they're a mad bunch

Had a great weekend with the YF. We divided into two groups and the whole weekend had to get photographs of the group doing different things:

standing beside a yellow car,

standing with a sculpture,

making a human pyramid,

with a stranger holding a sign,

with a cow,

in a canoe...

They got so into it they started making up extra rules in the hopes of getting extra points.

We'd a great afternoon with the legend that is Robin Ruddock, paddling along the Bann. Carys insisted on jumping in of course.

I left my other camera in the car, so there aren't any photos on the water.

a million opportunities

When I was a youngster there wasn't much opportunity to get involved in outdoor activities. So now I'm running the church youth group I'm trying to make sure they won't be able to say the same thing when they get older.

It's the YF weekend this weekend. the main point of the weekend is to answer their questions about Christianity, but every year we organise something energetic for the Saturday afternoon.

Last year we had a surfing lesson from Troggs surf school

the year before Paul Blanchard took us on the High Ropes course at Busmills education centre.

This year I tried to arrange for Ben Ruddock to take us mountain biking, but that didn't work out. Instead, we're going canoeing on the Bann with Ben's dad, Robin.

I think he's planning to take us from the Cutts to Coleraine Marina.

If I'm not careful I'll have done the whole route in sections before Martin even gets here!

Agnew's Hill

The Ulster Way markers were the only indication that I was travelling on any sort of path. Agnew’s hill was a mire and when I rode I had to pick my way carefully, but with some riding and some pushing, I made it to the top, picking up the discarded crisp bags and malteser boxes from the path as I went.

Was pleased to see a few hares lolloping about near the top of the hill. Northern Ireland doesn’t have much in the way of indigenous wildlife so I always like to see what’s around. Actually the hares I saw were probably European rather than Irish since they were huge big things, nearly two feet tall to the tops of their ears.

Just over the top of Agnew’s hill I was about to start enjoying myself when I noticed the back tyre was soft. Rather than try and swap the tube out now I thought I’d pump it up and keep going. Good job I remembered to put the pump into the bag before I left!

Riding down Agnew’s hill was great fun; the north side wasn’t as boggy as the South, so I got riding the whole way down, with some steep and technical sections too. I lifted the bike over the stile at the bottom and rode a couple of hundred metres along the road to the next off-road section. This was much flatter, single-track riding across a couple of fields. The path was well marked by posts, and I could follow the track on the ground too, but it wasn’t eroded with bootprints like many of the paths in the Mournes are. Some great views down the valley towards Larne, and I was curious about the apparently man-made lake, surrounded by trees, sitting out over the hill. Sheep in abundance, and I picked up loads more litter from the path. Why would people drop their rubbish in a place like that? The “you’re keeping somebody in a job” excuse doesn’t work, and it’s not like it was biodegradable rubbish either. I don’t understand it.

Over the next road, I was looking forward to the Sallagh Hills, but the back tyre was soft again and there was a wall to give me shelter from the breeze, so I swapped out the tube, remembering to feel the inside of the tyre and make sure there were no spiky things lurking in there. The side wall of the tyre was in terrible shape. No wonder something got through it. I also had a feel around the old tube on the off-chance that, even though it was a slow puncture, I might find the leak. I got the shock of my life when I felt a four inch gash in the tube! Most of it only went part of the way through the tube, but obviously somewhere along that gash there was a tiny hole. I used two of my biggest patches and sealed it up. Trying to pump up the new tube, it refused to go up. I took it out again, and discovered a neat hole. Obviously it’d got punctured by something in my bag. Great. I patched that up and put it back in.

Riding on, the back tyre felt really unstable. It was in bad enough shape to start with, but taking it on and off the wheel so many times had made it even worse. Looking at the map I could see that the next section, round the Sallagh braes was going to need some skill and reliable hardware. Since I was on my own with no backup I decided to err on the side of caution, switched the phone to Nokia Maps and asked it to direct me to the nearest train station.

my first ever solo bivi

I laid the bike down and chose a rocky outcrop to shelter me from the wind with flat grass at the base and a great view in almost every direction. I pitched the tarp using the bike’s handlebars and the rocks to get a bit of height, and rolled out the sleeping bag, sleeping mat and bivi bag in beneath.

I’d brought Iceland pasta salad to heat up for my supper, but it wasn’t that long since my dinner so I had half a bottle of Gatorade and a Frusli bar. I was glad to strip off my soaked cycling socks and replace them with the thick dry walking socks I’d brought – the only change of clothes I had with me.

Lying out there alone on the exposed hillside with the unfamiliar night sounds all around, I was a little unnerved. The flying sheep circling overhead bleating repeatedly as it came closer and closer to my camp was particularly unsettling (OK, so it probably wasn’t a sheep, but it really did sound like one) But it was a clear, still night, no rain, it wasn’t cold or windy in the shelter of the rock, and because I was on the hillside there were no midges. It was a beautiful night. With no light pollution for miles around it was bright until I fell asleep at 1130, and the first time I woke, at half past five, it was broad daylight. I thought I’d overslept.

