Ride Across Britain Day 6 into Scotland

---

We were off again just after 7:00 to continue our journey north and enter Scotland. It was also one of the simplest routes we had to follow: get to Gretna Green, turn on to the B7076 and that was that. We were blessed again with tail winds and no really steep gradients; in fact unless you had a Garmin a lot of the main 20 mile climb was not perceivable. However we did not have it all our own way as the road surface was terrible.

We had 100 miles of being shaken to bits. It made hands hurt, feet went numb and it made my shoulders really hurt. With hindsight I should have used a wider 25mm tyre and run it at a lower pressure. The scenery was amazing and it did take your mind off the road surface. We were treated to another pit stop experience: as we left the second stop at Crawford the local school was out on the roadside cheering us on. It bought a lump to the throat.

We made it to our overnight stop at Hamilton early afternoon and for the first time I felt I had proper time to recover. This was needed as the next day was going to be a monster. Total mileage 103.3, 3,823 feet of climbing 06:27:47 riding time.

---