Bealach-na-ba

Words and pictures by David who keeps doing rides that I want to do.

A trip to Skye to help one of my friends start renovating a house, and the fact it coincided with one of my Friday's off, gave me the perfect excuse to attempt to cycle over the 3rd highest road in Britain, the Bealach-na-ba (pass of the cattle). This is also the longest climb in the UK; from sea level to 2053 feet in 5 miles. Jake had mentioned this ride to me before, but with it being a fair way from Aberdeen I had put it to the back of my mind until this fortunate coincidence occurred.

An ominous warning - nothing about cyclists though

Going up

I drove across on the Friday morning, parked the car about half a mile from the base of the climb, and set off, with a slight degree of trepidation. The first half a mile was fine, mainly because it was downhill to the start, and had a tailwind, but the climbing soon started. The first 3 miles of the climb were easily achievable in the big ring, although the singletrack road, with passing places, made for some delays for the people coming down towards me in their cars. Overall though almost everyone I met coming the other way, and who I held up, was very patient, which was great.

The second half of the climb was when it started to get tough. The hairpins leading to the summit were often visible in the distance, and I knew the steepest parts of the climb were up to 20% gradient (1 in 5 in old money). Having cycled over the Lecht before it was meant to have the same gradient, and that was steep enough. I soon clicked down into my lowest gear, and was grovelling up a long straight section towards the first of 4 or 5 hairpins, expecting it to get steeper at any moment (it didn't look to me as if it was as steep as the Lecht climb) but as soon as I hit the hairpins the gradient lessened, and I found the last half a mile to be pretty easy, certainly compared to the 2.5 miles before it. I reached the top, only pausing there to get a couple of tourists to take my photo, and to put on my windproof gillet for the downhill at the other side.

David 1 - Big Hill 0

The downhill went past without too many incidents, apart from one van driver being very impatient, and nearly running me off the road between passing places, and the crosswinds, which occasionally buffeted me from the middle of the road to the edge, which is not what you want when travelling at 30+mph. My fastest speed reached on the descent was 45.3mph, which was fast enough, and 50mph would have been easily achievable on one of the straights, if not for the crosswinds and my lack of bottle.

Once at Applecross the route round the peninsula, looking West across to Rassay, Rona and Skye was extremely picturesque, which was good as I needed something to take my mind off of the headwind which plagued me for the whole of the section to Sheildaig. There is not really any flat on this stretch of 25 miles, so nowhere really to ease tired legs. I reached the junction at Sheildaig, and started the last 6 miles back to the car, eventually finishing after about 3.5 hours. Overall the ride was excellent, with some spectacular scenery, and the fish and chips in Kyle of Lochalsh were the icing on the cake.

Posted: 23/08/06