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Flatter terrain?
It is a nice feeling when you climb out of bed, and the punctured tyre which you spent an hour fixing is still inflated.
Especially when it took me the most of Murphy's Law to get it upto 65psi.
I think this is the 1st place that provides Breakfast from 8.00 onwards. That is what you get when you stay
in a tourist centre such as Edinburgh. So with a promise of an early start I had breakfast and got packed.
All worked out very well the lady who ran the hotel showed me where I was, and the route to get to the A7.
Things had gone well last night, the room had full central heating, and so I had managed to wash and get all my
clothes dry. I also spent 3 hours on their PC getting my web pages upto date, and planning my route.
I set off at 9.30 with a clear idea of where I was going; follow the road to the end, turn right and follow it
round onto the A7. It is funny because in reality it is never so simple. Roads appeared that weren't on the map, and
roads that should be there weren't. But after what seemed like an eternity I was heading out of Edinburgh. (They must
have run out of sign money, because normally at T junctions they give you a clue as to whether to turn left or right, but
not in Edinburgh.) I had one moment when I forgot I was north of Jedburgh and nearlly had a melt down when I saw a sign
to Jedburgh, but I came to me senses before I turned around.
Once on the A7 everything was straight forward. I thought about trying to find some smaller B roads, but in the end
the A7 wasn't too busy, and I was happy to cycle along it.
It is a long drag out of Edinburgh, slow and up hill but once I reached the summit it was long and gentle descent that
went on for miles. The A7 follows the bottom of a river valley and I must have free wheeled along for over 15 miles,
with the ocassional hill to climb.
The countryside was a mixture of rivers, trees and open valleys, very much like the
land much further north and again the day was very sunny; I have some very good weather so far, but again there was a cold and
strong breeze that seemed to angle across me. On some of the high speed parts, I got very cold. This wind was normally
behind me or across me, but occasionally as the road followed the valley it would be straight into my face. This made me
huff a bit.
The going between Galashiels and Selkirk was basically flat, I came across of my old favourites "Route 1", but it went off
in the wrong direction, but it did lead me onto a nice cycle path which tracked the A7.
At Selkirk the path returned to the road, I was left fighting it out with the lorries and cars. I had hoped that once out
of Edinburgh the ground would flatten out, and that I could increase me speed. This all went into meltdown when I hit Selkirk.
The town is like a helta-skelter in reverse. My legs flew around as circled the town at 4 miles per hour, before the road
chose a direction, and continued to ascend for a further 7 miles. The only grace was that it was one hell of a ride into
Hawick, touching 35mph at times.
At you can imagine by now I was pretty tired, and my legs were very sore. I had covered just under 53 miles. I slowed
right down as I entered the town, determined not to miss the sign for the first hotel, hostel or B+B. The one with my name
lept out at me and by 17.00 I was showered and watching Britains Best Cook ( I arrived at 16:15 ).
The town is very small, with just one of everything, including one curry house. It seemed nice and so I had my tea there.
I did stay off the beers, having just one, but I probably did eat to much. My diet could be in trouble. I also located a bike
shop to get some chain oil from. The bike developed a nasty squeek when climbing some of the last hills.
That was it really. Another cracking day, with good weather, and I was chuffed that I covered the 53 miles I needed
to.
Speak to you tomorrow Phil
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