I don't' know how I got talked into this annual event... wait, now I remember - Stuart berated me on the phone a couple of nights earlier until I finally gave in and agreed to sign up. So what is Pedal for Scotland? Well it's a Glasgow to Edinburgh cycle that had around 5500 particiants. However it wasn't a race and so there was a whole range of cyclists and unfortunately the variety of "speed" meant that we were slow-to-walking at many of the bottle necks.
The day started at 6am. I was up and on the bike trying to find Victoria Park in the North of Edinburgh. It took a while of cruising around until I met a bunch of other cyclists who also seemed lost. Our peleton increased in size till we eventually found the park. There was already a fairly big queue but it moved resonably quickly and soon my bike was on a random truck and I was on a double decker heading over to Glasgow.
It took quite a while to get all the bikes off our particular truck but when mine was handed down to me I was glad to see that it was in one piece. It didn't take long for me to find Stuart at the Winter Gardens and after quickly registering and a rapid porta-cabin pee break we were at the start line. There seemed to be no real start time and groups of people were leaving every few seconds. This was all egged on by a very camp "Radio Presenter" who's nail of a voice scraped down the blackboard of my ear drums.Over the next hour we slowly snaked our way out of Glasgow spending much of our time avoiding the ubiquitous green glass of shattered Buckfast bottles. The route was also hampered by lots of day-tripper cyclists free wheeling en masse and the odd jackie asking us if we wanted a can of beer from his blue plastic bag.
The first sign of countryside came at the first break. It was at Drumpellier park and there was loads of free munchies for everyone. Bananas, red bull, water, Tunnocks caramels, Lion Bars to name a few. However everyone decided to stop here and there was no way through the crowds so we ended up pushing the bikes through everyone and finally gave up and joined in the feast. After shoving a couple of spare Smarties chocolate bars in the back packs we set off again. The next stage of the ride was really nice. We cruised through Airdrie and out towards Avonbridge. The sun continued to shine on and off and there wasn't a hint of rain. The wind blew from the side but never blew from the front so that was one battle we didn't have to content with. We missed out the pit stop at Avonbridge and continued onto Linlithgow. This was perhaps the nicest part of the ride - lots of downhill coasting and chatting and everyone in this section seemed to be having a great time.
In no time we reached Linlithgow where a couple of wardens waved us into what can only be described as a hole in a wall. However on the other side the wall was the very beautiful and picturesque Linlithgow park and castle. A big marquee was set up and volunteers were serving free pasta, sandwiches and soup. The view was incredible and we sat out in the sun for 30 mins or so enjoying the atmosphere.All too soon we were back on the bike and decided to forego the final pitstop and continue through South Queensferry to the finish line. The legs were beginning to burn by this point and my lack ot training was showing. There were plenty of people at the sides of the roads clapping and cheering us along so we found the extra strength to keep going.
No story would be complete without a crash and this trip didn't disappoint. About 1 mile from the finish I overtook someone on a narrow part of cycle path. It was reasonably steep and we were doing 35-40kph when my front tyre slid in some moss at the right hand side of the path. I careered into the front of the bloke on my left and went over onto my right elbow then slid along the ground for several metres with the other irrate cyclist onto of me. Both of us were clipped into our pedals and it took a while to untangle us. Thankfully nobody was properly hurt and I escaped with a grazed elbow. My handle bars were slightly damaged and the other guy was missing a few spokes but although he was obviously pissed off he refused my offer to pay for new spokes.
I should point out that although I didn't have a bell and didn't warn him that I was overtaking he was chatting up a girl on his left and while not paying attention he moved slightly to the right on the narrow path just as I was overtaking which pushed me into the verge. So although in the world of cycling I was at fault, if it had been on the roads in cars, he would have been the one that was at fault. We were thankfully close to the finish line and minutes later crossed it basically in one piece. The time was lame but my original plan was to attempt to do it in under 4 hours which we did. Had it been a straight ride with none of the obstacles I'm sure that we would have made it in nearer 3. None the less I was happy that we made it and I'll definitely be up for it again next year.
