Our BlogI can’t believe it’s been 4 days since my last post when I was in Inverness. We’ve covered a lot of ground since then!!
Day 1 started at John O’Groats and ended at the side of a Loch at the Kyle of Sutherland. It is amazing how desolate, empty of human life and how breathtakingly beautiful the entire region is. It’s also amazing that, at this time of year, it does not get dark. One of the problems everybody had (and there are 600 people on the ride) was lack of sleep - most people had a maximum of 3 hours sleep and then cycled a hundred miles. No problem sleeping the following night though!
Day 2 started at the Loch and ended 100 miles later at the base of Ben Nevis. Lots of big hills to climb and some amazing scenery well off the beaten track.
Day 3 did not start well! 20 miles into the ride, in the pouring rain, my front wheel aquaplaned and I crashed out. Thank god for cycling helmets - after the crash my helmet had 2 cracks in it. I dread to think what would have happened to me if I hadn’t been wearing one!
My bike was a total wreck but fortunately the ride is well supported by Halfords, and they provided me with a loan bike for the day. Whilst I was grateful for the bike it had not been set up for me, and the next 100 miles over the hardest climbs on the tour were really hard. I was expecting day 3 to be hard but this really added to it! I arrived in Glasgow later than most and it turns out that nobody had a good day so the overall mood was a bit low.
Day 4 was travelling the 100 miles from Glasgow to Carlisle; everybody was trying to take it easy today and try and let the legs recover a bit (if you can do that when you’re cycling 100 miles!). A lovely sunny day and one of the flattest days we’ve got means that pretty much everyone has arrived in good spirits at the end of the day. Down to Manchester to tomorrow covering 115 miles. Let’s hope the weather is better in England than Scotland!