I dozed until 7 o’clock when I stretched an arm out of my sleeping bag and set my stove onto the flat rock beside my head to boil the water for my porridge. The tarp was soaked with dew, so when I’d wakened enough I pegged it out in the early morning sunshine to dry. As the last of the mist cleared I packed up the rest of my kit between mouthfuls of porridge, and by 7:30 I was on my way again.

Ballyboley

At eight o’clock on Friday evening my very understanding wife bundled a couple of the wains into the car and drove me to Ballynure with all my stuff. I saddled up and headed up the hill towards Ballyboley. I quickly caught up with a lady who was riding up the road ahead of me.

We got chatting, and she’s usually a runner but has started cycling while she recovers from an injury. As we passed the
pipe band all standing out in the middle of the road practising, I dragged it out of her that she’s run the London marathon twice, the Dublin marathon twice, and this year was the second time she’d run the Belfast marathon. Some people do the craziest things. I ran a leg of the Belfast marathon this year and I think I’ll stick to riding the bike up trackless heather-covered mountains in future.

After we parted I kept on zig-zagging up the hill, the views becoming more and more spectacular as I gained height. Past Ballyboley orange hall where one of the members was painting the door bright red, on past the school and turned off into the forest.
The trees in Ballyboley have been infected with the destructive fungal infection Phytophthora ramorum,
So the place is a mess. I took two wrong paths before I got the right one, because the Forest Service have been adding new paths to access the trees that need felled. They’ve also laid stones on the path to minimize the damage by the increase in heavy machinery, and the loose stones are more difficult to ride on than the usual forest paths.

Once I got away from the destruction near the entrance, Ballyboley is a pleasant wee forest and I enjoyed my ride through it. I didn’t venture off the path because I was just passing through, and also because of the diseased larches. Even the main path had some challenging steep climbs though, even if they weren’t overly technical.

At the other end I was expecting to see more forest paths through the trees across the road, but the path through there is something totally different. The ‘path is marked by only an occasional footprint visible in the dirt through the long grass. Then I lifted the bike up a bank and the Way led up a fire break through the trees. No risk of fire today, as the tyres sank three inches into the sodden earth. The going was tough and I pushed most of the way through, only riding when the path was dry enough. My feet were squelching through the bog as I plodded forwards, the gps on my phone reading just under 2mph. I was going to have to pick up the time somewhere else to make the 10mph average I was hoping for.

The forest suddenly ended and I lifted the bike over a high stile, and was met with the barren bogland that’s such a feature of the Antrim Hills. The floor was deep, thick sphagnum moss, thriving on the moisture-rich peat beneath. Memories washed over me because when I was a child my family spent many summers turning, stacking, drying and bagging peat very near here to keep the house warm through the winter. Although I probably complained bitterly at the time, I have good memories of those summers.

Picking my way along the slightly drier ridges, a path crossed my route. On the map it doubled back and re-crossed the Way a few hundred yards further on. The calculation of ‘extra distance’ versus ‘easily rideable’ was an easy one and I took the path. It was coming up to 9pm so I was looking for somewhere sheltered to bed down for the night, and with the wind blowing down the exposed valley, Shane’s Hill was not ideal.

Turning back off the ‘road’ which was no more than a double track path, the cattle watched my progress inquisitively. I didn’t take much notice of them, until one heifer moved aside and behind her stood a young bull! A herd of cattle can be a dangerous thing if they’re startled and you get in their way, but a single bull, if he takes a dislike to you, raises the danger to a whole different level. I shifted my direction slightly so I was walking in a straight line, my path moving away from the group, trying to look big and strong, and gentle and non-threatening all at once. He never took his eyes off me until, with relief, I climbed over the next fence and up towards the rocky ridges of Hightown.

data mining

My regular partner-in-cycling is trying to poke, prod and persuade me into taking on the Ulster Way next year.

It’s all my fault. I made the mistake of sending him a link to the Ulster Way website.

The Ulster Way is a 1000km journey over (and through) every imaginable surface.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m up for the challenge, but we’re having a disagreement over how long it’ll take.

Martin lives in England, so we can’t easily split it up over a wheen of sessions, and he can’t really afford to take more than a week off work at a time.

He’s up for doing the whole thing in seven days, I’m thinking ten. 7 days would be 90 miles a day, a reasonable distance if you can maintain a pace of somewhere around 10mph. The big question in my mind is - would 10mph be a realistic average?

When Tango and Cash, did it in 6 days, on singlespeeds, they were riding 13 and 14 hour days. I love adventure riding; taking on big distances over terrain that most people never see. But I don’t just do it so that I can look back and say ‘I did it’. I like to enjoy the journey while it’s happening, and several consecutive 13 hour days in the saddle does not make for an enjoyable journey.

We could argue till the cows come home, but to make a decision, we need some data for our calculations.