What a day… woke up to beautiful sunshine and knew that if I’m to cycle 110 miles in 9 weeks time I’d better get on my bike!

Here she is a 51 cm little cracker… (with wheels so small I had to return the turbo trainer! Well I’m only 5’2″ so thats to be expected I guess?)

As it was the first time in the saddle in a few weeks I took it easy (although living on top of a hill means that there will always be some Queen of the Mountain opportunities!). I filled up my hydration back pack with 2 litres of blackcurrant juice, filled another litre bottle with peach juice as variety is the spice fruit of life and donned the gel padded cycling shorts (believe me on this razor of a saddle they are a welcome necessity but when I’m out the saddle I feel like I’m walking with a loaf of bread between my legs!).

I clipped in and began cycling out of the village and into the countryside along the back roads in a headwind and thought to myself ‘just take it easy, I’m in this for the long haul 30 – 40 miles today’. The countryside is beautiful round here so a welcome distraction was noticing the wild flowers and wild life. Going down the hill out of the next village I built up speed (~30 mph) and enjoyed a bit of a breeze from the sunshine – I could already feel my pale freckle covered skin reminding me that I hadn’t put on any suncream!

Cycling up the steep hill past Caldwell tower (as featured on Gorgeous George’s TV programme ‘Restoration Man’) was a bit tough and the granny wheel was in full effect but the gears went “clunk” after every revolution and jumped round loosing power! I felt a bit stupid not knowing how to improve it but carried on over the cross roads and up to the top of the hill climb (not easy when its jumping out of gear all the time). Realising that my plan to do significant milage today and only 5 miles in, I decided to unclip the pedals and jump off to have a better look and see what the options were… to my amazement I managed to work out how to tweak the gear settings and when I was clipped in and challenged to another small hill I was delighted to cycle in a smooth movement with continuous power! YAAAAS ya wee dancer!

I was gaining confidence,, enjoying the ride more and gaining speed but stopped to capture a couple of snaps of one of my favourite views from an aeroplane when you are taking off from Glasgow Airport – Barcraigs Reservoir which has amazing Douglas fir trees on islands:

Having done the hard climb it was now time to decend towards Lochwinnoch and I chanced my arm and popped in to visit friends who have a beautiful house with a view and stopped for 20 minutes to catch up on their news before I clipped back in and cycled along and across a very busy road and on down past the loch to the cycle track.

I passed another tower in the middle of nowhere and stopped to capture it on film before pushing on to Kilbarchan.

After a short stop visiting my brother in Kilbarchan I rejoined the cycle path and bell ringing to full effect made my way past many dog walkers to Paisley and onwards to Glasgow on National Route 7 Forth and Clyde.

At Pollock Country Park I left the safety of the cycle path and went via the main road to Darnley and up to the Barrhead Dams before looping back round to complete the 37 miles.

My reward.. in honour of Wimbledon!