Day 10 – Finding a way through Glasgow

We had a great breakfast of whole milk porridge at the Queensbury B&B in Moffat.  After loading the car and chatting to the owner of the B&B, I set off quickly into town to photograph one of the world’s narrowest hotels.  As I started towards climb out of town, I noticed the front tyre was soft.  What a Muppet – I should have checked the bike before hopping on!  I decided to return to the B&B as the car was still parked there with the track pump.  A few hundred meters from the car, the GoPro camera fell off the bike as the foot of the mount had broken in two!  I guess it had suffered from all the vibration on the coarse roads yesterday.  The morning was not going well!

I found the puncture had been caused by a tiny piece of wire embedded in the tyre.  Although I had checked the tyre at the time, I think it may have been there since the first puncture in Avonmouth!  After a couple of attempts, I got the tyre inflated, lubricated the chain, adjusted the brakes and set off again properly at 10.45am.

Cycle path, Road, Rail & Motorway all heading for Glasgow

I climbed steadily out of Moffat up into the Lowther Hills and when I crested the first summit I found I was high above and running parallel to the A74(M) motorway.  The cars were small enough to look like toys and I enjoyed the long descent to meet and eventually cross a bridge over the road.  I then joined the A74 which ran parallel to the A74(M) and the railway line.  The road surface was very rough but at various points there was a smoother cycle path alongside and I enjoyed the four transport routes all heading to Glasgow.  As I climbed to the top of the hills I counted the huge windmills in the Clyde wind farm, reaching over 50 in total.  I was very pleasing to see they were all pointing sideways to my route – a side wind being much less of a challenge than a headwind!

High on the hills, I encountered a group of motorcyclists in full leathers standing on the cycle path around a motor bike.  I stopped and quickly realised that the bike was damaged and one of them had fallen off!  A quick check revealed all were ok, but the guy who had come off was pleased to have a drink from my water bottle.  He had changed down, got a wobble, done a somersault or two before crossing the verge and ending on the cycle path ten minutes before I got there.  He was hobbling around with a sore ankle, but didn’t want to take his boot off in case it swelled up.  Standing and chatting for a while I learned that he had only picked up the bike that morning and had owned it for a total of 2 hours!  The language was consequently pretty fruity.  He had rung the garage to collect his bike, but had not yet raised the courage to ring his wife to tell her what had happened!  I offered to take a photo of him and the bike, but he really didn’t want that so I wished him well and continued up the hill.

Despite the late start and the time with the bikers, I managed to meet Fiona for lunch at the Cairn Lodge motorway services before she headed into Glasgow to pick up her Mum who was travelling up by train.  It amused me to arrive by bike in a car park full of motorway travellers.  We departed towards Glasgow and I found the road service very rough – the handlebars were vibrating so much at one point that I found it was easiest to just hold them loosely rather than try to stop it!

Approaching Glasgow through Hamilton

Making my way through a series of towns each strung out along the main road towards Glasgow, I eventually hit the urban area of Hamilton with apartment blocks on the horizon.  Getting closer to the city I was cycling through housing estates with large grey blocks of flats.  I saw the first campaign signs left over from the referendum – surprisingly almost all for the No campaign given Glasgow had voted Yes.  The GPS helped me navigate successfully and I joined a cycle path on the north side of the river Clyde.  This path was easy to follow and wound its way into the city following every twist and turn of the river.  It was surrounded by woodland so you would never know you were in the middle of a huge conurbation.  There were a few other cyclists, walkers and fishermen using the path, but it was very peaceful.

The path alongside the river Clyde

Fiery Tiger in Glasgow

Emerging into the city centre, I rode along cycle paths stopping to take photos of the old architecture and the new buildings from the Commonwealth games.  Heading out of town I failed to join a cycle path along a disused railway and ended up fiddling through industrial estates and housing estates sometimes having to double back on myself to find a way through.  At one point I got on the path, only for it to finish within a mile.  It was painfully slow progress, not helped by the road service which was bumpy, potholed, broken and course.  After riding from Land’s End I’ve become a bit of a tarmac connoisseur and the surface in the industrial estates was as bad as it gets!

It was only when I realised I should be on the tow path on the other side of the canal that I really got going again.  The final few miles into Dumbarton were a real pleasure and I bombed along trying to get my average speed back up to 13mph.  It was only in the last quarter mile that the average finally changed!  However, I found I had arrived at the back of the hotel and it took me two attempts to find a way round to the front of the building only to find my average had dropped down again.  Drat!  In total I had covered 76.3 miles in 7 ½ hours elapsed and 6 hours moving at an average of 12.9mph and a maximum of 30.1mph.

After a snack of sandwiches and crisps, we enjoyed a glass of Prosecco to welcome Sheila, my mother-in-law, to the trip.  We had a rather slow supper at the Brewers Fayre restaurant as it was busy and the main meal took an hour to arrive.  The waitress had warned us the food would be slow – it sounded like the chef was having a bad day - so we just chilled and chatted and were amongst the last to leave.