“Fancy a 60+ miles cycle Lorna?” my brother asked me on Saturday.  So it was agreed that we would have an 8am pedal-off from his house on Sunday morning. (Weather forecast was great – white clouds and sunshine all day).

Intent on being on time, I packed the bike and my accoutrements into the car and arrived dead on 8a.m. ! Well done me!  However, in my haste I’d put on my trainers to drive and had left my cycling shoes avec cleats back at my house along with my sunglasses… Fail!

David had breakfast and then did a quick check on my tyres.. both front and rear wheels were low on pressure so he pumped them up to 100 psi as recommended.

Both bikes packed into the car and back over to my house we had a quick pit stop then headed off up the Rollercoaster road in a head wind i.e Kingston Road out of Neilston past fields, the Commore Dam and out past the motorcycle trails academy.   As we pedalled down towards the turn off for Fullwood, the dark clouds brought a quick shower so we headed for the cover of the trees by the side of the road and took the opportunity to plan the amended route in a bit more detail.

Phone, safely stashed into the plastic zip-lock bag along with the Wiseman Dairies poncho and then stuffed back into my rear pocket for dry keeping and we were off again.  We turned right along a hedge lined road and into Dunlop, wet road, slick tyres and tight bends meant we went at a slower pace than normal.  We went over the Railway bridge through the roundabout then turned right towards the A736 and Burnhouse.  When we met the main road we turned left and followed it for a couple of miles to the Blair restaurant, Auchentiber then turned right and headed to Kilwinning.

The headwind was brutal so we agreed to just stay in our middle gear ring and pedal it out… after all there was no point exhausting ourselves only 10 miles in with 50 – 60 to go!

We reached Kilwinning and followed the signs for Ardrossan which led us through Stevenston, round the back of Saltcoats and passed the turn off for the Arran ferry from Ardrossan.  Out of the town we were now cycling along the coastal cycle path and on through West Kilbride where we rejoined the road again.

This stretch of road was very busy with fast cars so it was a welcome sight to turn left off the main road and on to the cycle path past Hunterston Castle: and through the estate passing the access road for Hunterston B nuclear power station.  The quality of the path was a bit more suited to a mountain bike than road bike for this section and the knobbly pavement from there to Fairly where we rejoined the road.

As we came in to Largs, we turned left and went over the humpback bridge over the railway line and into the Largs Marina.  Here we turned right and followed the park path  alongside the rocky outcrops then the beach before rejoining the main road and turning right up past Nardini’s.

The next section of the route from Largs to Kilbarchan was exactly as we had done on our ‘3 Peaks Loop’ a couple of weeks ago on the 6th August however, the main differences were firstly that David was on his new Specialized Allez road bike and so we went faster and secondly that it bucketed down with rain as soon as we got 3/4 of the way up the Loch Thom road!   David choose the moment we reached the top to stop for 3 minutes to stop his app because his phone was nearly out of power and to stash his phone in a dry part of his ‘fanny pack’ as the American’s would call it.. we call it the essential tools and spare tube pack! honest!

I decided it was a good time to put on my free ‘Pedal for Scotland’ Wiseman’s Dairies Poncho… yes I looked like a plastic black and white Holstein-Friesia cow flapping in the wind but it did help to keep me slightly warmer than the cold rain would allow.  It did however make an incredibly loud flappity flap noise and acted like an air brake so I had to stop at a layby to tuck it in under my top!   As we descended down towards Loch Thom we passed a couple cycling uphill in their rain jackets and they did make me think maybe I shouldn’t have travelled so lightly!

Down by the loch side it was a relief there weren’t as many flies as last time but we did spot a steamed up car just before the police passed us in the opposite direction so if there was anything untoward going on I’m sure the law enforcers were about to sort it out!

There was another short climb before the rain went off again, we stopped and I folded my poncho badly before tucking it under my back to look like a hunchback (thanks David for your description) and then deciding it needed putting away properly in the small pocket, we wolfed down our last mars bars and had a quick drink before we descended down the slippery steep road into Greenock.  We were doing a lot of braking before the bends this time – David especially has realised that versus his mountain bike disc brakes, the road bike is like a 1960’s mini versus a new one!!  In fact he had a couple of stories of the lucky escapes he’s had in the last week since he has been out on his new bike, misjudging the braking distances!

We went the naughty ‘Road Closed for maintenance’ way round the road works then up to the start of Auchmountain whereupon my poncho leapt from my back pocket and I thought I’d lost my phone too.  Safely stowed we granny wheeled it up the 2 mile very steep hill and then on to the great fun back road and on to the cycle path outside Kilmacolm.  It was evident the road bike was a great purchase when David was able to zoom along all the way through Kilmacolm, Bridge of Weir and on to Brookfield where he said his farewells, 59.7 miles clocked with another half a mile to go.

I carried on along the cycle path to Paisley, left it at the Paisley Canal train Station and cycled to Barrhead, where I couldn’t be bothered waiting on lights so went via Tesco car park.  I was dreading the hill climb home so I stopped to make a call to my mum to pick me up!  Plan foiled!  Sadly my phone had died and I had to spend the next final 8 minutes of the ride cycling up the big hill and back to my house.

Safely in the door I had a few air punches and a few muted ‘YEAH I’ve done it!’s before stripping off and finding I’d lost my bank card!  Showered and dressed I headed back to Tesco car park where I found the bank card! YASSS!  Here’s the proof of the ride up to the point where i last checked my phone successfully at Brookfield.  The phone died and it missed out the Paisley, Barrhead, Neilston part of my journey so I estimate it was 70 miles in total: