The preparations, on all different levels (finding the landmarks, making the routes, weather, ferries, information about local situations, etc), provided a lot of enjoyable hours, days (weeks??). The Landmarks are seemingly a curious random selection of British history and some of them are even so strange, that they are still troubling my mind, while others explain something about current social situations. What drove old McDonald to build a tower in Dingwall? What is the relation between the cross in Crows-n-cra and witchcraft? After all this cross is also on a picture in the museum of witchcraft in Boscastle. If the Wallace monument represents the strive to independence of the Scotsmen, I suddenly understand more about the strength of this feeling. 

Anyway, right after I got the information and Landmark list,  I started to prepare several trips (also combinable to one larger trip) to join the Round Britain Rally. But, the foot & mouth in the springtime more or less pushed us back to the Alps (again) and I was already thinking that  I had to do whatever parts of the rally all on my own in the late summer or autumn. You could say that my bikefriends had had just about the mileage they need to justify the presence of a bike in the shed. But, after intensive lobbying for the full round in 12 days, we were finally convinced to do a five or six-days trip in the North and Scotland. 
September is one of the best months for biking, when the weather co-operates. So with intensive weather map studying of Marc, who is as well a good sailor, we found a gap of three and a half days between the depressions. A fresh northerly wind would be the extra bonus (nights around 0 degrees Celsius). So sleeping bags, tent and Dutch coffee on the back of the bikes and off we went. Friday, the 20th of September, we sailed to Hull with the over-night ferry. After that we rode about 2800 km (= 1800 miles) in 4 days with pouring rains in the Yorkshire dales on the last day. The dales are even better in the rain. 
Concerning the result I am a little embarrassed. The first idea was to get a gold or special gold trophy in a 12 days tour. Then 500 points for Silver seemed feasible in 6 days. After all it was just 4 days and 465 points, but after reading the RBR-instructions, it turned out that this was enough after all to WIN a silver. However, I feel obliged to improve this result next year or the year after.

Safe journey,

Jan Sybren Boersma