Sunday 13th July, Bonarbridge To Inverness

58.5 Miles

Today was a tough day today, really tough. I don’t think any of us expected it to be as tough as it was.

Last night we stayed in a beautiful hotel on the banks of Loch Shin, where we were fantastically well looked after. But we had a 26 mile drive to this morning’s start point and as soon as we were on the road we encountered problems. From the off it was just one of those days which was destined to be a pain in the backside.

We had planned to be on the bikes by 9am, but because of the long drive to the start point were not underway until 10am. Once on the road we had to turn back a number of times for bike repairs and had a lot of media commitments along the way which added to the delays.

The day’s cycling did not finish until 4pm, so it was a long as well as frustrating day in saddle. The going was made hard by the fact we were cycling into headwind for most of the day, which really slowed us down. We only really got benefit of any wind for last 12 miles. Everyone is tired tonight and Becca and I have got upset stomachs.

But, on the upside, we met some really nice people on the road today and were given a lot of money for the appeal – about £200. At one pub we stopped at in Alness they had, had a collection in the bar for us which was very, very nice.

Tonight we are staying at the Premier Inn in Inverness which is a bit of a comedown from the beautiful surroundings of last night – especially as it is far more expensive ( it even costs five pounds to go on internet for an hour).

I’m looking forward to getting some rest, but before that can happen I have to sort out the route for tomorrow when we head for Tomintoul.

Mike.

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This entry was posted by Mike Tomlinson on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 9:48 am and is tagged with Jane's Appeal and is posted in the category Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.