Day 11 - 27th July 2002

A comfortable night and a decent breakfast set us up for a relatively short route to Glasgow on another cloudy, cool day. We continued very much as we had yesterday on the bike route following the old A74, some of which hasn't been the main road for many years, though the surface only deteriorated as we neared Glasgow. in fact almost all the worst roads we encountered were around Glasgow.

The going was pretty flat and easy early on, before we enjoyed a long easy drop into the Clyde Valley after riding through Larkhall. The Glasgow conurbation really began as we rode into Hamilton, but traffic was acceptible and the one way system easy to navigate. Next we stopped in Uddingston, at a bike shop looking for some replacement spokes as Mark had used our supply the night before. They didn't have anything suitable, but we took the chance to get some food from a nearby store so we wouldn't have to stop in the city.

Steeper climb towards Ruchazie

Our route continued on the old A74 well into Glasgow before turning north through Shettleston (taking a slight detour with a wrong turn that required a little zig-zagging to get back on route) and climbing to Ruchazie where we turned east again to follow the M8. All the while there was little traffic (Tim had planned carefully) but we got a glimpse of a less pleasant part of the city past Garthamlock before reaching an area Tim was very familiar with. An easy ride through a huge new housing estate at Robroyston brought us into Bishopbriggs and Tim's parent's house.

It was only about 2pm so there was plenty of time to unpack, shower and do a couple of much needed laundry loads before heading for the Glasgow train to get some shopping done (and feed the kids junk food) before returning to Bishopbriggs to meet up with a friend, Sheeny, for another curry, but Tim added some excitement by putting the group on the wrong train home. When the guard on the train pointed out the mistake (while Tim pretended to be a lost American and not someone who'd taken the same train almost every day for 5 years) we got off, luckily very close to Sheeny's apartment. We soon met up with him, taxied to Bishopbriggs and enjoyed another large helping of Indian food. Even the kids tried out the food and were actually impressed.

Once home we spent some time rationalizing the loads: i.e. dropping off a lot of crap we didn't need!