Tour of Scotland 1997, Day 6: Stornoway – Windhill, 45.98 miles
Thursday 17 July 1997 by Richard Blayney
With time to kill before getting the ferry off the island we went exploring Stornoway. It was a bigger town than I thought it was going to be given how far out of the way it is with a population of about 10,000. We done a bit of shopping and I bought the new Oasis single which has gone to number one before getting the long boat back to the mainland. The boat back was longer than the boat across further down the Island, it took a few hours but we finally hit Ullapool for the ride down towards Inverness. Don’t let the word ‘down’ fool you though, we had to go up quite a bit before any kind of down. One of the climbs out of Ullapool was the biggest and maybe the longest of the Tour so far, but we hauled ourselves over the top and got quite a good scenic shot at Loch Glascarnoch for our efforts and it was all downhill into Windhill. It is at this point I must point out how accurate I am with Windhill: I can no longer remember exactly were the campsite was that night, it wasn’t in a town but on a road in and around Windhill so I picked this as the location. With no town to walk into, dinner was with our camping stove and rations!
NOTES:
0.00 m: Depart Stornoway
0.00 m: Take the Stornoway to Ullapool ferry
15.10 m: Top of 2nd category climb
17.88 m: Scenic shot at Loch Glascarnoch
45.98 m: Arrive in Windhill
LE TOUR DE FRANCE:
Stage 12: St. Etienne – St. Etienne, ITT, 55 km
1. Jan Ullrich 1.16.24
2. Richard Virenque +3.04
3. Bjarne Riis +3.08
Yellow: Jan Ullrich
Polka: Richard Virenque
Green: Erik Zabel
UK #1
‘D’You Know What I Mean?’ by Oasis
............................................................................................................................................................................