The 5 Ferry Challenge



My friend Doug and I had long talked about the "5 Ferry Challenge" which involves 2 islands (Arran and Bute), 5 ferries (obviously), and some cycling in between in order to make all of said ferries in the same day (55ish miles). We used to have some amazing running adventures together (mountain marathons, Comrades, the Swissalpine etc) but these have become slightly more limited as the years pass and injuries creep in...... The adventures don't have to stop just because the running does so a cycle challenge sounded like a good substitute, though initially the challenge was finding the time to do it. The ferries only run an appropriate timetable in summer (and longer daylight is a bonus), and we needed to make sure we were both free, keen and had no injuries (well, a stress fracture surely doesn't count as its not a weight bearing activity!).



A suggested timetable that  I found

In order to fit it all in within 1 day, we had to add in another 18 or so miles of cycling (you can officially get a train to the first ferry/back from the last ferry from Glasgow, but we couldn't have got a train up from Dumfries early enough or back late enough for the connections). We decided to park halfway in between Ardrossan (the start) and Wemyss Bay (the finish) to give us a few miles to stretch our legs first thing, and the same after the last ferry. To be fair, we did consider parking at Wemyss Bay but then would have had to leave home even earlier and cycle 18 miles to the "start".

Ready for the off...

Ferry No 1

The first cycle of the day was rather chilly but we made it safely to Ardrossan (we'd been worried about how busy the coast road might be, but luckily most people must have been having a lie in) with half an hour to spare. There seemed to be a rather large number of people lining up to wheel their bikes onto the ferry, but I'd rung them beforehand and been assured that we didn't need to book a space. As it turned out, bike space wasn't the limiting factor but cafe space was....the queue was so long that we only got our smoked salmon and scrambled egg bagels (yummm) shortly before landing on Arran....and so we didn't even have time to drink our mugs of coffee :-(

We were quite late at getting down to our bikes, but there was actually no rush as all the cars were offloaded ahead of us....which caused us rather a lot of angst as the first ferry connection was by far the tightest one. It appeared that we had an hour and 20 minutes to cycle the 14 miles from Brodick to Lochranza....and Doug had mentioned the large hill involved on a couple of occasions.....but as we had to wait about 15 of those precious minutes to get off the ferry, it suddenly looked like much more of a "challenge" than I'd originally appreciated!!

A lot of cyclists seemed to heading the same way as us, but after their initial "sprints" away from the ferry, we were soon passing most of the groups. A couple of guys seemed to like riding just behind me, then shooting past and cutting right back in - I get scared if anyone is close in front of me (a cycle accident at uni when sometime knocked my wheel out and I ended up "snapping" my knee has given me the heebie-jeebies of not being able to see clear road in front of me ever since), so I was very thankful when people spread out and Doug and I could just ride along together and chat.

One of the things that Doug has always noticed is that everyone is an "expert" and wants to give you their advice, be it about running, cycling, driving or any other activity, and this day was certainly no exception. I'm no natural cyclist (and am petrified of steep downhills, especially if there are corners or rough surfaces...and even worse...both) but I probably operate at a higher base level of fitness than the average population, and so can get up the hills OK (ish). Some men obviously didn't like a mere girl passing them on the long, hot, sunny uphill stretch and "suggested" I should be taking it easier going up and saving myself to enjoy the downhills. Not being as out of breath as the aforementioned experts, I could reply that I enjoy the effort of climbing whilst actively disliking the ensuing descents (whilst calmly pedalling past!!).

Ferry No 2

We reached the summit all too soon (actually it was probably just about in time for us to think we could make the ferry) and I watched Doug's back whiz away into the distance. I was happy to pick up my speed when I reached a nice smooth recently resurfaced section, but then panicked slightly when buses seem to come round corners towards me more on my side of the road than theirs. Doug had hung back to make sure I was OK (or was it to check that my bike was OK as he was "domestiqueing" with the spare inner tubes?) and warn me about hidden obstacles such as sharp humpbacked bridges, gravelly sections, and tourists wandering into the road around bagpipers without looking where they were going.

Time pressure meant that I didn't dare to stop and take photos but tried to lock away memories of the beautiful scenery instead....and we made it to Lochranza with minutes to spare (and of all the cyclists that had left the previous ferry with us, only 6 of us had managed to catch this one).

This ferry was a lot smaller and so instead of bike racks to hang our trusty steeds up on, we just had to lean them against the edge of the car deck. We were going across to Claonaig on the Mull of Kintyre, which actually has a funny significance for myself and Doug. We ran a relay race down the Mull of Kintyre several years ago on a running club weekend away - and the carpark by the Claonaig ferry is where Doug handed over to me for our team (we, along with Sandy and Mhairi. then went on to win the event)....to be fair, I'm not sure of any other reason you'd actually go there.....there is literally nothing there, not even a building!!

The 10 miles to Tarbert was another lovely route....this time mainly on quiet country roads, with the few drivers that we did encounter being very courteous and not expecting us to give way to them (to be fair, when I was on a sharp corner going up a steep hill, there was no way I could stop...or even unclip if I'd wanted to let them pass). We had an hour and 45minutes to make this connection so we took our time meandering along and reminiscing about where the relay route had taken us in relation to where we were currently cycling. As we going up the last climb into Tarbert on the main road, we realised that we could probably catch an earlier ferry as they left hourly, but we weren't quite sure where the jetty was and by the time we'd cycled around and stopped to ask about it (it was just behind the town), we decided that we'd rather go to a cafe for coffee and cake and wait for the next one.

