It felt like ages since I was last out on my bike and so when my brother called to see if I’d like to try his 45 mile hilly route I was really looking forward to it.  I’d rested for a few days after the Great Glen Way 79 mile walk and was ready to face my next training challenge.

Challenge 1…  waiting for my brothers mattress delivery! Due by 1.30 p.m. we’d had time to catch up and make chilli for dinner before it arrived at 4 p.m. which meant we were heading out on our 3 – 4 hour cycle amidst rush hour.  Thankfully some of the route was to be on cycle paths or quiet roads.

I borrowed David’s Black & Decker safety specs as the next best thing to clear cycling sunglasses and we headed off down through the village of Kilbarchan along its fantastic newly surfaced tarmac (last time I took this route my water bottle ricocheted out of the bracket after going over some uneven road surface whilst being overtaken by a car and thankfully it didn’t do any damage when it bounced off little car parked at the side of the road!).

Up the short hill and on to the cycle path (Sustrans Route 7 Lochwinnoch Loop Line ) we headed towards Irvine at a steady pace on the flat surface and agreed that we’d stick to our middle wheel as David told me this 3 hour 45 minute route is pretty hilly later on and we’d need our strength and stamina.

We quickly passed the folly and the bike with stone wheels I took a photos of back in “Saturday in a Spin”.  We exited the path and cycled through Kilbirnie and up a long hill on the A760 Largs Road.  It was a granny wheel extravaganza and we both felt the burn as we made our way up to our first real summit. Happy Days!  It really makes a difference sharing the pain with someone else and we took it in turns to “break wind” at the front… if you know my brother you will understand the poor air quality I experienced!

Keen to smash David’s route record, we didn’t let the roadworks slow us down and seeing it was safe, we sped over to the wrong direction of the road while the cars growled at us from behind as they waited on a long stream of traffic passing.   This gave us a good clear road for a little time and enabled us to do a wee bit more climbing before we went down the steep gradient in to Largs on the Haylie Brae…  WOooooah there cowboy slow down dear brother!  He must have been doing 40 mph around the hairpin bend while I struggled to get any leverage on my breaks and mistook my rear brake for my front brake and nearly went over the handlebars!

We zoomed through Largs town but I still had braking issues as we went through the roundabout like a chicane!  Then we took a right at the famous Nardini’s Ice Cream Shop and headed up to the little shop on Brisbane Road for a little refreshment (Lucozade sport and a Yorkie).

Largs’ famous ice cream parlour

The Old Largs back road (Brisbane Glen Road) was lovely to cycle – very few cars passed us during our ascent up to Loch Thom which was just as well as we looked a bit red faced due to all the effort of our aching legs!   As we passed side of the Loch there were millions of midgies and we had to breath through our noses to avoid inhaling them!

It was such a relief getting to the top of the 2nd of our 3 peaks and we hurried down towards Greenock passing another cyclist going the opposite way.   The descent was really steep and I still didn’t realise that if I dropped my hands onto the lower handlebar position I had more leverage on the breaks DOH!  However, by the point we were passing the old sugar factory I’d finally got to grips with that and was subsequently a lot less out of control – doing 35 miles an hour… in fact I felt confident that I would be able to go a lot faster.. =)

The last serious climb on the Auchmountain Road (yes this is a real name!) (5.1% average grade 2.2 miles of pain) was a nightmare – we both had sore legs by this point and it was a struggle making it up past the cemetery – I briefly thought we might need to reserve 2 plots!.

We paused to take a photo at the top before pushing on hard to the turn off for Kilmacolm on the Auchentiber Road :

Both of us were feeling tired but elated as we pedaled on spotting Kilmacolm over the hill meaning only a few more miles til we were home.   I captured a picture of David proving we do have sunshine in Scotland:

We joined the cycle track (Sustrans Route 75 Forth and Clyde) and pedaled on through Kilmacolm, then Bridge of Weir and we exited the path at the Burndale Kitchen workshop at the Brookfield end of Bridge of Weir before spinning along the road and back up to David’s house in Kilbarchan.   Yeeha! We’d made it!

Thanks to David for his company, his wind breaking skills and the awesome chilli that awaited us! 45 miles… DONE!