............ Lands end to John o'Groats cycle ride 2014 .........: Day 14, Saturday 13th September 2014

Coylton - Luss

Everyone woke well rested and the night before it was the first time we had eaten out for tea, so everyone was well fed and keen to go on our second 70 mile ride

heading north we rode through Kilmarnock after about 20 miles we crossed into North Ayrshire,

where we came across our first thistle, we pressed on towards Paisley just west of Glasgow

Andy had changed this section of the route several times there are very few places to cross the Clyde river so all the traffic is forced to these pinch points, cycles and busy A road are no fun as we discovered in Blackburn. We followed the quiet roads through Paisley, it was very distracting watching many airplanes just above the houses landing at Glasgow airport.

We were happy we the low volume of traffic as we worked our way through quiet streets, then we passed under a flyover bridge and the Garmin told us to turn but all we could see was a path up to a fast and noisy dual carriageway above us. We looked at all other options and it was our only way to cross the Clyde. We followed the path up to the road above us thinking we would be riding along the edge of a major road to be surprised to find a pedestrian footway and and a 3 metre wide cycleway behind a crash barrier.

We followed the route until we started to cross over the Clyde River on the Erskine bridge, the bridge 45m high, you can see for miles and miles.

Both Jo's were keen to get off the bridge but Andy and Beaky wanted to get some photographs of the view.

After we crossed the Erskine Bridge we had to cross under the bridge and join the Forth and Clyde Canal we wasted a frustrating 30 minutes trying to reach the canal, every route we tried took us in the wrong direction eventually a local told us to follow a track through the woods and sure enough it eventually took us down to the canal. Once on the towpath we made good time.

We left the Forth and Clyde Canal and after a short section of quiet roads we picked up the tarmac tow path on the banks of the river Leven.

At Balloch (stop it) the number of boats moored up is unbelievable, everything from a rowing boat to motor cruiser. We left the river and cycled through the masses of tourist at the Loch Lomond visitors centre, as we left the visitors centre we passed masses of coaches parked in the coach park and its then you realise there must be hundreds more tourists somewhere, as we came back to the edge of the loch its the first time you get a feeling for its size, the loch goes on as far as you can see. we have since discovered Loch Lomond is 24 miles long.

We still had a few miles to ride to the campsite after this photo it it took quite a while as we kept looking at the views of the loch and cottages looking over the loch were amazing, most were holiday lets but i'm guessing they cost more than a tenner a week.
We finally arrived, the campsite was in a woodland setting our tent and the caravan were pitched next to the loch,