Mud, Sweat & Gears by Ellie Bennett

Author:Ellie Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Summersdale Publishers Ltd
Published: 2011-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

At Carsphairn we took a break and had a look around the village churchyard. There was a memorial there to the McAdam family and a tablet commemorating John Louden McAdam, the famous road improver who gave his name to Macadam, later developed into tar-bound macadam, or tarmac for short, although McAdam’s actual tomb is in Moffat Cemetery. I wondered what he would think of the state of some of the roads we had cycled on over the past few weeks. Turning somersaults in his grave, no doubt. As we travelled up the country we realised many roads were in a dreadful state, and a constant vigilance was vital to avoid falling into holes in the road. What was also noticeable was that it was often the patched up sections that failed most frequently – I considered suggesting to the Department for Transport that they desist from allowing roads to be patched up with a substance that had the appearance and consistency of black blancmange.

From here we were on the A713 and the traffic was faster, though not too heavy, until we turned off near Polnessan. We crossed the border into Ayrshire and the landscape changed from pine forested hills to flat open fields. By now we had cycled about 60 miles and were feeling weary. We decided Stair might be a good place to aim for, for no other reason than a woman in the garage where we stopped for a coffee said she had heard that they did good food at Stair Inn. When we got there we hated it. The feeling was evidently mutual. It was a ‘foodie’ pub and the bar staff were disdainful and unfriendly, evidently unimpressed with our dinner attire of muddy trousers and oily panniers. We had a swift pint sat outside, huddled on a bench next to the road, and then hightailed it on to Tarbolton, where the guidebook marked a campsite. We detoured for a couple of miles, only to find the campsite was no more and the two pubs in the village were both pretty dire. We decided to cycle on and to stop at a campsite or bed and breakfast, whichever came first.

For more than an hour there was nothing. Finally, on the outskirts of Troon we came across a B & B and knocked on the door. By now we were both looking distinctly grubby and dishevelled. At first I thought there was no one in, as there was no response to our knock. Feeling somewhat desperate by now, I knocked again, more forcefully this time. There was a very long wait. Eventually a woman came to the door, looked at us and said that she was full, which was odd because there were no cars in the car park. We thanked her anyway and headed into the centre of Troon.

Mick suggested a camping spot that he said was brilliant – beautifully flat and with a useful pole for hanging our things on.

‘Yeah, looks splendid Mick,’ I said, ‘but

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