden ploughs and other farm implements. Cattle and dairy became important to the local ecomomy and there are many different types of butter churns, cheese presses and other tools of the dairy industry on display. Also on display are some old bikes including a penny-farthing, a Pedersen bicycle and a boneshaker. I was asking the curator if she knew anything of the history of the bikes but she didn’t apart from that they were all donated by local people. The boneshaker and the high-wheeler are of course the ancestors of the modern bike, the Pedersen is an interesting alternative design to the conventional diamond-framed roadster and is actually very comfortable (I have ridden a modern version belonging to a friend).
At around half-past one I eventually got my anxiously awaited text message to let me know my tyre was at Argos and ready for collection so I made my way to Argos to collect the tyre. I then walked back to the B&B to fit it to the bike. With the time needed to pick the tyre up and then to walk back and fit it, it was just after three o’ clock when I was eventually ready for the road. The new Continental tyre was a very easy fit on this rim and a much lighter and better quality tyre and has a reflective sidewall, a great idea in theory but as I found out to my cost last year, all the lights and reflectives in the world are completely useless if a driver doesn’t bother to look where they’re going in the first place.
I didn’t really want to go too far at this time of the evening so decided to visit Portpatrick which I had heard good things about. The direct route isn’t very far (about eight miles I think) but I decided to explore the peninsula a little and follow the coast road up Loch Ryan as much as I could so I followed the road towards the golf course and Kirkcolm. I found myself looking across at the P&O ferry sitting in port across Loch Ryan at Cairnryan. I had no particular plan and went down many small side roads, most of which ended up at dead ends and ended up being a bit lost when I met a courier delivery driver who stopped with me to ask for directions as he was trying to deliver a parcel and had got lost. I told him I had no idea where I was either which wasn’t very helpful but was the truth! I regret not taking a photo of a field full of Galloway cattle that I saw as although I saw a few others during my riding around Galloway, they were always mixed in with other breeds.
I managed to reach Portpatrick by this indirect route although it was further and slower than I had thought like this (around thirty-five miles) but it was a nice ride, if confusing at times, and it felt good to be able to ride my bike again after Monday’s tyre problem. Portpatrick is an attractive little fishing port which dates back about seven-hundred years. It is about twenty one miles from the coast of Northern Ireland, and although sunny, it was a hazy day and I couldn’t really see it very well. Portpatrick was founded on fishing and the harbour is still the focal point of the centre of the town. It’s a very nice harbour area too. It was originally the main port for connecting with Ireland until the 1850s when Stranraer took over due to it being prone to stormy conditions in this part of the North Channel. Today, on a evening like this, I could have sat at the postcard-like harbour in the shadow of many characterful building in the evening sun and just watched the world go round. I did for a short time and ate a snack but I had to return to Stranraer but I took the main route back this time – this part of the A77 doesn’t appear to have much traffic anyway and the drivers are extremely respectful in Scotland.
Day 8: The Mull of Galloway
For my last full day on the Rhins of Galloway I decided I would ride to the Mull of Galloway – Scotland’s most southernly point. I had a suggested route from a book by the publisher Collins called Cycling in South West Scotland which I had picked up in a second hand shop some time ago and had brought with me (it also provided the Burns route around Ayr which I had hoped to do). The suggested route was about forty-three miles but I decided to add to it, partly doing a lot of what I had done the evening before without the excusrions down the minor roads and a few other diversions.
After initially going East again along Loch Ryan I would cut across the peninsula and almost back into Stranraer again before going down the west side via Lochrans towards Sandhead and then further down the coast. There is some very nice coastal scenery around here and the roads seem to be very quiet. There was a very strong headwind though so it was a very slow first or second gear grind for a lot of it but I was in no rush so it didn’t matter too much. The day wasn’t as nice as previously either as it was often quite overcast but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment. If we only cycle in perfect conditions we’d only cycle about three days per year!
I made a detour of a mile or so to visit Kirkmadrine Chapel which houses the Kirkmadrine stones which date from the earliest days of Christianity in Scotland. The eight Kirkmadrine Stones include three of the oldest Christian memorials in Scotland, dating to the 500s AD. I was expecting to find standing stones but they have been moved behind glass to protect them from the elements but I actually found it difficult to see them in any detail due to sunlight reflecting from the glass. The church dates from the nineteenth century I think. Oddly enough, the word Kirk which I always associated with Scotland has Irish/Viking origins. There is a lot online about the history of the Kirkmandrine stones.
I re-traced my steps to the coast road and continued on my way into the headwind, eventually reaching the Mull of Galloway. Here you will find a headland with a lighthouse. The lighthouse is interesting in itself as it is one of many around the Scottish coast designed by Robert Stevenson, the grandfather of another of Scotland’s celebrated literacy figures – Robert Louis Stevenson. Robert and his son were great lighthouse engineers. This particular one dates from 1830. The signpost informed me that I am just forty-two miles from Belfast at this point. There is a visitors’ centre which I decided I would like to have visited but wouldn’t have time as it had taken me much longer than expected to get here due to the strong winds.
I ate the lunch I had taken with me in whatever shelter I could find from the wind before re-tracing my steps along the singletrack road which takes you the last few miles to the lighthouse and headland. At least the wind was behind me now but the weather was deteriorating – getting more overcast and colder. I would be taking a different route back via Port Logan before eventually re-joining part of the route I had used on the way out. There were a few climbs but nothing too serious and the coast around Port Logan is also very nice. The roads are extremely quiet here. It’s a low population area and the tourist traffic (not that I seen a huge amount of it) is on the west side of the Rhins of Galloway.
I made a return to Portpatrick but it was very different from the previous evening as there were now no people sitting around the harbour or outside the bars and cafes. The wind had sent them all to take shelter and it was starting to rain now too. I was well and truely soaked by the time I reached Stranraer again but wasn’t too bothered as I had dry clothes waiting for me and appreciated a nice warm dinner in the Custom House bar all the more. I was pleased with today despite the weather. I had still enjoyed it, the route was a nice one and I had ocvered over seventy miles, my longest ride since before my accident so I felt pleased with that.
Day 9: Home again. Haste ye back!
After a final ride along the harbour and the Agnew Park I then rode the six miles or so to the ferry port at Cairnryan along the A77 and was in good time for my sailing. It was still pretty windy and the ferry crossing was quite rough at times but fortunately I seem to have been blessed with good sea legs as being on a rough boat has never bothered me or made me sick in any way. The journey home was uneventful, again taking the train to Derry.
I had enjoyed my week in Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloways. Sailing on the Waverley was something very special for me. It is something I would definitely repeat given the opportunity. My cycle computer showed me that I had cycled 181 miles on Scottish soil; it should and would have been about an extra eighty or hundred miles but for the tyre issue. Considering Brompton tyres are so small, I am wondering is it worthwhile to take a spare tyre on a tour. I guess the chances of a tyre failing like that is very rare in the first place and in the UK at least I was still able to source one easily enough even if I did have to wait a few days. My Robert Burns loop and the Isle of Arran as well as the Scottish Maritime Museum and Electric Brae will have to wait until another occasion. There is also a recommended route between Stranraer and Ayr via Newtonstewart but I believe it is very hilly which is why I didn’t plan it this time as I’m still recovering from injury and I was riding a three speed. I enjoyed the Mull of Galloway and feel there is a lot more to explore there too. It’s not somewhere I would have thought of going before but it has a lot to recommend it as a cycling destination. I like taking my bike to Scotland as it’s usually possible to find quiet roads and the standard of driving is so much safer than it is at home. I’m very pleased to be able to do this at all and look forward to getting fitter and stronger and doing more long rides and a few tours in the future.