Distance: 51.65 miles
Time: 5:08
Elevation: 2406 feet
Yesterday had been a big day, 70+ miles, over 4000 feet of climbing, hot and sunny all day long, and with the climax of the Scottish border to aim for, it had been a classic cycle touring day, but I needed to think about the rest of the route.
I awoke with the challenge of how to keep my bike rolling along. Over the last few days – as I’ve mentioned – various spokes have been slackening in the back wheel and I’ve just been tightening them up and making sure the wheel runs in a straight line. I’d tightened three spokes in Shap yesterday, but I’d also tightened two in Carlisle, and there was another one loose when I finished.
Reading a little online it suggested that if the spokes are too loose overall, then individual ones could start to lose tension. It was worth a try, so I started by tightening all the spokes and then tried trueing the wheel again from there.
It all looked great, until I looked at the wheel from the side and realised that the rim bulged out at a certain point in its spin. Oh great something new to learn, well that would have to wait, it was almost midday.
As it happened, I was now 90 or so miles from home in Fife, and I intended to stop off en route, do some laundry and swap out some of my gear. I would also have a better opportunity to fix anything needing done on the bike.
Realistically, after a big day yesterday, and with an ailing bike, I wasn’t going to try and ride all the way home in one go, so I decided to stop half way, give myself an easier day to home, get myself sorted overnight, then set out on the final 5 days to John O’Groats.
Leaving Annan at the bridge over the River Annan, I followed the path of the Annandale Way as the road tracked the river through picturesque countryside, passed Dalton and Lochmaben, where people were braving Castle Loch on paddle boards.
The road was rising gradually towards Moffat, and I was around 5 miles away, when suddenly a Microlight flew passed overheard. I might not normally have found this unusual, but as my Dad flies a Micorolight, and he could follow my tracker I found this very suspicious indeed. Texting my Mum to enquire about his whereabouts, it appeared he was indeed flying, and when he flew back over again, I managed to read his registration off of the wing!
Arriving in Moffat, I retraced the steps of my first visit – last September. I cycled up and down the high street, one by one eliminating all of the most appealing looking restaurants – because they weren’t serving food yet. Then left between two, I picked one, before realising that there wasn’t anywhere I could prop my bike outside it, so I went to the other one. Aah, that’s how I’d ended up at the Rumblin’ Tum last time. This time, I had a chicken and sweetcorn baguette and a white chocolate Oreo milkshake and despite my blatant attempts to avoid going there, it was actually quite nice.
Leaving Moffat, I took the B7076, the old road that runs alongside the M74. It was 18 miles to Abington and that would give me 50 miles for the day. Of the 18 miles, a large swathe of those were uphill, and on a very rough surface. The going was slow, and the sun lay low in the early evening sky, but gradually I crested the top of the hill at 330m, having started at 20m down in Annan.
Coming off the B7076 at Crawford, the route passed through the village, before crossing a river and traversing around the hillside high above the West Coast rail network, until, just before I dropped down to Abington, I discovered the Mount View Caravan Park, and it now being half 7, I called it a night.
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