Ride stats today

• Edinburgh to  Newcastle
• 110 miles
• 6875 feet climbed
• Winds: 15 mph sustained, gusting to 35 mph
• 6500 sheep; 1200 cows

Tough Roads; Tough Weather. Today turned into quite a late day. We looked at the altitude profile last night, and it looked like a tame day compared with the rest of our days in Scotland. Although our tallest peaks were much lower than in the Highlands, the constant undulation, led to a ‘climb total’ significantly greater than that of any previous day. This together with the high winds, made for slow speeds and a very long day in the saddle. (nearly 1.5 times as long as my last century ride)

A shout-out to Willier, especially Gianmarco Cilli, General Manager of WIllier North America. Willier is among the best frame makers in the world. Team Lampre (best in Italy) is currently riding Willier up mountains in the Tour de France. The tight carbon weave in their frames is simultaneously forgiving enough on the rough Scottish roads, yet stiff enough to climb the Scottish highlands. Even after a long 110 mile ride, as we had today, the Willier frame keeps us wanting more.


Another shout-out to the Best Western Roker Hotel in New Castle, especially reservation managers Kavita and Jill. This hotel is beach side on the North Sea with a great billiard room and restaurant. Some of us dipped our feet in the North Sea before pedaling on down the coast.

• Visited the Edinburgh castle
• Spoke with Tim the Manager of the large Edinburgh Bike Co-op, and
• Visited local cultural shops.

It was a wonderfully relaxing day, and our quads, hammies and gluts thanked us for the rest.

• 63 miles
• 3500 feet climbed, to the top of a 2000 foot peak
• Inverness to Ballater
• 998 sheep

Proven: The land speed of a Scottish sheep is 14.1 mph. They can run this speed for one tenth of a mile. We raced sheep today. Check it out.

Another beautiful day in Scotland. Today was the nicest day of the journey thus far. While the hills were more daunting, the winds were down which made it much more enjoyable. We’ve been using the Suunto T6 watch to keep the data on each ride. We’ve included a portion of the output graph from the “Suunto Training Manager” software. You can see the hills we battled. Our legs are feeling the pains of the day, but our spirits are much higher after a day without head winds. We had nearly 5000 feet of total climbing over a 62 mile ride. A special thanks to the friendly old farmer who gave us directions. We’d still be out there climbing if it were not for him. Here are some pictures from our ride on the Whisky Trail today.

We rode down the A836, a narrow two-lane road that is windy, rolling and gorgeous. There was a lot of climbing today; we rode up and down 4000 feet of vertical over 58 miles. It was amazing how much the terrain changed as we rode; changing from sparse and rocky on the coast to lush and moist to the south. The road was empty, just us and the sheep, so we had ample opportunity to look around and soak up the beautiful countryside.

The strong head winds and rain kept our average speed down today, but we planned the first few days to be a bit shorter specifically for these types of eventualities. Our legs were fresh and our spirits high so the rain had little effect on our morale. It was tough to be down when the ride was so pretty.

A shout-out to our logistics van: the driver is Bob (Adam’s pop) and the navigator is Flora (my Gram). It was awesome to have them on our heels today. They were there when I had a sudden hankering for a ham sandwich, and when we needed our raincoats. It’s awesome to have them around, and they are having a ball doing it.

On to Inverness tomorrow and a dip in Loch Ness following the ride. If we don’t blog tomorrow it is because we got eaten by Nessy.

A shout-out to the Bridge Hotel in Bonar Bridge Scotland, especially John who operates this historic hotel in northern Scotland. There is a picture of us with John above. The hotel is under construction and there is room for considerable expansion in the back area to accomodate musical performances and large gatherings. This family operated hotel was located right on our route and John’s homemade lasagna was exquisite.

The last 3 days has been nuts. The smartest thing we did was to plan in a prep day here in the north of Scotland. The trip from the states was not without its challenges. Several times I thought that all of the planning was going to go out the window at the hand of US Air. Never the less, 36 hours later, we arrived! This is an endurance event isn’t it? Why shouldn’t the trip over have a little endurance aspect to it as well??

Wish us luck. We’ll talk to you all tomorrow.

A shout-out to Betty Hill Hotel, especially Gordon Carr and his family who operate this family run hotel. Our first 2 nights in Scotland have been spent at this wonderful B&B, known as much for their restaurant as their lodging. They’ve been great and very supportive. We took up most of their front entry way putting our bikes together, and spent the rest of the day making final route preps, communicating with sponsors and loved ones. The lodge was filled with people here to fish and enjoy countryside. The locally sourced food is delicious and the common areas have breathtaking views of this northern sea-side paradise.

For our training here in Philadelphia these bikes have been seeing a lot more action now that the weather is sunny and warm. The river in the background is the same river that we swim.

