Hi Jawj & Stutho, and thanks very much for your advice. I'm surprised to hear that the Catalyst might be more fragile than the Nomad, but if it's true then I guess that's my decision made! I need something that I won't feel too precious about - something I can have complete confidence in. The Nomad with suspension does seem to be the emerging winner! And now I have exactly the same dilemma as Jawj *again*! I'm dead keen on the green, but I don't kow if I'm patient enough to wait...
My Scottish trip! That was great - my brother and I (students at the time) took the bikes on the train from Glasgow to John O'Groats (Georgemas Junction is as close as it goes), and our plan was to stay off-road on footpaths & rough tracks as colose to the coast as possible, all the way along the north coast and down the west, until we got back home to Glasgow. As I said earlier, we'd completely overloaded our bikes and were too optimistic with our estimates of daily mileage. For the first three or four days the weather was kind, we covered about 70 miles each day, and slept under the stars each night. Fantastic. Then it started to rain, and kept on raining, with strong headwinds, and over the course of the next few days our morale started to fade. We were covering shorter courses each day, putting the tent up in the rain at night, climbing into wet sleeping bags, then climbing back into wet clothes the next morning. Eeeeech! So we tried our luck in a couple of Youth Hostels, even though we hadn't budgeted for this expense), but they were fully booked! Bummer! At this stage we were in Achnasheen, it was still raining, and we held a board-meeting. We had enough money to get a train home, OR a night in a B&B followed by camping the rest of the way, regardless of weather. We decided to call it a day and catch the train. Disappointed, we rolled into the station and waited for the next train to come into the station.
A couple of hours later it arrived, and we wheeled our bikes up to the Guard's van, and he came out to meet us. "I'm sorry lads, but I'm only allowed to take two bikes now, and they're already on board", he said.
"Arse! Can we book places on the next train?"
"I'm afraid not.'
"Well, how long is it till the next train?"
"They're every four hours."
So we held another meeting, and decided to wait for four hours. But when that train rolled in, exactly the same thing happened! "I'm really sorry, but I've already got two bikes on board".
So we held another meeting, and waited for ANOTHER four hours on the platform. (There's not much action in Achnasheen). The next train was the last of the day, and our last hope - we were going to do the B&B/camping in the rain thing if we couldn't get the bikes on. Anyway - the train pulled into the station and we walked up to the guard's van. He came out. "Have ye got room for oor bikes mister?" I said, hopefully.
"Well, it depends. D'you want a receipt?"
"Er.. no, I don't think so. Why?"
"Right, gie's a fiver each and see if you can find room for them in here."
He opened up the sliding door, and there must have been about 30 bikes in there, all piled on top of one another!! Packed about as tightly as his pockets! However, we had comfy seats all the way home, in a hot, steamy carriage full of other soggy cyclists.
Seems like a great wee adventure now, but it was a bit grim at the time. There were some fantastic highlights though, and some important lessons learned. The most important was was taught by a French dude, who gave us a row for trying to cover too many miles each day. "No more than 20 miles a day, so you can speak to people! Otherwise, what's the point!!!" He was quite right too. He'd also booked his Youth Hostels & B&Bs in advance, AND was carrying only a spare shirt/shorts. I asked him about tools, because we'd packed a proper spares/repairs kit, and he said "I just lie down in the road, and hope the cars stop! They always 'ave tools."