Ferry No 3

The ferry across to Portavadie (on the west coast of the Cowal peninsula) was a brilliant trip. We met up with some of the cyclists from the previous ferry (we were down to 3 groups - including us - by now) and the views were stunning.....and they were made even better by a couple of dolphins accompanying us across Loch Fyne (a sea-loch which will always be special to me, as I used to visit my grandparents' house just further up the shore as a youngster and go fishing with my Grandpa).

The 19 miles from Portavadie to Colintraive were an "interesting" ride. Portavadie appears to have a large hotel, a bus stop and little else....apart from a long rough road leading up and away from the ferry. Having joined the "main" road (?mainer...still a B-road) we continued over to the other side of the Cowal peninsula descending down towards the Kyles of Bute. A sharp 90 degree turn to the right as we came into Tighnabruaich (you have to love Scottish names!) took us onto an A-road and a near accident for me. Directly round the corner was a (very) steep hill but with a red traffic light for some temporary roadworks. The other cyclists were waiting for the lights to change but there was no way that my foot would unclip whilst going uphill - luckily I managed to do an emergency swerve sideways up someone's driveway to a flatter section in order to free myself from my pedals (though I think Doug did wonder where I was off to).

The lights didn't seem to want to change and so, as we could see the far end of the roadworks just a few metres away, we all went for it. Unfortunately I now couldn't clip back in and so the only way for me to make it up anything of that gradient was by standing up to get enough pressure on my pedals. I probably looked like I was showing off as I cycled past everyone else, but it was actually just self-preservation! We had thought that we were going to cycle alongside the water all the way up one side of the sealoch and back down the other, but that just shows how poorly we'd looked at the route. The road seemed to climb steadily uphill for mile after mile, but we were rewarded with amazing views down towards the water a long way below us.

At the top we hit roadworks again - which made the downhill rather treacherous. They were resurfacing the road so there was loose gravel, melted tar and flying stones everywhere. They would catch in the spokes of your wheels and then flick up into your face - thank heavens for glasses - of hit your helmet. Doug was worried about them getting trapped in the bikes as we really didn't want a mechanical breakdown there. What made me love it (NOT!) even more was that cars going the other way didn't appreciate how difficult it was for us and so didn't adjust their speed at all. We began to think that the "suggested" time of 3 hours 20 for this section wasn't so crazy, as we had to stop several times to try to get rid of some of the loose gravel that attached itself to our tyres by way of the melted tar.

The beautiful Kyles of Bute

We passed the head of the loch and the road seemed to improve slightly as we came towards the junction with the other A-road going back down the other side. Our hearts sank as we turned and headed south again, as they were also resurfacing this road (who on earth decides to resurface everywhere at the same time? Still, I guess it'll be nice in a month or so!) and so it was just loose gravel. I think this was worse that the previous stretch as some sections would be packed down and give you good purchase, but then you'd suddenly find yourself skidding and slipping in several cm of loose stuff, with cars flying past in the the other direction. At long last we were through it and breathed a sigh of relief as we could cycle properly again on a "normal" road surface (we worked out that it had been about 8 miles of surface hell!).

As we headed into Colintraive (all 3 houses or so of it), we saw the ferry sitting there so instead of detouring via a cafe as we'd planned we pedalled straight there. I couldn't work out how come 2 girls that had been on all of the previous ferries with us were already there waiting for it, as we'd not seen them since we overtook them going up the steep hill out of Tighnabruich....was there some secret shortcut that we missed (that might have had a better road surface!!)? As we got closer to them it all became clear....the loose chips that Doug had been worried about had indeed flown into the rear mechanism of one of their bikes and snapped it off. Somehow they had managed to flag a taxi down which had space for bikes in it, and been driven the last 8-10miles of the trip. They were looking into getting a bus along Bute between the next two ferries (with their bikes) so that they could catch the train back home, but luckily the route along Bute was mostly flat, so it was possible to shorten her chain and make it into a fixed speed bike so she didn't need the bus.

Ferry No 4

We were no sooner on the ferry than we were off again the other side (a grand total of 5mins across the water to the landing stage at Rhuboddach on Bute....things were getting smaller and smaller as there was nothing at the landing stage except a bus stop, so definitely no chance of a "scone break") and heading towards Rothesay. That was a lovely 8 miles - the road had a lovely smooth surface (to be fair, anything would be better than the last stretch, though we had managed to dislodge most of the chips that had become stuck to our tyres thanks to the melted tar), there were little inclines and descents to break up the views, and the road was quiet enough that we could cycle abreast and chat. The call of the shops was stronger than the call of the wild by this stage and we were happy to make it into sunny Rothesay with half an hour to spare before the next ferry left.

Yummm...ice cream sandwiches

Ferry No 5

I left Doug on bike duty (well, on a parkbench near the ferry) while I went shopping and came back with cold cans of fizzy pop and ice cream cookie sandwiches....magic!! When we got onto the ferry, there was a dearth of proper food so we "made do" with cider and crisps as we travelled the 35 minutes across to Wemyss Bay. The cider was clearly rocket fuel as the pedal back down to the car was our fastest 10 miles of the day. The roads were clear and recently resurfaced, it was now a much better temperature, and we knew it wasn't long until we got a good feed, so we flew along at over 18mph (confirmed by the speed check cameras), making it back to where we started tired but happy.

Safely back in the fold!

A grand wee day out!!

All in all the trip was about 72 miles and took us 10 hours, though the actual "5 Ferry Challenge" had been 53 miles and we'd manage to make the last ferry 2.5 hours earlier than the "estimated" timetable we'd seen - our average cycling pace was over 14 miles per hour...not bad considering the hills and the (lack of) road surface! What a great day out!!