Thursday 13 April 2017

Day 1 of The West Highland Way by Bike charity ride in aid of meningitis research

The start of the ride in Milngavie and Barrie and I  try our best to look cool calm and collected.....and fail badly!! 

The first glimpse of Loch Lomond and little did we suspect just how hard reaching the north end of it would be

A group photo minus Graham who took it and still no scraped shins!

The start of the descent from Conic Hill above the village of Balmaha which sits at the side of Loch Lomond, as we descended we encountered more and more hill walkers on their way up.

The descent at times was hairy to say the least, here David does the steps while Peter prefers the smoother side track!

Barrie also took the slightly easier way down, preferring to reach Balmaha and lunch in one piece! 

The Drovers Inn at the north end of Loch Lomond, if ever anywhere looked as if it were perfect for a horror movie it was here, but the accommodation was first class and I was asleep within 5 minutes of going to bed.

Eight of us left Milngavie at 9.30am on Friday the 7th April in great biking weather, not too hot, not too cold, with some of the group having expectations of averaging 10mph over the 40 odd miles to the Drovers Inn! In actual fact we took over 10 hours to reach it and you don't have to be a mathematical genius to work out our average speed! The section that really slowed us down was the last 4 miles or so from Inversnaid Hotel which took over 3 hours of not much biking, a fair bit of hike-a-biking and a new pastime to me of rock climbing whilst carrying a bike. This is where the scraped shins and multiple bruises appeared from along with the occasional near tumble into the loch.However we eventually reached our 1st nights stoppage point and after a meal which quite frankly a few of us were too knackered to eat it was off to bed in our en-suite accommodation, hoping we would feel better the next morning!
More later..... 

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