Were it not for the kindness of the shopkeeper at Scourie Stores, Robbie Mitchell’s bid to break the cycle record for the fastest time round NC500 might have been scuppered.

The 40-year-old Durness native ended up at the shop badly in need of food after losing his support vehicle when a campervan accident held up traffic.

But Robbie had nothing on him aside from a GPS tracker - no phone and no money.

“Once I explained what I was doing, she let me fill my pockets as long as I promised to come back and pay. It was very kind of her,” he said. “I tried to keep calm but it was scary.”

Nutrition was a key element to his success as Robbie explained during In Conversation with Robbie Mitchell, hosted on zoom by the Edinburgh Sutherland Association for which he was fundraising.

The event took place after he spectacularly smashed the NC500 cycle record a fortnight ago. He came in at 29 hours, five minutes and 42 seconds. The previous record was 31 hours, 19 minutes and eight seconds.

At Scourie Stores, Robbie who can burn 10,000 calories a day on long training runs, bought a bottle of water, fizzy orange and a snicker bar.

It kept him going until his support vehicle caught up with him and reestablished his feeding regime, which mainly consisted of consuming electrolytes around four times an hour while still on the bike. He did, however, eat a chicken wrap on a long descent and a chip butty at Thurso which he knew “worked well and settles your stomach”.

If lockdown had not happened Robbie, an agricultural engineer who as a youngster worked at Balnakeil Farm, would probably never have attempted NC500. His normal focus is on the Strathpuffer, an annual, amateur 24-hour winter mountain bike race.

“When that got cancelled because of Covid, I focussed on NC500,” he said.

His preparation for taking on the tourism route was meticulous and gruelling.

“It was fully six months with nothing else in sight at all,” he said. “ I was at the peak of training a month ago. I would go out at 4am before work and put in a few hours with no food to train the body to be more efficient. A few hours after work as well. At the weekend, nothing less than six hours building up to 10 to 12 hours back to back Saturday and Sunday.”

Robbie’s initial passion was rugby before he moved on to motor sports, giving up because of the expense, and then taking up cycling.

Movingly, he really got into the sport after taking part in the Marty Mackay Memorial Cycle Ride from Lairg to Durness - he thinks in 2013.

“I got absolutely hooked. I bought a road bike and from then on my weekends were spent doing that,” he said. “I won a competition to be coached for three months and I’ve never looked back.”

The most emotional part of his epic ride was arriving at 6pm on Thursday, May 3, at Durness, his home village which he left 20 years ago to move to the Borders for education and subsequently work.

“I am not going to lie, it was emotional but I wasn’t prepared to stop!,” he said.

He had a lot of support on the journey, from friends waving him on, to cars beeping encouragement and kind messages streaming in.

Robbie explained that another crucial factor in success was wind direction. He choose to set off from Inverness at midnight “to try and get across the centre to get the breeze in the morning that generally dies down in the evening”. He had a strong tail wind from Muir of Ord to Loch Carron and arrived there far quicker than expected. Then he experienced a cross-wind before it swung round into his face, making the going tough.

He recalled the best part of the ride as the first hour of daylight, cycling down to Applecross.

“It was absolutely stunning and we had the road to ourselves,” he said. “A lorry passed us out of Garve, but we never had a vehicle until we were at Kinlochewe. The sunrise lasted for a long time and there was a beautiful purple light. That will stick in my mind for a long time.”

And the worst part? “From Dornoch Bridge back down. It was absolutely brutal and you know you have to put everything into it. You are not coming back next week for another shot. It is almost like you have tunnel vision.”

On his arrival back to the Highland capital, Robbie capped his monumental achievement by proposing to his long-term girlfriend.

He appears now to be considering attempting to break the 841-mile Land’s End to John O’Groats cycling record, set by Michael Broadwith at 43 hours, 25 minutes and 17 seconds.

“It’s logically the next step up and I have been asked by a lot of people if and when I will do it,” he said. “Michael was at the start in Inverness and wished me luck and afterwards messaged me. That obviously meant a lot to me. It was pretty special.”

To make a donation, visit Robbie’s page on Justgiving.

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