The early bird apparently catches the worm, but we just seemed the catch bad luck this morning. As we were rolling out I found my rear tyre flat for the second time and once we successfully got going on take two were met with fairly miserable weather. Forty minutes later we crossed the border, and began battling a head/cross-wind that stayed with us for the morning.
The second sport of bad luck withing the hour was Sophie's flat tyre which stubbornly refused to come off her wheel. After 20 minutes of trying, back up arrived in the form of Franz and Paul and together (with three pairs of hands, 4 tyre leavers, and much swearing) we finally convinced it to come off.
From then it was a mostly uneventful morning, except from the wind, of riding and singing along to some tunes as we went.
After lunch our luck finally turned as we found the tailwind James had promised last might, a gorgeous valley to climb (gradually) and the sun. This section certainly rivalled yesterdays for the best road of the trip but on balance comes in at a close second (possibly just because we were riding it slower)
With 20 to go we reached the top of the long climb and began the final push for home after a quick refill from thunderbird two. This push was soon paused for a loo break to relieve my rather upset stomache (a whole tub of ice-cream last night might not have been my finest decision...) but I soon caught the rest of the crew and after the only actually climb of the day we made it to Carluke with 101 miles on the clock.
Time for a rest and apparently a pub trip before hopefully a good night's sleep.
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