A Special Dinner On Day 2 – West Highland Way

If you’ll remember, on day 2 I left out our dinner plans, well here’s what happened.

Neil (@handbikepacking) connected with us on Instagram as we were planning our cycle around the world. He’s literally been with us from the very beginning as we wobbled out of Stew’s mums on our loaded touring bikes to the day we made the devastating decision to end our trip.

More recently, Neil and I caught up and I told Neil we were planning for our West Highland Way hike. He lives an hour away and insisted that he meet us with dinner!

We found a good spot for us all, Rowardennan and we expected we’d be there at 3pm. True to his word Neil showed up on time, but had a 2 hour wait as we massively underestimated the day (thanks Conic Hill!)

He was a total saint, reassured us he was happy and gave us the added incentive of a ride on his hand bike!

I was thrilled!

Neil is a Scottish handcyclist with Spina-bifida and a below the knee amputation. He’s an advocate for hand cycling and shares his cycling and hand cycle touring adventures with his fiancé, Sarah and their dog Baxter over on his Instagram!

Hand cycling has fascinated me for YEARS! I first learned about it when I watched Minda Dentler’s TedTalk (https://www.ted.com/talks/minda_dentler_what_i_learned_when_i_conquered_the_world_s_toughest_triathlon/up-next) about her journey to becoming an Ironman world Champion! I followed with intrigue as Mel Nicholls (@teamdolly) got the hand cycling record for LEJOG and over the years I’ve asked Neil all the questions covering the logistics – like when you go camping how do you manage? What happens if you hit a hill and you can’t make it up (the answer is you simply have to be able to get up the hill!) and the main question – can arms really do that!?

I knew that hand cycling would be tough, but nothing prepared me for the huge turning circle on the hand bike or the speed in which my arm muscles burned out. I went around a 100metre circuit twice and my arms were like jelly! Take a look at the videos, Stew took to it straight away!

Dinner with Neil was one of the easiest exchanges of our lives! Within minutes we were chattering away, laughing and then complaining about the midges! But then it felt like we knew each other so well already! Neil has felt the peaks and troughs of the trips with us and we celebrated with him as he got engaged in Hong Kong while he was out there teaching!

Neil came stocked up with everything he needs after a cycle tour, thinking they must be our cravings – burgers, BBQ and beers! He was not wrong! He also loaded us up with tunnocks caramel bars, fudge and Scottish tablet, which has been keeping us going for days!

We hope to host Neil, Sarah and Baxter when they come visit Shropshire!!