JUST been to see my doctor about recurring numbness in my fingers. Every so often my fingers become tingly and last night I wakened several times with sore fingers/numb hand. Curiously, it’s just my left hand.

On my various bike rides recently my fingers get numb from time to time and I usually just change handlebar position or shake them free of the tingling, but this is happening now when I’m not on the bike, even just sitting at my desk.

Interestingly, this off-bike numbness has coincided with riding my new touring bike and my doctor reckons I should check my riding position. My road bike, a Specialised Secteur Elite, has extra gel taping on the handlebars and I’ve certainly found the hand position on that bike much more comfortable, so I’m going to get some gel tape for the Ridgeback, and get someone to check my riding position.

Essentially my doctor thinks I’m suffering from an overuse injury and it seems that one-third of all cycling overuse injuries involve the hands. The two most common hand injuries are handlebar palsy and carpal tunnel syndrome. Apparently, by making some adjustments to your bike and by wearing some protective equipment, you can prevent these injuries from occurring.

It appears I have been compressing the ulnar nerve, that’s the nerve that controls sensation in your ring and little finger and controls most of the muscular function of your hand. Seems this is fairly common amongst cyclists and thankfully surgical treatment is rarely necessary, although symptoms can take from several days to several months to resolve.

Seems what I have to do is check my riding position, check the position of the handlebars, my saddle and the pedals. I’ve been advised to take occasional rests (something I’m not very good at) and to shift my weight from the center of my palms to the outside edge of my palms as often as possible. Might try a little course in hand and finger stretching exercises too.

If anyone has any good tips to avoid this kind of discomfort, I’d love to hear from them. Drop me an email – would be good to hear from you.

Well, I managed my long ride yesterday. 71 miles between Perth and Newtonmore. I have to admit I was a bit out of my comfort zone - found it difficult and was ready to pack it in at Calvine with 30 miles to go. A couple of sandwiches and High 5 calorie drinks helped and I pushed on. Actually quite enjoyed it then.

The big problem was the wind. The weather forecast had suggested it would be light and from the south-west but it wasn’t. It was strong and from the north-west. Between Perth and Dalwhinnie I was riding into the teeth of it and, curiously, after Dalwhinnie it vanished, just when I could have done with it behind my back. It’s also a long climb from Perth up to Drumochter summit - my bike computer, a Garmin Edge 200, reckoned I clocked up almost 3000ft of climbing. After Drumochter it was pretty much downhill, but that’s only for 17 miles. The rest of the time I was going uphill, and it felt like it.

Anyway, that’s the furthest I’ve cycled yet and it’s given me a bit of confidence. The only problem is I have to do that kind of distance for 14 consecutive days. Ho-hum…

The good news is that I’ve become fairly comfortable with my touring bike. It’s a Ridgeback World Panorama. It’s certainly heavier than my road bike but its heart is a frame made from butted Reynolds 725 tubing, which is light yet strong enough to carry me and all my kit, with ease. This is coupled with a light and springy triple butted cromoly fork. (I’m not sure what that means but it sounds good.)

The frame and the wheels are designed to cope with all the load permutations associated with 2 large rear panniers, 2 small front panniers, a bar bag and 3 bottle cages. The Shimano XT, Deore and Tiagra mix delivers as low a gear as you could want, and even on my long climb yesterday I never had to drop into the granny gears. The Panorama has 27 speeds with a low bottom gear, Tiagra STI shift levers, light and strong wheels and a front rack, which I may, or may not use. It took me a few rides to break in the saddle and I think I might have to shorten the front stem a tad - feel I’m reaching forward a bit too far on the brake covers. Other than that I really like using the Ridgeback. I hope I still like it by the time I reach John O’Groats.

The pedals on the Ridgeback are Shimano M324 SPD’s, which have the cleats on one side only. I like them a lot because I can just use the flat side at traffic lights or roundabouts or whatever. I’m still enough of a beginner cyclist to get the hot flushes trying to extricate the cleats from the pedals in tricky situations. More than once I’m managed to get my left foot free only for the bike, with me on it, to topple over to the right! Can be embarrassing at traffic lights.

On my feet I’ll be wearing Shimano M123 shoes. These have recessed cleats which allow me to walk reasonably properly which might help when, inevitably, I end up pushing the bike on some of the big Devon hills. More important, they’re very comfortable and in recent weeks I’ve been using them with neoprene bootee things, which have managed to keep my feet both dry and warm. I can’t think of much worse than cycling with cold feet - horrible!

I’m still trying out combinations of bib shorts and bib tights and leg and arm warmers and various soft shell jackets so I’ll give you my final choice on the next diary entry but for the moment let me finish with a note of optimism. On my ride yesterday a couple of times I caught the whiff of newly cut grass and sure enough, there were people out mowing the lawn. There were snowdrops everywhere and the signs of spring were all around me - and it’s still only February! Can’t be bad, unless you’re a skier!

