Yesterday the stars aligned: after a good day in the hills I arrived at Balloch half regretting not having put off arranging my accommodation as I felt I had more miles in me - even though by 8pm I was falling asleep in my curry dinner and this morning I awoke sore and aching. Everything that came together yesterday though, seems to have fallen apart today. It has taken me eleven hours to get to my hotel, of which according to my bike computer some eight and a half hours were actually cycling. And I am in Moffat some sixteen miles from Lockerbie where I wanted to be. I had a good start but it became a brutal day.
I awoke early to more blue sky; I am being blessed with fine weather which would certainly make the day easier. And today was always intended to be long, firstly with a lengthy cycle to Glasgow, a suburban ride out of the city and then due south through more open countryside towards the border. Last night I had checked Cycle Route 7 alongside the river Leven and it provided a meandering route to Glasgow. Even a cursory view of the map showed an otherwise uninviting and dense maze of main roads and dual carriageways to get into and through the city so an extra four miles following the curves of a flat river path at least part way seemed a fair exchange: I would swap the frenetic madness of roads for the slow sedateness of a cycle path, easier to stop to check directions and with the only thing needed to be avoid being walkers.
I left at seven to make the most of the morning and eat into the miles. At first it was just me, the birds and long morning shadows as I followed long switchback curves alongside the river’s dark waters. I wound my way through the streets of a morning-quiet Dumbarton, paralleled a main road towards the city, the view of morning traffic thankfully lost behind trees but not the noise, and finally followed a long stretch on the quiet towpath of the Forth and Clyde and Union Canals into the heart of the city. It had been everything I had hoped for.
My route now became everything the previous two hours had not. As I weaved my way through the city towards the river and my out of town cycle path I was held up by traffic lights, avoiding cars and pedestrians and having to negotiate closed roads and poor tarmac. I had originally planned for breakfast in Glasgow (was that, I wonder, ever the working title of a Supertramp album..?) but now I just wanted to get away from this busyness first. The route from the centre was at first pleasant as I cycled through green parks and alongside the tree lined river but before long I was cycling a rough and scrappy pavement masquerading as a cycle path and by a wide and busy road dotted with low slung commercial buildings showing their age. I still needed to eat and it was now mid morning. The roadside ‘Scran Station’ wagon was the best I could do and I sat and ate its offerings by that horrible road and in the shadow of a ring road flyover. The price of seven-fifty for a coffee, a bacon roll and a chicken burger speaks for itself but it was welcoming.
It was more traffic and the frustrating stop-start of endless lights as I rode, immersed in suburbia, into and then out of Hamilton on Glasgow’s outskirts to reach my road south. Fourteen years ago I had used the B7076 to head north. It covers the miles from the Scottish border to near Glasgow. It largely paralleled the M74 which seemed to absorb all the traffic leaving it quiet. And for the most part I remember it as feeling quite remote. My experience had obviously been good as I have made a point of using it this time to head south but now those memories of years ago need to be revisited. I recall the roughness of the road which is a little uncomfortable and slows you down (but all these years later there are occasional sections of beautifully smooth cycle track alongside it to compensate). But I did not recall how hilly it was. And l certainly do not remember the wind. Today it was eighteen miles an hour, directly into my face and relentless. For the few cyclists I saw heading north it was a boon, blowing them fast along and adding to their speed. For me it completely undermined my day.
The wind was unremitting and made worse by the total exposure of the route. I felt like so much of my effort was being used to fight myself forward against it, wasted energy lost from the main aim of adding miles to my journey. I was in a battle that I felt I was constantly losing but in which I had no option but to participate. Even on the flat I was often struggling to maintain seven miles an hour, a pace slower than many people run, and the hills were worse. When lengths of inviting track stretched before me I felt they were wasted and could not help myself thinking how fast I would be going if only… Around me the rolling hills of the Scottish Borders would normally have provided an attractive distraction on such a sunny day but I could only see them as the cause for those forgotten hills although I could not help but notice the large number of wind turbines clustered on every ridge line and the pace at which they were turning.
I stopped to take stock at Abington some twenty-six miles from Hamilton but I was being worn down by the ride. The previous ten miles had taken me an hour and twenty minutes and there were over thirty more to Lockerbie. It was already three in the afternoon so the maths was against me. I sat in the sun outside the service station knowing that Lockerbie would be Arnhem - my bridge too far - but not wanting to stay here, the only place en route last night that I found with somewhere to stay before Lockerbie. Today though, just off my route and sixteen miles further I found a hotel in Moffat, about halfway to Lockerbie. It would not be comfortable getting there but it would be achievable. So, lifted a little in my mind by knowing I did not now have to reach Lockerbie but knowing I had a destination a little further south I set of once again to tackle the wind.
It was a long ride and it was not comfortable but it would have been worse but for an extended downhill section as I reached my destination, faster than much of the previous ride but still impeded by the wind. And it was not until six when I arrived at my hotel in the pretty town of Moffat, tired from today’s effort and wanting nothing more than to fall into bed.
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