By the time I made it into Crianlarich last night my heart cable had stretched so much woke the grind of the climbs over from Glencoe I only had five functional gears. So it was time get things smooth again and I promised LM on my way over last night I would make her purr again this morning.

Up until today, the only time I had seen a midge yet was coming into Loch Tarff and almost swallowing a colony like some kind of two wheeled basking shark. But while working on the gears they came out. First a couple, then loads. Going for my bottle of Smidge worked wonders though. Left me alone instantly and I was able to get back to solving LM’s issued and tightening up the gear cable.

For a slow start to the day, she purred along beautifully. Getting through the smaller Lochs and into Loch Lomond on no time. The original plan that morning to have lunch in Glasgow kept slipping though as the cycle track got more and more congested and I got caught up with phone calls. The latter really ate my battery life which you will see had repercussions later on.

Glasgow has some pretty bad stereotypes, but the ride into the centre town was none of them. Beautiful and picturesque canal with bright greens off the hanging trees, and lovely tree covered cycle tracks. The centre of town did become a problem due to all the major bike tracks where being dug up or where currently in the Clyde with large parts of the riverbank routes under mayor rebuilding. My progress was slow… Very slow which was really starting to grate on me. I had a nice chat with a local lass about them and she was saying the diversions were all pretty crazy and all over the place unless you knew them. My plan to have lunch in Glasgow and be out of town soon after was now over 4 hours behind schedule.

Heading through Glasgow Andy using the navigation software very heavily, along with the calls that morning had really emptied my batteries for my systems. Much more so than I was expecting. By the time I was teaching Hamilton I was riding with most off to save power, which made things like finding my way with no map of only briefly very prone to errors.

Eventually though I was heading south and was seeing nice sights with things like Carlisle Road. Which was a great prospect. I wanted to leave Glasgow behind and get clear and I was going to do so. Coming into the dual carriageway I found it odd I hadn’t seen many cars. Always nice though. Then a group of bikes tore past in full team kit… Odd I thought. Then another, and another. To note here, this was a local groups doing time trials, full on had down racing under the clock as little groups. While yours truly, with monster bags attached, had been riding since that morning, with a open jacket on flapping away, and big tyres decided that hang on, I don’t like being overtaken… OK hind sight would probably also suggest blood glucose reasons, but I want going to stop now and was off after that last group. They were quick on the flats, but on the hills I was taking massive chunks of of them, but there was no way I could catch them. But talk about spooking them. The team just kept looking back and yep, I’m coming!

Sadly though my pushing myself, which while fun for the moment was good and it covered a fair few miles left me wondering where the heck I was going to stay. Doing my usual call around using the yellow pages was pretty futile as there was only two b&b’s to the south. And I want going to go back to Hamilton. The first had retired from business, and the second took great delight in telling me I should of booked weeks in advance and us end to enders are a pain in the behind. So that was out as well. Which left one option. My tent!

If I was going to camp it I might as well make the most of it really so I just kept on going to use the remaining daylight for more miles. In the end I set an all time personal best of 124 miles which ones really pleased with, if tired. And I found a nice quiet corner, not far from where a load of lorries were parked up for the night just off from the cycle route heading south.

My tents not that bad to get up, and everything set up, and I even managed to get all my bags in the porch area of the tent. And lay LM flat in the long grass to hide her from being spotted, and secured here to the best I could around the tent pole. The tent his very nicely, obscured from the road by a wind bush and the fact is black and green.

Closing my inner tent area I watched the sunset before closing the outer tent and getting a nights sleep while the silhouettes of bugs wondered above on the top of the inner tent.