Karen Newman
Local cyclist, cycle trainer and bike-ability provider
As there is much written about the NC500 from the motorists’ point of view, these articles will stick to cycling-specific topics. I have drawn on my experience of living and cycling (and driving) in the Highlands on single-track roads, dodging deer, sheep and other road users, and on my more general cycling experience built up over 30 odd years. I hope that these articles will encourage more people to cycle in this wonderful, unpredictable area – it’s a healthy and environmentally sound way to travel and allows one to connect with the area more than driving around it in a metal box where one is more detached from the environment and the elements.
Cycling also has the potential to bring much needed economic benefits to this area – cyclists travel more slowly and usually spend more days and nights in the area, thus supporting the local communities they pass through. This is an ongoing project and I will be adding more articles as I get time to write them. I will also attempt to keep the information as up-to-date as possible but be aware that it may not always be possible; it is best to check essential details for yourself. Please feel free to contribute if you can up-date, correct or add to the content in a constructive way.
I can be contacted via the NC500 email address or via the Facebook page:
I have lived and worked in the NW Highlands for 11 years but have known the area for quite a bit longer, having had many mountaineering and walking holidays in the area.
My cycling career started in my early 20s with a “tandem-shaped object” which had a small lady-back frame (I’m 5’10”…) and 3 speed Sturmey Archer gears, bought mail order on a whim, from a newspaper ad. It was great fun to explore the local area on but 4 years later, it was replaced by a new shiny off-the-peg Coventry Eagle tandem which I used for touring in France, and in Slovakia not long after it emerged from Soviet domination – that was quite an experience! A few years later, my old commuting “bike-shaped object”, which I used for cycling to work (never locked it up – no one would want to nick it!), was replaced by a Raleigh Randonner tourer when I went to live in the Far East for 3 years. It carried me through a tour of Bali and numerous trips into the Borneo jungle on whatever roads I could find.
Those bikes have all gone now and I am cycling more than ever on a variety of road, touring, gravel and mountain bikes, plus a custom made tandem… which actually fits us! I now cycle about 4000 miles a year, mostly in the Highlands but also in Cumbria and on the continent; the Dolomites, Spain, the Alps and Pyrenees, Provence, and my all-time favourite French destination, the Vercor. I do quite like mountains! Most of my recent touring has been off road, mountain bike-packing with minimal kit – coast-to coast across the north Highlands, a tour of the Caringorms, a 4-day chilly Easter camping trip from Dunblane back to Carrbridge in the Cairngorms, and a number of one or two nighters, staying in bothies, to climb remote hills.
For 2019, I am planning a solo Norwegian’ lighthouse tour’ on the gravel bike, from the most southerly to the most northerly one; that will test me!I am also a Cycle Trainer and have run Bikeability sessions for my local primary school which has given me another perspective on cycling in this area.
I know most of the roads of the NC500 pretty well, especially those between Achnasheen and Kylesku, having ridden them in just about all weathers at all times of year; commuting to and from work; as day rides and as touring trips. Most of the other roads of the NC500 are also pretty familiar to me, except the A9 and the routes east of it – I am so used to riding on quieter roads these days that I have never felt the urge to do battle with the A9; there are enough really great cycling alternatives that I have nearly always managed to avoid it!
I am a great advocate of planning my own holidays and tours, but if I did follow someone else’s line on the map, I always have to research the area and look for alternatives. I feel that I get to know the area this way and take some sort of ‘ownership’ of my route; I find this so much more satisfying. When I was doing a coast-to-coast traverse of the Pyrenees, taking in as many mountain cols as practicable, I met a guided group of four fit men with their British guide. The lads were having a great time but hadn’t a clue where they were, where they were going and even seemed to have forgotten where they had come from that day! They had no ownership of their trip and seemed to be completely reliant on their guide for everything, bar the actual cycling. No doubt that suited them, but I couldn’t help thinking that they were missing out on a very intrinsic part of travelling – the planning which helps you get to know the area, its history, geography and culture, and the understanding of where you are in time and space.
