LEJOG Day 23 - Glasgow Rest Day

Rest day in Glasgow, how fantastic is that?!  This is one of my favourite cities - interesting things to do, bustling, plenty of great dining!

And we’re ready for a rest, it’s been a big week with 60 miles to Kendal, over Shap to Penrith, 43 to Gretna, 51 to Abington (and the better than imagined Beattock Summit) and then the 47 mile ‘not even close to freewheel into Glasgow.  Debating if the 5-day sections are harder than the 4-day ones, even with less gruelling terrain just because of the blindingly obvious extra day.  And the terrain this week is still Lancashire-esq.

Lots to do today - resupply, visit the bike shop, find new shoes (why do things fall to bits when you’ve hardly worn them?!), see how our old haunts have changed and indulge in our day off treat - a churrascaria.  Viva Brazil is a Brazilian steakhouse where the servers bring meat directly from the grills to the table on long skewers and carve slices onto your plates. Why Spanish and Brazilian rather than Scottish in one of Scotland’s biggest cities?  I suspect we’ll have plenty of Scottish as we head north!  And, protein, that’s what we need after all that pedalling!

There’s going to be a few of these, the architecture here is so gorgeous!

Spanish, tapas, a new favourite

Just off George Square

This is the building I used to stay in during my weeks up in Glasgow

George Square

Lots of large wall art around

New bike storage location

This is not a crime scene, just weatherproofing the jackets (again)

Viva Brazil, our day off treat

Always love a churrascaria!

Glasgow Central, came through every Monday morning and Friday afternoon

Now this looks like fun, maybe next time

Behind these doors lies a tandem

Today is also ‘reflection on the last Section’ day:

This is all we do - Sometimes it feels like this is all we do - get up, have coffee / breakfast, pedal all day, have dinner, go to bed - repeat.  But it’s so much more than that.  I mentioned it earlier, but seeing the changes in the country byways we’ve been traveling continues.  Seeing the architecture and house styles change as we’ve crossed the border is interesting to watch.  The plants in the gardens are different and we’re watching the season change day-by-day as we head further north.  The sounds of people’s accents are distinctively different in each place and sometimes I have to really focus in to catch the cadence of the new speech rhythm so I can understand what people are saying, rather than getting the gist from a few words.  Accents in the U.K. can differ in a 10-mile radius, it’s even much more so in the distances that we’ve been traveling. 

Farms / farming - On this trip, we’ll see thousands of farms. “In 2021, the U.K. agriculture industry was made up of 216,900 farm holdinga.  The utilised agricultural area was 17.2 million hectares of land, 71% of the U.K. land total.” Our trip, except for the odd large town or city, has been primarily through farmland and neither one of us realised how much of it there is or how many farms there are.  Also didn’t realise how many and how massive the tractors are that are whizzing down those little country lanes!

The charity - our friend Jon asked us last night about why we choose the Diabetes U.K. charity to raise funds for?  I pointed to Steve.  We’ve watched Dad struggle with diabetes for years, Steve’s Mom was dealing with the same in her last few years.  If there is anything we can do to avoid this miserable disease for Steve, we want to do it.  The Diabetes U.K. link is that they are working on rolling out Roy Taylor’s Newcastle University work on a nutritionally (rather than drugs) based approach to bringing down and keeping down people’s blood sugar levels.  It involves a rapid weight loss phase to get rid of the fat in the liver and pancreas, and then cutting out the foods that raise blood sugar moving forward, along with physical activity. The 3 F’s - fat (around the organs), food (those that don’t raise blood sugar) and fitness seem to be the 3 legs of solving that particular  puzzle.  We’ve tried it, it works so we’re supporting it. 

Ongoing Fitness - Mom asked earlier how we were going to keep up this level of fitness after we’re done with this trip?  We’ve been pondering that while pedalling (and would appreciate any thoughts or insights).  It would be a real shame to literally climb this fitness hill and then slide back down it (again!).  One of the things we’re noticing (actually Steve as I’ve never really done it) is that building the fitness (strength, aerobic capacity, stamina) is harder and takes longer. So, I guess if we want to maintain all the work we’ve put in, we’d better put some things in place to keep what we’ve gained and develop it further!  Steve just posted about a 90-year-old man who completed LEJOG, what an amazing thing!

I’m sure Steve will add his reflections at some point, but those are the things I’ve been thinking about whilst pedalling.

Other than that, it’s been a lovely day in Glasgow and tomorrow we recommence the journey as we head off to Balloch!

Addendum for Brian (who probably knows all about this brewery, Brewdog: 

Brewdog’s selections tonight

Hmm, what shall I have?!

Bustling place on a Tuesday

Took 3 sips of this one, not giving up wine though!

WeihenStephan

 

‘My Grandma used to drink this,’ said Steve

Second Addendum: 

 

LEJOG Day 22 - Abington to Glasgow

Had a fun in-room takeaway last night and we were asleep for 7:00.  Guess that hill took more out of us than we thought!  Feeling pretty good this morning and tomorrow is a day off! 

Heading into Glasgow today, taking a ride down the Clyde River Valley and into the city.  The Clyde originates from Beattock Summit and we followed it into Abington yesterday. Today is supposed to be one of the most scenic on the trip.  Weather is supposed to be better, 60 / 16 with some rain this morning with wind from the south - will we get the fabled tailwind?!

Starting to turn our eyes to the Highlands and a couple of big passes that are coming up.  When reading about this route, people say Cornwall is the hardest, but don’t disregard the Highlands.  Brian said early on that we’d be really strong after all those hills, and we are stronger.  Will be interesting to see what tomorrow and the next 2 sections are like.

Today’s farm

Wind turbines off, too windy?

Up close, these things are huge!