[UPDATE] Friday April 25, At day break today we took the bikes out for a 50-mile ride. On the way back we watched a guy get struck by a car on his Kuota carbon. The guy’s shoulder and his anodized Fulcrum wheelset bore the brunt of the impact. We helped him collect his stuff and check his wheel. He was OK and biked away from the accident. Close call that one.

Wowza, Adam and I met a lot of people on Friday at the Interbike Trade Show in Las Vegas. We flew there just for the show. I know it is Vegas, but for us there was no gambling, no booze, and no women (besides the occasional “booth model”). There was lots and lots of talking about our expedition called 10 Degrees of Latitude.

We talked to so many people and got so much great feedback and support… that we thought we’d give shoutouts to our best friends from the show.

Bellwether – one big shoutout to our friend Barry who makes the technical clothes that will keep us warm in wet wet Scotland
Cadence Cycle – shoutout to Matt, def the best shop for training and gear on the eastern sea board
Tyr – swim gear for the Channel (and complimentary jelly beans) from Ryan
Fizik – shout out to Brett for talking to us about his amazing saddles
Gu – shout out to Holly who recently joined Gu from Muddy Buddy
Cervelo – entreprenerial company. Nice booth with a wind tunnel and everything, thanks Betsy, Chris and Tom!
Velovie – thank Homayoon! You told us about how you founded this company and what it takes to win in this industry
Specialized – thanks for setting us up with badges Vince!
Rolf – best quote of the show. I say, “Hi I’m Neal”. He says, “Hi I’m Rolf”. I say, “Like Rolf of Rolf”. He says, “Uhm, yes!”.
Slime – shout out to our main-girl Jamie who talked to us about Wharton
Campagnolo – special thanks to Brian for meeting with us after closing hours to talk about his amazing componentry
Wilier – shout out to Gianmarco who lives a few blocks from both Adam and I, let’s get a beer sometime soon
Speedplay – hello to Andy, one of the first companies to give us advice and help us along
Orbea – thanks Steve
BMC – definitely the most physically imposing (and nicest) national sales rep we met.
Powerbar – shout out to Mike McQueeney and the Powerbar team for being so cool and storing our luggage in their booth
Ochsner – hello to Russel and Rudy. Definitely the best training software we saw all show
An extra special  note to Tom Shinkle and Reghan Denny, my uncle and cousin, for the best advice ever!

What Motivates Us

We asked each other what we wanted from an adventure:

• I said I wanted it to have a defined goal, which basically meant it couldn’t just be a hike. I like things that are measurable and have defined ends. I like the sense of accomplishment that comes from finishing a project. Mountains are pretty good that way. The summit is the goal, so you know when you’re done. And you know when to celebrate.

• Adam said he wanted a project that let him see the world at his own pace. I got the sense that his travels with our nation’s military allowed him to see the world, but he didn’t get to choose when he came and went (and I’m projecting here, so it might not be totally accurate). I’ll addend this blog story after I ask him if this is how he actually feels about his military travels.

Swimming the English Channel

We both liked the idea of swimming the English Channel. It is a 21 mile swim in 56-degree water. Swimming the channel traces its history back to 1875 when Matthew Webb (a naval captain). Wearing a wetsuit is considered “unclassy”, as is taking more than 20 hours to complete the swim. Only 811 people have swum the channel.

Biking 1000 Miles

Somehow we got to thinking that swimming the channel was a good start, but couldn’t be the whole adventure. Firstly, it’s only 20 hours. Secondly, it didn’t fulfill Adam’s desire to “see the world”.

I’ve always had a personal fascination with Edinburgh. It is such a green city, and the home of the world’s first medical school. I knew I wanted to visit it again. So I asked Adam if adding a hugely long bicycle tour to our expedition would be a clever idea. He thought it sounded crazy, and fun.

We were almost all the way there…

Naming Our Baby

Adam noticed that the northern most part of Scotland was at the 58th Latitude, and Paris was at the 48th Latitude. That was 10 Degrees of Latitude. We thought to ourselves, wow that is pretty cool.
Together we decided to name our expedition 10 Degrees of Latitude. The name stuck.

10 Degrees of Latitude visits the 7 Continents

As some of you might know I set out a number of years ago to climb the tallest mountain on all seven continents. I finished this goal in 2005, after climbing Mount Everest. It was an amazing journey, and one that I would love to repeat, with a twist (and with Adam).

Every year 10 Degrees of Latitude will be visiting a new continent. Our first continent is Europe in 2008. Every year we will invite more participants to join us in our journey. We will raise money for important causes on each continent, visit with locals, and experience the world’s cultures first hand. Join us!

One Last Thought

It is fascinating to think we will be traversing distances that are so vast that they are visible on a map. Makes me shiver.