Day 6

OK, so we didn’t make 100 miles. But what we did was easily the hardest day of cycling in the week. Day 6 was an absolute slog from start to finish. We began at a town with the comedy name of Auldgirth, but there the amusement stopped for the next four hours. We were cycling towards Kilmarnock and then Paisley so most of the morning was spent on the A76. This road combined hills with a rubbish road surface and, worst of all, a nasty headwind. The result was limited progress and a complete collapse in our spirit which was totally sapped by the wind. It seemed that no matter how hard we peddled we barely broke 10mph and were getting precisely nowhere.

This carried on for the next four hours as we slowly wound our way to Kilmarnock and our hopes of doing 100 miles in the day were evaporating. The wind was getting steadily worse and, at one point, we actually passed a sign advertising a new windfarm that was being built. At least that was well sited.

Anyway, by keeping pressing forward we managed to do 36 miles by lunchtime and stopped at a place called Mauchline where we had some pretty ropey food and headed back out to tackle the afternoon shift.

As we have found all week, this was a much better session. The wind had died down a bit and progress was good. We cycled through Kilmarnock and onwards towards Paisley. The roads got prettier, the scenery more interesting, the weather got better, and we got faster. Never was this more the case when we finally crested the last hill and say Glasgow laid out before us and a huge long downhill coast beckoned us to Paisley. There is a great video we posted of us halfway down this descent which was totally exhilarating. Matt was particularly delighted because he finally broke 40mph so gave Jonny a new target to shoot at.

Amazingly, despite the problems of the morning, we were now well ahead of schedule. It was only 5pm and we had already reached the destination point. This meant that we had a great chance to push on and try to cover enough extra miles that, combined with Friday’s ride, we wouldn’t have to ride on Saturday before climbing Ben Nevis. With that in mind, we headed towards Dumbarton and then onwards up Loch Lomond. Progress again was good and by 8pm when we finished, we had only 79 miles left to go to Fort William.

This was definitely the hardest day but we go the best reward: a full 12 hours in the saddle meant that we had a fighting chance of not having to cycle on Saturday which would be fantastic and make climbing Ben Nevis much, much easier.

Dinner on Day 6 promised to be a superior affair to the other nights. We were staying at Glasgow Airport so had the full range of airport hotels to choose from. Unfortunately we failed to strike gold in choosing the Italian restaurant in the Ramada. They were pretty quick serving the beers but the pasta and pizza we ordered took ages to arrive, were decidedly mediocre and then they had the cheek to try to chase us away from our table so they could set it for breakfast.

It was then off to bed for some well-earned sleep ready for Day 7 and, hopefully, the last leg to Fort William.