A very hard day

Day : Six

From Glasgow To Lockerbie
Distance Travelled 77 miles
Ave speed 10.6 mph
Max speed 29.3 mph
Weather Wet and headwind
Cycling time 7 hours 12 mins
Total Distance so far 382 miles


Today has been a very tough day, we have been cycling for over seven hours and both are now feeling very tired - so please excuse us a few moans.

We left the flat at 7.00am, but our planned route very quickly went out the window, as we hadn’t taken into account the one-way systems. It seemed that every road we wanted to go up was one way! However we eventually found our way through to Hamilton, passing Hampden Park on the way.

After breakfast at Asda in Hamilton, where we received a very kind donation from a complete stranger, we headed south. We couldn’t understand why the ‘B’ road we were using, was so busy with lorries – that was until we saw the congestion on the motorway. We had a close encounters with at least a couple of lorries.

Leaving Hamilton and out into the rolling hills of the Lanarkshire countryside the condition of the road was very poor, and at times it felt as if we were off road.

Up until now our navigation has been pretty good, that was until Rob decided to try and take a short cut after a break at the service station! We were looking for the road to Abington (Scotland’s highest village) when Rob said “this way”. Shaun said no that’s the Motorway (M74) but Rob was sure it was not. We cycled up the slip road with the passing cars looking strangely at us. Shaun tried to tell Rob again but he was not having any of it and continued up the slip road. When we looked back and saw a string of trucks and cars flying past at 80 mph we knew we had to turn around!

After lunch we climbed some big hills up to 1000ft, and to make matters worse the weather took a turn for the worse. For most of the afternoon we were riding into a strong headwind and driving rain. Even as we descended from the hills we were peddling hard! It was not much fun. We finally arrived at Lockerbie just after 5.00pm feeling exhausted.

The good news though is having almost conquered Scotland, tomorrow we finally arrive back in England.