This isn’t exactly the group shot we were picturing, but at least there are four happy faces here:
The forecast yesterday was for a likely chance of rain, so we got our earliest start of the trip. Amazingly, Sue told us later that it rained pretty good in Innerleithen about an hour after we left, but we didn’t experience any until we were very close to the end (and it was a 39+ mile/5 hour day)!
There were two decent climbs in the first part of the ride, but neither were too strenuous, especially after the previous day. Here are my teammates cruising up the first one:
The clouds were building early, which makes for good photos, but we didn’t feel like we could stop and enjoy the views much. Here’s what it looked like from the saddle, as we approached the first summit:
We did stop for a snack just over the top, and had a nice view of some huge wind turbines, a common sight in Europe.
As we went up and over the second (and last; hooray!) summit, we were greeted with a gorgeous view to the north, with Edinburgh in the far distance. I guess you’ll have to take my word for it, as it’s pretty hard to see from this photo ;-}
There were so many spectacular little spots like this along the way:
As I said earlier, it wasn’t until we got within about 7 miles of Edinburgh that we could see rain coming our way (and hear the thunder), but it really didn’t do much more than sprinkle on us. I think we all felt like we were dodging bullets.
We pulled up to the bike shop as the sun was breaking out of the clouds, and met back up with Sue soon after we arrived back at the hotel. We got settled, showered, and headed out for one last sweet evening in the city with the four of us.
It has been so great having this much time with them on this trip! Due to Sue’s travails, as we bid each other adieu after dinner, we all agreed that we have to plan another trip sometime soon.
As they began their long journey home early this morning, we were able to sleep in a bit for a change. I’ll post about our day sometime tomorrow, probably after we’ve arrived at my sister Deborah and her husband Peter’s home in Devon (southern England).
