The Diary - Part Ten

Day 10 - Tuesday 11th July

Today had been planned with military precision and the start was executed to perfection. Bacon and Egg rolls were served in the officers mess and the squadron were kitted out and on parade at 9am sharp.

Having read the last nine days' diary entries (you have haven't you?) you'll know that to expect everything to have gone smoothly would just be wishful thinking. There was a sense of inevitablity when Helen's chain slipped between two chainrings and somehow got mangled. We had made it just 10 yards down the road.

We returned to the Youth Hostel where it became apparent that the Hostel warden was a significantly more experienced bike mechanic with much better tools with him than any of us. Just how underprepared we were for this trip became apparent when the chap asked us how many spare chains we were carrying. Our answer? - "Less than one".

Having removed two links from Helen's chain (they come in pairs, y'know!) and re-joined it, we set off again. There was now a real danger that we'd miss the 3.15 ferry from Ardrossan to Brodick (on the Isle of Arran) and end up with a very late finish.

We cycled like demons for 60 miles, somehow making the ferry with just minutes to spare. Time to kick back with a bag of monster munch and a can of Irn Bru... On arrival at Brodick, we found a bike shop and left Helen's bike to have the chain replaced and new brake blocks fitted while we wandered off to buy ice-cream.

Having spend the morning pushing hard, it was a pleasant change to spend the afternoon at a more leisurely pace. The next seven miles were also quite relaxed, being a flat coastal road up the eastern edge of Arran. However, we didn't quite get it all our way as, rather inconsiderately we felt, someone had put a mountain between us and Lochranza Youth Hostel - our destination for the night.

Lochranza is a small town, and also the home of the Primrose family (Doug P being a Punter Southall colleague of ours). These two facts meant it wasn't long before we bumped into someone who knew them - George, the barman at the Lochranza Hotel. The steak and ale pie and pint of Guinness I ordered felt well deserved.

After catching up on Lost in the Hostel's TV room, we retired to bed. A short while later the coachloads of school kids from Buxton also called it a night and were sent to their dorms by their rather stressed-looking teachers.

Day: 10, Distance: 73.3miles, Cycling Time: 5 hrs 40 mins, Ave Speed: 12.9mph, Max Speed: 40.6mph.