Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should do it. I can, if I want, pour myself a nice bath of baked beans and spend the day soaking in Heinz’s finest. It wouldn’t be against the law to marinade myself in toot juice. It might be unusual, but, provided I did it in my own home, then no one will ever know I did it. Yet… yet… just because I can do it doesn’t mean I will ever pop into the supermarket and buy enough beans to fill a tub. 

Equally, I can walk or swim pretty much anywhere in Scotland. Right to roam laws grant everyone very wide rights to access hills and paths, lochs and rivers, regardless of who owns them. 

There are exceptions. You can walk on a golf course, but you can’t walk on a green. But, in general, unless you’re trying to walk through someone’s garden then you can go where you like. 

But just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should do it. You may have a right to swim in a loch, but an angler too has a right to fish in it, a sailing club has a right to sail in it, and land owners do and should expect that people won’t damage their land or invade their privacy. 

There is one farmer who owns a field near a loch north of Glasgow. He’s a nice man, I’ve spoken with him a couple of times but, the only reason I’ve spoken with him, is that he comes out in his tractor to watch parking spaces to make sure no one cuts through his field to get to the loch. 

He shouldn’t have to ‘guard’ his field and protect his cattle who graze in it. He should expect that people will walk round and avoid the field. 

So, this is less a review and more a plea for tolerance. You might be able to swim in a loch but that doesn’t mean you should. And the Brother Loch and Harelaw Dam have large and active angling clubs. There are plenty of lochs in Scotland, almost as many as beans in a full bathtub, so I don’t swim at either lochs. And I would suggest that you don’t either. 

Iain TwinBikeRun and I cannot be bought!

Don’t even try and send us a summer dress haul to review, a pair of Kanye Trainers to unbox, or a CBD spray to restore male baldness. Everything on TwinBikeRun is ad free and sponsor free!

(To be fair, no one has ever tried to buy us. Not even Squarespace. So our scruples have never been tested)

That means, when we recommend something you know that we are bring you our unbiased opinion unaffected by ‘The Man’. And, you can trust us when we recommend a new book: The Sound of Football – Every Club, Every Song.

Admittedly, it’s our book. We might be slightly biased, what with being the authors after all. However, you don’t have to listen to us. The New York Times said that “this is the greatest book ever written”. 

Now it may have been reviewing “The Bible” when it said that and not our book. However, the Sound of Football is also a book, and if the New York Times thought it was as good as The Bible then it would definitely be saying the same thing.

Why not judge for yourself? Over the next weeks we’ll share entries, starting this Saturday, in our new fortnightly feature – The Sound of Football.

If you want to know more, here’s the intro:

World-renowned manager Giovanni Trapattoni, one of five managers to have won league titles in four different European countries, said that listening to music makes footballers better players. 

Trapattoni said: “If you listen to Mozart, you’ll play better football, you’ll learn a lot about intervals, tempo, rhythm. You learn the logical skills you need to read a game“. 

While we don’t expect Premier League superstars to listen to Mozart’s ‘Requiem in D Minor’ as they strut off their team bus wearing designer tracksuits and oversized headphones, we do know what they’ll hear when they step on a pitch. From the moment they walk out, every tackle made, and every goal scored, they hear music from the stands: singing and chanting, screaming, and shouting. Football stadiums are alive with songs and noise as football and music arouse the same thing: passion.

Football and music don’t have a proud history: remember ‘Vindaloo’? Shudder. But it has a secret history, untold tales from terraces across the country that reflect and strengthen the links between supporters and players as voices combine to amplify the highs and the lows of what it means to be a football fan.

Yet, in March 2020, the link was broken. Stadiums lay empty after COVID-19 lockdown restrictions meant fans stayed at home. The sound of silence replaced the sound of football. For 18 months, not only could we not see our teams; we were robbed of our voice.

As fans return, it’s time to remember the songs we sing and why we sing them. It’s time to combine our voices again. And while we don’t know if listening to music makes players play better. We do know that football needs the music of the stands. And that players and fans together can rejoice again in the sound of football. 

In the following pages, we track down the stories behind the best, worst, and most off-the-wall football anthems for every club in the UK.  Each song reflects something unique about a club or fans. We have endured terrible FA cup final songs, beloved world cup singles, and some frankly obscene terrace chants to bring you club anthems, cult classics, chart-toppers, and hidden gems, and the incredible stories behind them. 

And where can I buy it?

You can buy it here: Amazon

Would you pay £15k to take part in an ultra run? What if you had a Michelin chef cooking your meals and training tips from the world’s best runners? If so, then Highland Kings is for you!

Highland Kings is a new event, launched in June, which aims to bring a unique premium service to what are normally very simple races – turn up, run for hours, run some more, then run for even longer. Unlike an ordinary marathon there’s no need to close streets as most ultra runs take place in remote locations where the chances of meeting anyone else is as likely as me entering Highland Kings. (Very, very unlikely),.

However, if remote locations, exclusive entries and table service are your thing then can I recommend the Hebrides Triathlon?

With COVID safety in mind, the race organiser wanted to ensure everyone could still have soup, a sandwich and a sweet treat after the race. Rather than setting out a buffet, volunteers took ‘orders’ from your table and brought the food to you. And then brought some more. And then more. And the next thing you know you’ve had soup, a sandwich and six donuts and a muffin and a Mars Bar.

I can see why people might pay £15k for this kind of service…

It was great to take part in a triathlon after races were cancelled last year. It didn’t even feel strange to wear face mask or to use handwash as changing clothes is natural for a triathlete. In fact, I was only surprised, we didn’t have a separate mask for each transition….

The race itself is run by the Western Isles Triathlon Club and has a limit of around 30 entrants each year. It’s a local race for local people but one that’s very welcoming to visitors too. Unlike the Isle of Lewis itself which is still under COVID restrictions which severely limit the number of people who can travel on the boat to get there. I was caught out as I tried to book only to find that the next place available was four weeks after the race. Instead I had to fly, which is easier to book but almost as expensive as Highland Kings. Ouch.

As for the race itself:

Swim

This was my first triathlon in two years. The last one being the 2019 Hebrides Triathlon. This year the swim was changed from a loch to the sea after a bloom of blue green algae.

To make things interesting there was a choppy tide but the organisers changed the course to keep it close to shore and most of the swimming was side on to the waves. This made for an erratic swim as I was constantly pushed from the side but it was good to know that we were never out to deep and you could see the bottom of the bay for most of the swim.

Bike

A strong north wind meant a quick first half as we cycled from Shawbost south and southeast to Callanish. The way back was another story and I was glad to have fitted tri-bars to my bike. Each strong gust gave a chance to duck down and try and avoid the worst of it by using the bars to stretch-out.

Run

A deceptive course – it’s 4km of climbing and then 6km of climbing. You’d expect a course that starts and finishes in the same place to have an equal amount of ascent and descent but I can only think that roads around Shawbost were designed by MC Escher.

Overall

My ‘local’ triathlon so I’m biased but this really is a cracking race with great scenery, challenging routes and while it might not be Highland Kings, it can certainly claim to be Hebridean Kings.

Mark Beaumont is one of the world’s best endurance cyclists. He’s twice held the record for fastest time around the world, including his current record of cycling round the world in less than 80 days.

James Lowsley-Williams is a former cycling professional and current presenter of the YouTube channel, Global Cycling Network.

Together they attempted to break the record for fastest two person relay time for cycling Lands End to John O’Groats.

You can watch their attempt below and see how different each men become as they get deeper and deeper into the race. They each ride for one hour and swap over again and again as they attempt to keep an average speed of 19 mph from one end of the UK to another. However it’s quite clear that for one man (James) it’s a very different experience from the other (Mark)…

Well worth a watch!

After the tragic events this weekend I thought it worth sharing Scottish Swimming open water guidance.

One day we’ll get to go back…

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Every year a Dutchman predicts the route of the Tour de France. His predictions are so accurate that journalists bring a copy of his map to the official route announcement so that they know what the Tour will announce before they announce it.

How does he do it though? How does one man predict year after year the route of the most famous bike race in the world? The answer is easy. The route is not a secret. Well, not if you know who to ask…

A race as big as the Tour de France needs to sign contracts in advance with everyone involved in the route. From French local authorities granting permission to use their roads to hotels and BnB’s expected to house every rider, staff and journalist. All these people talk. Local councils boast to the local newspapers that the Tour is coming next year; the hotels are full and are turning away bookings; work has started on resurfacing roads and preparing the infrastructure to bring the Tour to any part of France.

And through hundreds if not thousands of phone calls, the canny forecaster works out exactly where the Tour will be before the Tour announces it officially.

You, on the other hand, don’t need to guess where this year’s second biggest race in the world will be held because I bring you a world exclusive – the official route of Toddman 2021.

And, just like last year, Toddman 2021 will see two of the finest athletes in the world (called Todd and from the Western Isles) resume their rivalry like Pokajar and Roglic as they fight for iconic black Peat & Diesel jersey.

For more on Toddman check out the race reports here and here.

So, here it is, a world wide exclusive – the new route!

Below you can see the bike route, which has changed from last year’s flat sprint stage to a hilly mountainous stage featuring two of Scotland’s finest climbs: the Todd Road nee the Crow Road and Todd Me Doon nee Tak Me Doon.

While the run will involve a trail run and climb of Meikle Bin before finishing at Todholes farm and the now iconic and controversial green gate (see race reports for why the green gate is controversial).

Who will win? Who knows? But we do know that it will be someone called Todd!

Last week I recommended ‘Transamericana’, a film about ultra runner, Rickey Gates, running across America from coast to coast. A year later he set himself a new challenge, one which while still involving running thousands of miles would never actually see him running further than seven miles: he set out to run every street in San Fransisco, just seven square miles.

While I’ve been running every street near my home for the last year – see here and here among other articles – he takes it to the next level by sleeping on every street in a campervan and not stopping until he’d completed them all.

If you want to see how a simple idea can change someone then watch this video.