LEJOG Day 8 - Haltwhistle to Peebles (81 miles)

Today's ride

Firstly I would like to point out, as it has been pointed out to me ahem... Father, I am quite aware there are a number of punctuation errors.  These will be corrected when I'm not knackered 😂😂😂

Today was a miserable day, but we were going to cross the border in to Scotland 😊We awoke to grey skies and rain. What joy. At least I could put my expensive Castelli Idro 2 rain jacket to good use. Super breathable, windproof, waterproof, shake dry and fits in the jersey pocket. A brilliant bit of kit.

As we prepared our bikes we watched everyone leave, splashing their way down the road. Not too much waiting for John this morning and the trio were off.

We looked at the elevation of the ride the previous night, looked relatively easy with three big hills. How wrong we were. The first 40 miles were up and down, up and down. The rain was pouring down as the wind was against us. Bearing in mind that we rode 95 miles yesterday and our legs were quite tired. Today was going to be a ride of very little banter.

Jordan and John riding off

in to the distance 

About 15 miles in we received a phone call from Iain  (team leader) to say that the van had been called back to help Pete with a snapped front brake cable. It maybe possible that we would get the the first feed stop before the van. As we came across everyone that was ahead of us we let eveyone know the news. As it happened we arrived at the feed stop just as the van pulled in to the labyrinth. All was good. A quick check of the forecast showed that the weather was to get better. Removed the wet weather gear and swapped for arm warmers and gilet. Feet were in paddling pools (flooded shoes) so just left them. A quick bite to eat and top up the bidon and we were off to cross the border

The rain did subside and the roads dried out. Sadly the wind swung around from a WNW to a northerly. This meant that to descend off the big hills you had to pedal. No freewheeling today. No rest. We pushed on and stumbled across a sportive that was being held in the area. This at least gave us some targets up the road to chase down. After abut 30 miles our route diverged from the sportive and we were back on our own. Good news though, the next feed stop was due.unbeknownst to us because of the delay from earlier in the day the van was late leaving feed stop 1, plus they needed to take a considerable diversion as they needed some diesel. In short the van was not at the proposed meeting point. We rode on. Psychologically this was a bit of a blow. We were already tired, not having too much fun but looking forward to grabbing a coke and sandwich to help recharge the batteries. No van did give us something to moan about and took our minds off the wind. Fortunately John had a small stash of chocolate bars in his back pocket. These were shared out but didn't help our water situation. As we hadn't seen the van and the van had seen us we phoned Iain to let him know that we were OK and not to send out the search party.

Jordan and John riding off

in to the distance 

Luckily a few miles on and before the next big hill we found a pub! Cokes and millionaires shortbread all round

Water bottles topped up we climbed the last hill and Peebles was in sight. We arrived at the hotel and were able to check in. Day done 😊

On this trip I've been sharing a room with Dave. In this time we've become good room buddies, but I do draw the line at this!

All in all a difficult day and glad to have it behind us.

In other news from the day. Rachel's reaction to the bee sting is loo,ihg much better, although her headset needs some attention. Dave's heart did it's thing twice today. This required him to have a lay down. The second occasion was in a cemetery 😂😂 Good news, Kash turned up today and will be rejoining the ride tomorrow.

Tomorrow we head for Edinburgh and the Forth bridge. Only 68miles and gentle undulating terrain. A day to stretch the legs maybe. Jordan certainly will.