DAY 2

Arising for a cooked breakfast at 7.15 in Tain, the team began to cry as we looked out the window as the rain that had plagued us the day before seemed to have persisted throughout the night. Taking a hint from the day before I thought it best to actually wear some clothes this time round, as opposed to repeating my poorly dressed fiasco the day before. Wrapping up warmly in a fleece/leggings/waterproof combo we all set off for our next destination, Fort William, approximately 95 miles south west, and on the other side of Scotland to where we were.
The day started very well, even though it was pouring with rain we managed to keep spirits up by singing Disney songs to ourselves whilst pottering down a country lane. We got some odd looks from cows and local farmers as 3 lycra clad lads sped past singing “yo ho, yo ho, a pirates life for me”.
At our first stop, we received news from Tarn and Ollie in the support car that they had managed to acquire a tin opener from the local Lidl meaning that we could open one of the many 1.7kg tubs of tuna that my father had, in all his wisdom, purchased around 6 months ago from a nuclear bunker supplies depot, failing to realise that it is extremely difficult to eat that much tuna in one sitting. The 5 of us healthy strapping lads tried this for lunch, and managed to devour approximately 1kg of fish.
Stopping off at a Tescos cafe enabled Tom and Robbie to strip down to their leggings and quite literally wring their “thermal” tops dry, plus their jerseys, and their supposed “waterproofs”, whilst I smugly sat down, removed my waterproof, and remarked that I was bone dry and chuckled as I watched the other two doing press ups in a Tescos car park to keep warm. The solution to their problem would be a cup of tea, so I bravely volunteered to enter Tesco in full cycling gear to buy 3 cups. Unfortunately for me, cycling cleats at the bottom of shoes are not really designed for Tescos clean, white, shiny floors, and the 1st step I took onto the surface had my feet sliding in different directions. I balanced myself by grabbing onto the nearest object, which just so happened to be the shopping trolley of a surprised looking Scottish woman. Lucky for her that the fruit in her trolley was all still intact. I then proceeded to stroll more carefully into the cafe where I found out that they had run out of cups by an enthusiastic Tesco employee. I suggested that she might perhaps give me a china mug to take 25m away for my freezing friends to drink from. Horrified, the woman replied that “not EVEN Tesco employees are allowed to do that!”. Thinking of alternatives that didn’t involve carrying the equivalent of three cups of boiling tea with my hands out to Robbie and Tom (although, in retrospect, this may have helped to warm my hands). I returned to find the two of them topless, sheltering from the rain in the car park, doing press ups and star jumps to keep warm, whilst bemused locals watched in amusement. They went inside for their tea, whilst I watched the bikes.
Stopping was a mistake. It was difficult to get going again because of the cold, but once the blood got pumping after a series of sprints that we did, we warmed up and got on route again. We were scheduled to meet Tarn and Oli at the Loch Ness cafe, and arrived in due course after going down a 15% hill that lasted for around a mile. Once again, “speed demon” Montgomery took lead and shot off out of eyesight. He has no idea of the speed he was doing, but some locals at the bottom said they saw a blue flash whizz past them and a few seconds later heard the whoosh. After he had broken the sound barrier he had enough time whilst waiting for Tudor “scared of downhill” Morris and Tom “sensible speed” Beaumont, to have a drink and pop into a bush for a pee.
Meeting the support team at the cafe a few moments later, still shaking and wiping the tears from my eyes, and cleaning other bodily fluids that I lost after going downhill rather fast on a wet road, we settled down on some benches by the Loch Ness cafe – apparently the staff there really do “believe in the monster”, which amused me. I didn’t get the chance to ask them if they also believed in Santa Claus, Bigfoot . Sitting down on the benches, we were delighted to hear the screeching and piercing noise of a unenthusiastic small boy, spurred on by his over enthusiastic father, playing the bagpipes to an amused group of Japanese tourists who all insisted on photographing the spectacle. The temptation to stop this noise by pushing the boy off a cliff was worryingly overwhelming.
After a snack consisting of chocolate, sausage rolls and Nourishment drink, I requested that Oli fill my water bottles in the cafe as I was wearing cycling shoes. Horrified, he turned to me and said “I’ve been driving all day, and what have you been doing? SITTING DOWN! Sitting down all day long! And all day yesterday. And you’ll be sitting down all the way to Lands End” . Oli then contended with evil glares from the group and laden with about 500 million bottles to fill.
Cycling by Loch Ness was a delight. We coasted along the mild flats, shielded from the majority of the rain by the surrounding trees, and the scenery was stunning – two lyrca clad backsides bobbing up and down in front of my face for many hours.
We finished the day with a horrible windy section on a road by a Loch just before Fort William, there was some amazing scenery but it didn’t matter, we were all too tired to appreciate it. Short and sharp hills just before the end were as tiresome as the shocking jokes that have been going on (including that one).
Still, in Fort William now, and heading 105 miles South to Dunoon tomorrow. Hurrah!