Looking forward to my trip in August – same stopping points as fatmax – and now he’s posted some potential cafe/lunch stops i’ll shamelessly steal those for our itinerary 🙂

Bad news is Culag Inn is already booked, so will have to hope fatmax caught them on a bad day and we have a better experience.

As mentioned a few times on various threads, this trip will be for charity, and over half the group were novice cyclists as of August last year (one didn’t even own a bike!).
We’ve had a couple of injuries, one dropped out, and another taken his place.
This week marks 3 months to go, to our trip, so time to start fundraising.
Our chosen charity is the Lifeboat Fund, so if you like the RNLI having lifeboats, please donate!
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/DPC-NC500

breninbeener- what sort of device are you using and do you need a “track” or a “route”. PM me with details of your itinerary and I’ll see if I can sort something out for you.

It’s fairly simple when you’re there though – Inverpolly is just pulling off the main road and following the wee road to Lochinver, the A9 nearing Inverness be mostly avoided by using NCN1 from Tain (though there are also other options).

fifeandy – we all agreed that the Gulag (as we called it) should be turned into a fly on the wall documentary…real life Fawlty Towers. Untouched decor in 16 years, some carpets missing, some seriously grumpy staff, they refused to serve us (a group of 12) desserts five minutes after cut off, service was horrifically slow, food was edible (just) etc. On the plus side the barmaid and breakfast staff were cheery and chatty.
I’d recommend you all get big consecutive hilly miles in…its a hard shift in five days.
breninbeener – I agree with Scotroutes with directions, they really couldn’t be easier. The Stac Polliadh road is easy to spot, as is the shortcut at Melvich (to Helmsdale) if you choose it, and picking up the NCN1 at Tain is the simple option on Day 5. If we hadn’t had one eye on the clock I’d have gone inland at Dornoch or Loch Fleet and explored the routes around Bonar Bridge etc.
Oh and we stopped at the Applecross Inn on Day 1 but the Potting Shed might have been better for snacks or coffee/cake.

I’d recommend you all get big consecutive hilly miles in…its a hard shift in five days.

For me, i’m well aware how tough its going to be, i’ve done Raid Pyrenean/Alpine/Corsica which are all similarly hard, but feature better weather!
As a group, we’ve not quite got around to back to back days yet, but have a couple of hilly 100mi sportives organised for next month.
I knocked out this at the weekend, and feeling fairly happy with where i’m at:
https://www.strava.com/activities/999324535

There’s so few roads in that part of Scotland that navigation is pretty easy really. The Stac Pollaidh road is obvious, it will be signposted to Achiltibuie, then take the first right which is after Stac Pollaidh itself.

There’s only four roads leading south from the north coast road so again not exactly hard to figure out.

There’s a map you can purchase: called “Hit the Road, North Coast 500” at a scale of 1:250,000. We bought one somewhere after Inverness. It folds up pretty small so would fit in a cycle jersey pocket quite easily.

fatmax – Member
It’s been amazing. Currently on Day 4. The first three days we had pretty amazing weather and the scenery and cycling has been breathtaking. Heavy rain today. Four of us took the shortcut through Forsinard to Helmsdale while while the A Team / hardy folk have pushed on round John O’Groats. Will write something up properly when I’m back.

Was that you lot heading south into the headwind?

I was returning north to Melvich with a mate. (Just checking out a potential off road link) The headwind was nice when we turned round south of Forsinard and got it as a tailwind.

Yes, that would have been us four epicyclo. It was only 800ft of climbing in the 40 miles to Helmsdale and the headwind to Forsinard wasn’t too bad. And you’re right from Forsinard the wind was with us. The hotel at Forsinard is now derelict and the RSPB visitor centre was closed for refurbishment to we stopped at the ‘Station Tea Rooms’ just after the station – basically a shed in someones back garden. Forsinard was weird – middle of nowhere, lots of anti-RSPB signs up, and a real feel of dualling banjos. But that road was reasonably flat and pretty smooth, which was a relief after the first three days.

Yeah, the locals are objecting to the new RSPB building (on your left as you enter Forsinard from the north) on the basis that they should have restored and re-opened the old hotel. The RSPB viewing tower on the moor is a lovely thing though.

scotroutes – Member
…The RSPB viewing tower on the moor is a lovely thing though.

I immediately thought bivvy when I went and had a look. 🙂

Aye. Had the same thought 🙂

Some photos from the trip loaded to the http://www.ridetothesun.co.uk Facebook page here – https://www.facebook.com/ridettsun/posts/1327927927244036

fifeandy – I have something that might be useful for you. I made up a wee pdf of the route profile for each day, and and a mileage list of where the grub stops were. If you ping me an email I’ll send it on to you, makes sense if you’re doing it exactly the same way as us – fraser dot maxwell at arup dot com.

Other grub stops that I forgot to mention. The cafe at Achnasheen station (Day 1) was shut so we popped into the Ledgowan Lodge Hotel for sarnies and soup, which was ok. Then fuelled up at the Waterside Cafe at Loch Carron before the Bealach. My mate reckons the Maltesers cheesecake was the best cake of any kind, ever. Cherry bakewell flapjack was also superb! And the final one I forgot to mention was the nice deli/cafe on the high street in Beauly – the caramel covered cake my bro had in there fulled him nicely for the last leg into Inverness…

Excellent, that sounds great!
Will drop you a message tomorrow (tablet battery is about to die right now and left charger at home)

.

For anyone riding NC500 my mother in law has a fantastic B & B at Strathy.

You would ride straight past it.

Hopefully link works!

http://salmonlandings.com/

I rode this at the end of April 2018, a fantastic route, and have written up a blog with details of accomodation, our route, photos, etc here  ; http://bit.ly/2nhJrS8