So beautiful when the sun comes out 

Plenty of undulating hills today

Used to see this in the train into Glasgow, time to pack up my stuff

Miles of roadside bike paths today

Daily dose of cobblestones

River Clyde

We rode along this for miles

Prettiest bridge we saw

Yellow glasses day - really cheers things up on a grey day

Another pretty bridge

So much water in this river

Route 74 almost all the way today

The Hamilton Mausoleum 

Finding ornate ironwork all over

It’s a tandem, and a drying rack

Windy, rainy, gale this morning

Wasn’t a downhill coast to Glasgow

Spanish in Glasgow, Merchant City

Tapas

The statue with the traffic cone on his head, appears overnight, gets removed, appears again - has been going on for years!

Such great architecture in this city

Never seen anything anything like this

Steve’s having none of that

Session IPA, 3.9

Today was a total mix.  As we were eating breakfast (at the motorway services), it was a howling gale outside - trees whipping around, rain, grey skies.  After waiting for things to settle down, we finally left, pedalling out of the parking lot inn the wind and rain.  The rain pretty much stopped by the first roundabout, the wind did not.  We climbed up out of Abington onto the hills with the wind blowing so hard they shut off the wind turbines (i don’t know if that’s really true, but it was windy and they were off).  We were riding along the B7078 on a bike path for about 6 miles.  That area is one of the least populated areas of Scotland and we were headed to one of the most, Glasgow.

We dropped down (actually more like up and down) out of the hills and followed the B7078 and route 74.  As we got into the suburbs of Glasgow, the route became more fiddly with bits of cycle path, then road, then back to cycle path, repeat.  We finally got to the cycle path along the River Clyde and pedalled along that into the centre of Glasgow.  It wasn’t an easy day, longer than we expected and plenty of hills. Found our hotel, the Brunswick, which is right in the Merchant City district and where I lived when I worked in Glasgow. 

Meeting a friend from Scotland, Jon McGrane, for a drink tonight.  Steve and I had two stints working in Glasgow, I worked up there for a year, there was a gap and then Steve worked there for 2years.  Same job same company - funny how things work out.  We both worked with Jon so will be interesting to have a catch up.

Had a lovely tapas dinner and a visit with Jon and now off to bed!

LEJOG Day 21 - Gretna Green to Abington

Woohoo, today is Abington day!  51 miles uphill to a motorway services area motel with no restaurant, no food and no alcohol!  I tried every which way to find an alternative, but there is no where else within miles and miles so this was the only option.  Guess it’s Burger King for us tonight 😬. Weather is rain at 2:00 so we’re heading out early after our morning coffee and 7:30 breakfast.

Crossing and recrossing the train tracks

The Scottish Lowlands starting to appear

Crossing and recrossing the motorway

Misty and rainy - all of today’s pictures 

It says, ‘Yellow Warning, Heavy Rain Forecast

Interesting art…

Heading for Beattock

Not too rainy so far!

Misty up on Beattock Summit, high point for the day

1050 foot climb

Coffee stop in Lockerbie

Today’s climb

We left Gretna and the Solway Firth heading south, but quickly turned north following farm-lined country lanes.  Then we got on the B7076 and that was pretty much it until shortly before Abington.  Watching for the views of the Scottish Lowlands (which looked pretty high to me) in the distance - mostly obscured by the rain and mist, but we did see some.  A short stop in Lockerbie and another ‘sheltered from the rain under a tree’ stop was it for stops.  The cycle lane on the side was often in better condition than the road.  

Not exceptionally clear photos today as the weather was grey, misty and rainy.  The dreaded Abington day was not nearly as bad as it could have been.  This was one I had not been looking forward to for 3 reasons - the climb, the 50 miles in addition to the climb and the heavy rain forecast on top of the climb plus the 50 miles - oh, and staying at a motorway services with only fast food options.  Ugh!

Turns out that it hasn’t been that bad!  The climb was MUCH better than expected, a long gentle climb that we could do all day - no pushing!  The 50 miles - left Gretna at 8:15 and made it to Abington by 1:45, with 2 stops. The heavy rain?  It wasn’t, mostly a gentle misty rain (although it’s a howling gale out there now!).  And finally, the services - the hotel is fine, the verdict on the food is still out.  And here is the latest place the tandem has been stored!

Last Sunday, we were at Six at Nico’s in Manchester.  This Sunday:

An interesting note, checked to see how far it is from Tampa to Portland - 1600 miles, just another 400 more than this trip!  

Steve’s Letters From…

Hello all you LFA’s and welcome to this weeks edition which comes to you “fay bonnie Scotland”. The cycling gods have been good to us and here we are in Gretna which is the first town over the border when coming from Carlisle. 

Last week we effectively completed the North West of England Section including two rest days at home. We are well over half way.

This weeks mission is Southern Scotland which the route we are on classifies as up to Pitlochry which is kind of on the other coast/side ie we go north from here to Glasgow (where there will be a “wee rest day” and playing out in an old stomping ground called Merchant City) then we head roughly north east up to Pitlochry in series of fairly short days alongside Lochs (lakes) and Glens (valleys), supposed to be most scenic part of the trip.

Today we are off to a service area just outside a place called Abington and it’s going to rain proper wetting rain later on, oh and there is a big hill. Doubtful there is a restaurant (other than McDonalds or similar) at the end of it, it may not be possible to buy wine or beer either. There isn’t much enthusiasm for today for some reason 🤔. We are making contingency plans and have a wee bottle of Scotch in the panniers, the assumption being we can find Diet Coke or similar to go with that and a Big Mac. “Suck it Up Buttercup” or “Chose your attitude “ are phrases that come to mind. Better news is my bottom is hardly ever sore now and my legs haven’t stopped aching all together but ache a lot less. Onwards and upwards, have a great week. Steve and Katherine.