The BIG Cycle Challenge: Day 11 - Ballach to Glencoe

Day 11 - Wednesday 21^st August – Ballach to Glencoe

Today was described as hard, but turned out to be the most enjoyable day of the tour so far. In fact it felt easy.

We started out along westerly shore of Loch Lomond and were soon joined by Veronica and Lawrie, who pedaled with us for about 10 miles before they had to turn back and head home. The scenery was nothing short of stunning, although as we were to find out we hadn’t seen anything yet!

Vira (the sat nav) was behaving herself today, although seeing as we only had to stay on one road (the A82) for 69 miles, she had a pretty easy day. As she had little to do all day, I risked navigating her pages to look at some data. The distance we have travelled so far, including today’s trip, 849 miles, calarories burnt (each), 45,000, feet climbed 32,000 feet, mileage to go 201. Time spent pedaling, ie in the saddle a bum aching 90 hours!

As we pedaled on, the scenery just got better and better. Rannoch Moor is stunning and Glencoe awe inspiring. Today for the first time we tried a bit of music whilst cycling along and given the scenery and the music we didn’t notice the (quiet considerable) hills that we were climbing – a state of flow was experienced by Team Marshall, as we felt very insignificant amongst absolutely stunning countryside, steeped in history and battles that held to shape Scotland as it is now.

We frequently stopped, took loads of photos and film, although none of then will capture the splendor of this place. Truly magical and almost dare I say it worth the pedal up from Land’s End on its own!

Several of the group had punctures today, the record being held by Emily, who managed 5 today. We met up again with other cyclists who were doing the same thing and swapped stories, mainly it has to be said about saddles…I must remember to invent a comfortable saddle, could make a fortune!

Dinner was in the Glencoe Inn, which started off quite quietly as I think most people were feeling like us. This is a magical place and really gets you to reflect on your own humanity and in some ways (in) significance. With this environment, especially the mountains shaped by massive forces of nature over many millenniums, there is a timeless feel that somehow makes you feel reflective as well as sanguine. As we watched the many cars speeding through this magical world, we felt sorry for them because like most things in life, to really appreciate and learn from something you really have to be with it, rushing through in your own air-conditioned environment just won’t do it.

So we’re now in the Highlands, not just Scotland but the Highlands, and I am sure there are more experiences to come. However, only three more days to go and it’ll all be over. Then what? How will we fill our days? Life has been so all consuming and frankly hard, that in some ways it has been easy. You get up, start cycling, stop at the ‘brew’ van, stop at the lunch halt, stop at the next ‘brew’ van and continue until Vera says ‘you are at the end point’, dinner bed and repeat the next day – no decisions, no hassles it’s all taken care for you. Simple. However there are a few things that we miss from the ‘outside’ world and I am sure we will soon adjust….

Anyway tomorrow there is a BIG climb in the afternoon, the toughest day of the tour so far, so wish us luck!

PS It’s Stefan’s birthday tomorrow so to celebrate (and help him up the climbs tomorrow) we bought him a couple of nice whiskies tonight, are they strong he said ‘no not really’ I replied, hopefully this might slow him down tomorrow!

Lawrie and Veronica joins us at Loch Lomand