IN my last blog I said I would write something soon about the gear we’ll be using on our up and coming Land’s End to John O’Groats cycle trip but to be perfectly honest I’m not sure yet what I’ll be taking with me. We’re planning our little adventure for April and I’ve just realised that could still be winter in certain parts of the country, while in other parts it could be blistering hot, so I’m having re-thinks about what to take. I’ve been using a variety of kit recently on my training rides, much of it from the excellent Edinburgh Cycle Co-operative, but more of that in the next diary offering. For the moment let me tell you about my training regime.

First of all it’s important to know that I’m pretty much a novice cyclist. I’ve ridden mountain bikes occasionally, mostly along forest tracks to reach remote hills but a couple of years ago, in a bout of middle-age crisis, I bought a road bike and immediately fell in love with road biking. This new addiction coincided with some problems I was having with one of my feet, a condition that was making walking painful. The bike, I reckoned, would be a good way to get fit until I sorted out the foot problem. More recently it became clear that the foot problem isn’t going to clear up overnight and while I can still walk the hills very happily I reckoned the bike could add a new dimension to my outdoor activities.

And so it has proved. Last autumn, while trekking in Nepal, I had the idea of doing a long bike journey. I had always fancied the idea of walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats but as I’ve become older the thought of spending 3 or 4 months backpacking has become less appealing, but I explained all that in my last diary offering. The long and short of it is this - I decided to cycle between Land End and John O Groats and if I was going to try and do it in a fortnight, at a daily mileage of about 72 miles, I thought I’d better get some bike miles in.

The fat of the matter is I’ve never ridden 72 miles in a day and the thought of having to average that for 14 consecutive days is becoming a bit worrying. The most I’ve ridden in a day is 60 miles, and I only did that a couple of weeks ago - along the cycle track from Newtonmore to Dalwhinnie, over Drumochter to Calvine and back again. I didn’t find it too difficult, in fact I loved it, and tomorrow I’m going to cycle home from Perth and that’s about 65 miles.

I’ve been averaging about 14-15 mph on these rides and I reckon if I slow it down a tad, to about 12 mph, I could reach my daily target with only 6 hours riding a day. That sounds reasonable, and still leaves time for coffee/cake stops and a good break at lunchtime.

From now to the start of LEJOG I need to get the miles in and start building in big rides on consecutive days. The problem is it all takes a lot of time, and I still have to find time to get onto to the hills and write my regular features for TGO, the Scots Magazine and everything else. But hey, I’m not complaining. I’m very fortunate to be able to do this at all…

Next entry I’ll be in a better position to tell you about the gear I’m taking with me and my new touring bike, a Ridgeback World Panorama…

I’ve already been accused of being a MAMIL, a middle aged man in lycra, but to be fair I think I fall more into the category of an OFIL, an old fart in lycra. I’m not exactly sure what years ‘middle-age’ refers to but I’ve always looked at age as a state of mind, and if yoiu can have a child-like enthusiasm for something then it doesn’t really matter what age you are, and in the context of this blog that’s important.

Since stepping down as editor of TGO almost two years ago I’ve had a ball, doing some of the things that I didn’t have time to do when I was more or less tied to a desk. And this spring I want to tick off another item on my bucket list. I want to travel from Land’s End to John O’Groats, to spend some time looking at and experiencing something of the United Kingdom as a whole before Scotland goes off on her own independent adventure in a few years time. Sharp-eyed readers will note that I said I want to ‘travel’ between end-to-end. In this case I’m going to travel by bike.

Now I know I’m an experienced backpacker and I’m aware I’ve spent as much time as anyone promoting backpacking and in particular lightweight backpacking and yes, I remember I’m President of the Backpackers’ Club and proud of it, but do you know what? I don’t think I want to spend two or three months walking up the length of the country, looking for places to camp every night, trying as much as possible to avoid walking on tarmac roads. Timewise my self-imposed backpacking time limit is two or three weeks. Any longer than that I miss home, I miss my wife and my children and my two grand daughters. I miss those things that I enjoy doing, I miss the Scottish highlands and my friends.

I want to backpack in wild places, and the thought of trying to work out an attractive route round Bristol, or through the Warrington/Manchester gap or through the central belt of Scotland doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest, so I’m going to try and travel from Land’s End to John O Groats by touring bicycle, with someone who is my oldest friend.

Hamish Telfer and I met when we were fourteen years of age. We both joined the West of Scotland Harriers at the same time and we’ve enjoyed many adventures in athletics, and on the hills and mountains. Now we’re going on a long bike ride together, just for the fun of it. I love the Last of the Summer Wine aspect to our trip - two 60 plus old farts going off on an adventure. And why use a bike? Because it takes too long to walk it, time that, while I’m still working, albeit as a freelance writer and television presenter, I really don’t have. Hamish and I plan to cycle the route in fourteen days. We’re heading off in April, in the hope that the April winds will blow from the south-west and assist us all the way to John O Groats. We need all the help we can get. Neither of us would consider ourselves as cyclist, but we’re keen and daft, and I guess that might help.

Next time I’ll write about our bikes and what kind of gear we’ll use, and then something of the training regime (that’s probably too strong a word for it but I can’t think of another) that will see us arrive in Land’s End in mid-April fit and strong and looking like racing snakes. Watch out, Mark Cavendish and Brad Wiggins, we’re looking for a place in the peloton!