Day 13: 122km
Fort William to Inverness
via Gairlochy, Fort Augustus, Drumnadrochit (Gaelic for Nempnett Thrubwell!)
If yesterday's ride was our most spectacular, then today's scenery was majestic. The scale of the Great Glen is massive: we rode all day beside huge smooth lochs, dotted with ocean-going yachts, linked by wide canals and long, neatly-kept flights of locks; surrounded by the great weathered Caingorm peaks. It felt much more affluent here, compared with northwest England and the agricultural parts of Scotland we've passed through.
Such a surprise, then to stumble across the awful tourist hotspots around Loch Ness - in complete contrast to the grace and natural beauty of the Glen.
Anyway, I know you are dying to know who got the puncture: it was me, on my narrow road tyres on a stretch of canal towpath that had been repaired with very pointy bits of granit gravel. The mountain biker at Fort William told me not to do it. The lock keeper at Clunes who pumped up the new inner tube with his compressor showed me his shredded mountain bike knobblies. Jony, who did most of the pumping-up invited me back onto the canal towpath as soon as we found another stretch. He just wanted to prove that he could repair punctures! I rode the rest of the bumpy bits without sitting on the saddle in the belief that the weight distribution would therefore be more even. I have sore legs but no puncture tonight. Result!
Fort William to Inverness
via Gairlochy, Fort Augustus, Drumnadrochit (Gaelic for Nempnett Thrubwell!)
If yesterday's ride was our most spectacular, then today's scenery was majestic. The scale of the Great Glen is massive: we rode all day beside huge smooth lochs, dotted with ocean-going yachts, linked by wide canals and long, neatly-kept flights of locks; surrounded by the great weathered Caingorm peaks. It felt much more affluent here, compared with northwest England and the agricultural parts of Scotland we've passed through.
Such a surprise, then to stumble across the awful tourist hotspots around Loch Ness - in complete contrast to the grace and natural beauty of the Glen.
Anyway, I know you are dying to know who got the puncture: it was me, on my narrow road tyres on a stretch of canal towpath that had been repaired with very pointy bits of granit gravel. The mountain biker at Fort William told me not to do it. The lock keeper at Clunes who pumped up the new inner tube with his compressor showed me his shredded mountain bike knobblies. Jony, who did most of the pumping-up invited me back onto the canal towpath as soon as we found another stretch. He just wanted to prove that he could repair punctures! I rode the rest of the bumpy bits without sitting on the saddle in the belief that the weight distribution would therefore be more even. I have sore legs but no puncture tonight. Result!
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