{"id":1754,"date":"2019-06-06T20:36:29","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T20:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bikebums.com\/?p=1754"},"modified":"2019-06-06T20:37:14","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T20:37:14","slug":"a-wee-drizzle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikebums.com\/index.php\/category\/2019\/a-wee-drizzle\/","title":{"rendered":"A wee drizzle"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Pierre and I left Erin on Loch Lomond, we climbed up into a gorgeous glen that led us to Loch Katrine, which is encircled by a private road open to bicycles. This meant we had about 10 amazing, nearly car free, miles to ride around the loch. But not before we had full Scottish breakfast – complete with vegetarian haggis – at the small cafe on the loch. Best of all, it stopped raining and warmed up enough that we were just in shorts and t-shirts – Even had to wear shades!<\/p>\n

Full veggie Scottish, with veggie haggis and sausage and a big ol’ hunk of fried cheese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
MacDonald gravesite on Loch Katrine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We then caught back up with a national cycle route, which took us on car-free paths up though a series of lochs and glens, until we set up camp at a nice campsite on a river. We’ve become acquainted with the infamous Scottish midges, tiny little biting flies. They don’t itch like mosquito bites, but there are so many<\/em> that they are extremely annoying. Also their bites leave little red welts so now our calves look like a connect-the-dots book.<\/p>\n

The next morning the rains had returned, and we had a very wet ride to the town Erin was staying in. The first half wasn’t so bad, as we were still on bike paths – mostly an amazing rail trail high up on the edge of a valley – but once we had to rejoin traffic it was a little nerve wracking. British roads, even the major ones, are pretty narrow and almost never have shoulders. Most of the traffic gave us plenty of room as they passed – it seems that most drivers are used to dealing with obstacles in the road, but it was still pretty stressful. Luckily, we found a nice pub to take refuge in, and I decided to go ahead and try real haggis – it kinda tastes like my grandma’s cabbage rolls.<\/p>\n

Pierre conquers the rail trail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Glenogle viaduct<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Haggis, neeps, and taters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We met up with Erin in Tyndrum, home of the famous Green Welly stop, and decided to get a hotel to dry out. Words cannot describe the smell a hotel room gets with three wet cyclists drying out their gear.<\/p>\n

This morning was again drizzly, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. We had a great ride up to Glencoe, a really beautiful valley that is probably featured in every movie you’ve seen in the Scottish highlands. We stopped at the ski resort to warm up a bit, and the weather really started improving, so Erin and I rode the lift up to get some better views. We had a glorious ride down through the glen, and by the time we reached the sea loch at the bottom, there were blue skies and the sun was shining.<\/p>\n

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This looks familiar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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We took a ferry to the less-trafficy side of the Loch, made dinner on the beach, had a pint at a pub, and now are wild camping on a little green patch on the shore beneath a waterfall – what a great day!<\/p>\n

Bikes, beers, and blue skies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Pierre and I left Erin on Loch Lomond, we climbed up into a gorgeous glen that led us to Loch Katrine, which is encircled by a private road open to bicycles. This meant we had about 10 amazing, nearly car free, miles to ride around the loch. But not before we had full Scottish … Continue reading “A wee drizzle”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-80"],"geo":{"latitude":56.7369232,"longitude":-5.2538791,"description":"Caol and Mallaig Ward, Scotland, PH33 7BF, GB"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikebums.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikebums.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikebums.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikebums.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikebums.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1754"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bikebums.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1769,"href":"https:\/\/bikebums.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754\/revisions\/1769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikebums.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikebums.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikebums.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}