Where's That Cyclist?

Day 36. Crianlarich - Ballachulish 40.09 miles

I left Crianlarich with a lighter load, just carrying the essentials like spares for the bike, extra clothes in case it got colder and jelly babies. Richard had the rest of my stuff in the car as he would be following me.

The five miles to Tyndrum was soon covered and after a quick stop to take some layers off before I started going upwards. I took the road towards Glencoe, resisted the temptation to take the road to Oban and started climbing. I managed the hill without any trouble but stopped again at the top to put my jacket back on as it gets very cold when descending the hills.

It wasn't long before I arrived at the Bridge of Orchy where Richard and I had arranged to meet for, you've guest it, a cup of coffee. No cosy café here, just the hotel, but it was a very nice coffee.

Having arranged our next meeting point we both headed off. I soon came to a very long assent, I could see the cars zig zagging up and a car park at the top that was obviously a viewing point. I made it to the top with lower gears to spare and cycled into the car park where I could see our car and Richard with his binoculars watching towards the road I had just climbed. He looked very surprised to see me, he hadn't been looking at some interesting bird as I had thought, but for me. He had wanted to take a picture as I reached the top, so was disappointed to see me. Not the reception I had expected. Still there were bound to be more hills he could take a picture on.

The road climbed over Rannock Moor and as soon as I reached the top I could feel the wind blowing up the Glen and despite descending, I had to continue to peddle or the bike would had come to a halt.

After a lunch stop near Kings House Hotel I then descended into Glencoe. I had expected to pick up a bit of speed here but most of the time if I stopped peddling my maximum speed was 12 mph in to the wind. Still it gave me time to enjoy the view and watch out for pot holes.

This has been the most spectacular rides of the trip so far and could only have been improved if the traffic had been a lot lighter.

We stayed the night at Loch Leven Hotel, a lovely hotel in North Ballachulish with cheerful staff and great food. What luck that all the other places we had tried to book were either full or wouldn't take dogs.

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