LEJOG Day 10 – Monday 3rd June

We got up early to get ready, have breakfast, pack up and set off on an early start for a long ride today. Tina strapped up my knee to protect it on the ride today…

I’m pleased to say spirits were higher today!

The start of our ride was a 20km drag uphill, so we got into ‘granny gear’ as we like to call it and just kept pedalling. One thing I will say is the roads could do with a bit of an upgrade – they weren’t half bumpy – a bit sore on the already deteriorated behinds! It was so quiet on the roads though, even though we were on a B road most of the way. We only saw about 4 cars in that 20km stretch!

We then turned onto some quieter more country roads and took in the views as we cycled – cycling passed lots of wind farms.

We stopped for lunch at around 70km in a place called Larkhall (not somewhere we’d choose to go back to). We both had a meal deal involving pesto pasta from co-op on a bench on the high street and looked up into the sky to see the Scottish flag!

We set off again heading for Glasgow. With 40km to go we got onto a cycle path that would last that whole distance, taking us into Glasgow and out the other side without having to deal with the crazy traffic. Glasgow was massive – it felt just like we could have been in London. The cycle path followed the river the whole way (leading to where we were going – Loch Lomond), which was really nice.

The cycle path took us through a park at one point in Glasgow where we spotted an ice cream van. As the sun was out we decided it would be a great source of energy for the last 30km!

Cycling along the cycle path – as the river got wider, we knew we were getting closer to the loch, which was where the campsite was that we were staying in that evening!

With 3km to go on our route on the cycle path Harry hit a big bump in the path and we heard the dreaded hissing sound from his front tyre that no cyclist likes to hear – he’d got a puncture! So we rang Tina and she came to the rescue in Borris (she picked us up and took us the the campsite we were staying in that night).

When we got back we decided that the priority was dinner (as it had been a big cycle today and we had a slightly stroppy Harry). Tina had found us an Italian restaurant a short walk away so we showered, got changed and then walked there for a pizza.

After dinner, we got back to our accommodation and Harry got to repairing his flat tyre before we hit the sack.

Summary:

Distance cycled: 143km

Elevation climbed: 1,030m

Time pedalling: 7h 56mins

Highlight of the day: The cycle path that took us a long distance and was nice and flat!

Lowlight of the day: Harry’s flat tyre

County count: 16 (Lanarkshire, Sterlingshire & Dumbartonshire added to the list)