Last long day and it started off well. Porridge, full breakfast and a clean drive train (what more can you ask for). First half of the day was a scorcher, with a high of 31C (Think this may have been the hotest day on record in the UK). A strong tail wind helped to drive us forward at a great clip. We did stop for a section at a Hotel in the middle of nowhere. Sign on the door said café opened at 11:00am. Garmin was proudly saying 11:02am. Tried the door: locked. Chilled out for 10mins in the shade until we saw a guy wandering around who worked there. Promised us twice that it’d be open in a moment, but after wasting 30mins we decided to get back on the bikes. Eventually found a cafe in the next town (I think it was Tongue) about 15miles away. Thankfully the cafe was wonderfully cool inside and got to enjoy a great homemade some nice soup & coronation chicken sandwich plus several cans of drinks each. Quite a satisfying first half of the day after gunning through the first 50 miles.

The remainder was harder work. We had some tougher terrain and more sunshine to cycle through. Life got harder when we turned east to hug the coastline. Our blissful tailwind turned into a vicious crosswind that also brought the clouds. From there on out the temperature dropped rapidly and eventually turned to a short, sharp stint of rain. For the first time since Glasgow we were seeing other batches of cyclists although we were in our own head down struggle to do more than a gentile (slightly grimacing) nod. Not the most fun last 30-40 miles.

At the start of the day we had high optimism to tack on the last 20miles to John O’groats and complete the adventure. However, after grinding through head/crosswinds for 40miles we had mad an unspoken decision to stick with plan A: chill out in Thurso and head to John O’groats tomorrow. It was only later that we found out that by the time we got to the youth hostel we had already missed the last bus back from John O’groats.

Failure stats time:

  • Garmin crashes: 0
  • LiveTrack connection issues: 2

The mountains are so far away

James is getting into the spirit of on the bike selfies

Nice stream by the hotel that was forever closed

Promise of future mountains to ride between