Rain, rain, rain

Trip Start Jul 08, 2008
1
3
16
Trip End Jul 25, 2008


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Flag of United Kingdom  , Scotland,
Thursday, July 10, 2008

We woke up to the gentle pitter patter of rain drops upon our canvas shelters (a nice change to the resounding trumpeting of Carl and Phils snoring).  Crawling outsie it was clear that the weather had taken a turn for the worse overnight.  The previous days sunburn were all things of the past as we donned leggings and waterproofs.  I didn't have leggings but I did have 'knee warmers' - sort of lycra tubes that pulled over my knees and generally caused a lot of problems falling down until I got some of those red rubber bands from the post office to tie them up with.
 
The rest of the lads went for a brekkie down at the restaurant while Phil, Carl and myself brewed up and made some porridge.  This meant that we started the day with a bit of a headstart.  The day started with some serious climbing up onto the Sutherland plateau; about a 1000 feet above sea level.  Once on the plateau the cycling was fine, just undulating roads where we could average 15mph easily.  The unfortunate thing about being up on the plateau was that we were in the clouds meaning we were cycling through a sea of constand drizzle which permeated everywhere.  It got to the poiunt where we were actually looking forward to the uop hill stretches to warm us up.  We had agreed to meet the others after 20 miles but it was so desolate we ended up plowing onto Lairg.  As we were tucking into our all day breakfast Stu rang to say that Chris's wheel had fallen apart and that they were stuck 20 miles up the road while some local guy was helping them to sort out a new one.  We didn't fancy knocking it in the head at Lairg (which was 40 miles down on where we had wanted to be by the end of day 2) so Carl, Phil and myself decided to press on to Tain....In Tain we found a lovely campsite, complete with laundry facilities and a pub next door which served the biggest portions of mince and tatties known to mankind. 3 idiots in the rain
3 idiots in the rain
 
Day 2
Tongue to Tain
 
Miles     67.56
Average           11.8
Hours on bike   5.42
Max speed       33
Total distance   141.36
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