We’re back in Oban after three days riding our bikes on the island of Mull.

Mull is a beautiful island, but its road network is limited; aside from the 15km stretch of the A848 from the ferry slip at Craignure to Salen, and 5km of the same road into Tobermory, all of it, every single kilometre, is single track with passing places.

How romantic! Tiny roads wandering through impossibly beautiful landscapes to stunningly scenic villages and beaches, past alluring coffee shops – and a distillery! Tiny wee roads, perfect for cycling.

Well – maybe. Once upon a time. Once upon a time, when a 1970s Mini was a family car. Once upon a time, before motorhomes were invented. Once upon a time, before SUVs became ubiquitous. Once upon a time, before mass tourism descended upon Mull.

Consider for a moment. The permanent population of the island is approximately 3,000 souls. The main ferry serving the island, MV Isle of Mull, has a capacity of 962 passengers and 64 cars. The second ferry, MV Loch Frisa, has a capacity of 195 passengers and 34-40 cars/4 trucks. During the summer, each ferry arrives at Craignure 5 times a day. In the winter, it’s 3 or 4 times a day. That’s one hell of a lot of visitors. All of whom use those romantic, single track roads in one way or another.

So – here begins my cautionary tale for any cyclist currently bewitched by the idea of those single track roads.

The theory is simple; when you see a vehicle approaching, you pull into a passing place to allow the two of you to pass each other. If a vehicle from behind has caught you up because it’s driving faster then you, you pull into a passing place and let it by.

However. As a cyclist, the reality is that you pull over for everyone coming from behind, and most from in front. You have to stop several times while going uphill to allow vehicles to pass. And going downhill. And on the flat. And on blind bends. After every stop, you have to muscle your loaded touring bike back into motion. Many of those vehicles arriving on the ferry drive off and start for their destination without pausing – resulting in convoys, nose to tail, that are longer than the passing places. And you get jammed in that passing place with them. There are drivers that picked up their rental motorhome in Glasgow and are suddenly confronted with single track for the first time – perhaps coming face to face with West Coast Motors 95 from Tobermory. There are drivers that think that cyclists don’t take up any space at all, drive past the passing place and expect to squeeze past. There are other drivers that slow down behind you as you slow down to let them by, not passing until you’ve had to stop. Or, you slow down in a passing place to let an oncoming vehicle by – who then slows down too, meaning you run out of passing place and have to stop.

The 8km of the A838 single track to Salen this morning took us an hour. Mostly downhill. Yesterday we rode our unloaded bikes out to Calgary Beach on the B8073, a round trip of 40km and 800m of climbing… say, one stop per km. minimum. We were bushed.

Today we decided that we didn’t want to ride the 60km of single track out to Iona.

And no, we’re not blind to the fact that we are also traffic on those roads, and part of the mass tourism of Mull. A dilemma.

I shall leave you with a quote from my online friend Bob Gulliver*, who was talking about something else completely, but I thought was a brilliant observation:

“Everybody appeared furious about a situation that everyone was collectively creating.”

Until next time!

*Bob and Deborah are currently travelling in China. Bob writes entertaining stories of their adventures on Facebook – with lots of photos!