Whoosh 2025, Epilogue

37.5 miles
0.75 miles on Iona, 36.75 miles on Mull
1,400ft of climbing
By Robert Wright

Somewhere around the head of Loch Scridain, a sea loch on Mull, someone has altered one of the hundreds of “passing place” signs that are a feature of the island’s single-track roads. The sign now reads “passing peace.”

On Wednesday, for riders participating in the epilogue of the 2025 Whoosh ride, the tinkering felt unusually appropriate. We were riding away from the magical, peaceful atmosphere of Iona back towards busy lives in, for most of us, London.

The feeling was all the more acute because many of us on Tuesday evening had the privilege of taking part in a service of prayers for healing in Iona’s ancient abbey. The following morning, for some of us, felt like a ride back towards the source of the things for which we had sought healing.

While many of us were offering prayer for individuals in our lives, the service explicitly said it was appropriate to pray for healing of broken, oppressive and damaging systems. We hope that the money we have raised – and continue to raise – for Tree Aid, this year’s charity, will do something to heal the broken ecosystems of Africa’s drylands.

We started Wednesday with a brief ride from the camping pods where we had spent the night towards the Mull ferry. It is one of the joys of Iona that motor vehicles are strictly restricted, so we were mostly navigating around pedestrians rather than cars. We then made the 10-minute crossing to Mull. The area’s magical atmosphere played a last trick on us. It felt so warm that I changed into a short-sleeved cycling jersey, a decision I would regret when cold halfway through forced me to change back into a long-sleeved alternative.

The few of us making the return journey by bicycle mostly rode alone, reversing precisely our route on Tuesday. The advantage was that the wind was at our backs. The disadvantage was that the climb over a mountain pass that on Tuesday had been in the ride’s first half came far later on Wednesday.

We took in again the awe-inspiring landscape, mostly under gloomy skies. The sun started to emerge, however, after we had climbed over the pass.

There were other compensations for any regret at the end of seven days of riding. For the last few miles towards the ferry port of Craignure, we were able to descend fast, pausing only occasionally to let drivers pass either from behind or in front.

Such riding brings out the grinning, excited child in all of us, and we arrived full of the unique exhilaration of such a descent. We had been privileged to seek healing in a place where Christians have offered such prayers for more than 1,400 years. We embarked on our ferry back to Oban in glorious sunshine, with the hope that our efforts might do something practical to bring to the natural world the healing for which we had prayed.

2025 Charity

This year we are supporting just one charity - Tree Aid, who are backed by our very own Eamonn and Adjoa and who work with people in Africa to plant trees which can provide food and incomes.

Tree Aid. Grow Trees; Grow Hope