Train to Inverness? I’ll just go on my bike
AT ONE time or another, most rail commuters have wondered whether hopping on a bike would be a more pleasant and quicker way of getting somewhere.
And one keen cyclist put this theory to the test by cycling from Edinburgh to Inverness.
James Owers made the 170-mile trip after forgetting to secure a space for his bicycle on the train to the Highland city last Friday .
To avoid the hassle of packaging the bike up as luggage, the 28-year-old PhD student decided to jump on his bike at 6.15am and head north.
Mr Owers arrived in Inverness around 13 hours later, ahead of his girlfriend Deena Bardsley, who got a space for her bicycle on the 4.30pm train. And despite covering 170 miles, Mr Owers was back in the saddle the next day to help his 26year-old girlfriend train for a long-distance charity bike ride and rode 65 miles south to Fort William.
He said: ‘I thought it would just be easier to cycle up. Deena took the luggage on the train, so I just set off in the morning with a few snacks. It was a really nice ride through beautiful scenery.
‘I really needed to be there at the same time as Deena because she is training for a charity ride from London to Paris for [mental health charity] Mind, so it was a way of making sure both myself and my bike got up there. I’ve done long distance tours before but I’ve never been on one where the first day involved cycling 170 miles.’
Mr Owers, who is studying for a PhD in machine learning at the University of Edinburgh, made only a few short stops on his journey north, including at the Dalwhinnie and Tomatin distilleries. He averaged 14mph on his cycle.
He added: ‘You can’t pass a distillery without stopping in and getting something.’
Miss Bardsley and her father, Dave, have so far raised £3,510 for Mind ahead of their London to Paris ride next month.