87.4 Miles - 7h 06m
Today was thankfully a late start, neither of us were hugely keen to roll out of the actual beds in the bunkhouse and get back on our bikes for more punishment but by 07:30 we had managed to summon up the mental fortitude to get moving.
First port of call was a massive breakfast in the pub that had blessed us with the take away beers last night. Washed down with a bucket of coffee we felt reasonably refreshed considering our night time assault on Scafell and ready for what we knew would be a fairly tough morning of climbing.
With a number of sections over 15% and nearly 2500ft of climbing over the morning we probably weren't quite as prepared as we thought we were... we finally coasted to a welcome stop 30 miles in with a fun decent taking us into the car park of the Sour Nook Inn. With its remarkably unappetizing name it thankfully turned out to be a lovely little country pub. After a proper hour long stop, this was supposed to be a rest day after all, we had inhaled a huge amount of coke, chips and sausages (or a veggie version in Jake's case) and with the warning of shocking weather tomorrow ringing in our ears we pushed on again. As we started we both tried to pretend we hadn't heard the landlady... or seen the forecast on the iPad she gleefully shoved under our noses.
The 30 mile section that followed was one of the most beautiful few hours on a bike I have ever experienced. The weather was warm, but not too warm and we were comfortable and well fed with a good stash of snacks. It also helped that it was mostly downhill to our next stop. The only hiccup was having to wait seemingly forever at a level crossing.
Our next stop was in the almost unpronounceable Ecclefechan in a cracking hotel/pub - The Ecclefechan Hotel - with one of the friendliest landlords I've ever met. We stayed for about 40 minutes while Jake loaded up on painkillers and me on crisps and coke. Both his Achilles tendons having decided today was one day too many and that he could fuck off if he wanted to continue riding... this was thankfully remedied by positioning his cleats further back on his shoes to relieve some pressure on his calves and Achilles, lowering his saddle to compensate and slowly munching his way through a box of ibuprofen.
This was also the section of the ride where we crossed into the third and final country of the trip, which felt pretty bloody good!
Following this we only had another 25ish miles to go for our intended finish in Beattock that evening so we cracked on, with thoughts of a huge pub dinner spurring us on. Arriving in Beattock in the early evening we settled into the Old Stables Inn to recharge both ourselves and our various batteries and were once again welcomed in by some cracking hospitality. The owner of the pub came out to chat with us for a while and when the kitchen was ready we were treated to an awesome meal.
It was while we were here that I made what I would fairly soon be admitting was a no good, very bad decision. I wanted another night with a roof and there was Brattleburn Bothy a mere 4 miles up a the road and a simple couple of miles on a track which looked perfect. Obviously it didn't turn out like that.
The first section on the road was fine, we headed down there just after 20:00 and were expecting to be tucked up by 21:00... we then turned off the main road and onto the track. This, for a while, was a decent if stony single lane road that with a gravel bike or something chunkier would have been fun, with our proper road bikes it was slightly harrowing but not too bad thanks to the 25mm tyres we were both running. It was only after lifting our heavily laden bikes over the second locked gate that things took a real turn for the worst.
The 'track' became a rough line in the grass heading into a fairly foreboding wood. We had bumped into a father and son duo at this point and were making our way as a foursome to the bothy, this also turned out to be a bad idea when they (and to be fair Jake and I as well) miss-read a sign and took a wrong turning which took us about half a mile off route.
Realising our mistake we turned back and found the almost correct way which ended up taking us out one field above the bothy, after having gotten ourselves and our bikes properly muddy. I was a bit grumpy at this point and fed up with the path so shouldered my bike and stormed off directly towards the bothy, through the field with waist high grass. After some faff I successfully located the front door just after 22:00. At which point we realised we had disturbed what was almost a romantic evening for a young couple who were already there...
I was still in a bit of a grump so bumbled upstairs, laid out my kit and went to sleep, trying not to think about carbon monoxide poisoning from the smoke from the two fires in the rooms below and the tiny window we were relying on for oxygen...
