I'm on the road to nowhere...

72 miles. Rain. Mud. Pain.


That sums up today. We started at 9.30am with a brisk 3 mile cycle to the train station to get the 10.30 train to Edinburgh. We got there wayyyyyy early so decided to buy some snacks and pump up the tyres on our bikes to prepare them for the cycle.


We got on the train at 10.30am and almost got chucked off by the BIGGEST train conductor in the world! In the end though we managed to stay on as long as one of us moved to another carriage as we were blocking the exits. Thats where our problems started. The guys decided to get off at Haymarket instead of Waverley street and as my phone was in my bag I didn't know. I got off the train and had to peg it back to Haymarket. A few laws were broken and a few taxi drivers were suitably annoyed.


The cycle was straight-forward enough, nice and flat along the canal from Edinburgh on the east coast to Glasgow in the west. We made good time, mainly due to my overzealous, grande cappucino fuelled first stint and saw some amazing scenery on the way.

Due to the usual rain from the east coast though the path was really muddy and slowed us down quite a bit. Eventually though we made it to the Falkirk Wheel where we drew several looks of disgust from a number of tourists...no offence dudes but GET OFF THE SLOW BOAT AND EXERCISE A LITTLE! Anyway, after being suitably recharged we set off again. 40 miles in to the cycle I hit a wall. I think due to the food not having been digested, and the caffeine slump kicking in I was suffering. Tom and John managed to keep a 12mph pace though so I soldiered on. Bob, is to be commended, he set his own pace, and with far less training than any of us managed to never lag more than 3 minutes behind us.

Anyway...slowly...inch by inch...minute by minute we racked up the miles. Getting dirtier by the minute. As we neared Kirkintilloch we noticed someone had been having fun with the signs. Distances varied wildly. We started off with signs saying 22miles, then down to 7 miles, then up to 30 miles, finally back down to 14 miles. We never deviated from the endless canal though so we couldn't have taken a wrong turn.

We arrived at Glasgow Central Station - where we were to leave Bob for his train home and cycle a further 3 miles to my house - 6 hours after we had left Edinburgh. Legs burning and trembling from constant use- but not yet exhausted.

We cycled on for the last three miles where we had to begin the job of cleaning the bikes. Unfortunately to make the task easier we didn't hang about to take pictures of the bikes before they were washed so you will have to use your imagination with the aid of the pictures below.