Today would turn out to be a real test for Sam and he responded in his usual way of complaining constantly and really getting on my nerves throughout. Tantrums were thrown over a number of things, often the state of his bike or the weather and occassionally something new to blame things on. By the evening, after 80+ miles into the wind and through the worst day of the trip he was still plodding on and showing no signs of giving up, in fact he sped up in the last 10 miles while I was slowing down. It was a little before Perth that I knew for sure he would get round the full 5 weeks. Before this I was very sceptical fearing that shoddy preperation would cause him to breakdown at some point. If there was a time to do it then today was that time, but it never quite happened so for the first time I didn't feel that I was going to have to do some of this alone.
*The street in New Lanark where we stayedWe were away from the hostel just before 9am but stopped at a level crossing just outside Lanark to wait for 4 trains in total over a period of about 15 minutes. We were taking the A706 towards Forth and this road turned out to be one of the crappest roads on the whole trip. While the road shook us about the wind slowed us down and by the time we reached Forth we were getting quite cold as well. The town of Forth, or at least the bit we saw, was possibly the biggest dump we saw over the 5 weeks so I grabbed some sarneys at the petrol station and we headed up the B715 and stopped at Climpy in the shade of some trees. Sam had cold feet due to white socks and well-ventialted cycling shoes so I lent him some inner socks to help. His cold hands were more of a pain because I had to lend him my inner-gloves just as I was about to wear them for the first time. Better cold hands than constant complaing though and when Sam gets cold he gets very slow, a little counter-productive maybe, and we were not getting anywhere fast.
It was getting a little warmer as we reached Armadale, but of course things were going too well and Sam's tyre developed a hole which we had to stop to fix. I rang John McGarva of Tryst Brewery at this point to tell him that we were simply not going to make it to our arranged visit. Time was ticking by and progress was still slow while we still had to negotiate Falkirk and Stirling on our way through the urban belt that stretches between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Soon enough we were in Falkirk and we made it through without too many dramas. It probably wasn't the quickest way through, I really have no idea what route we took, but I found a way out and we were heading towards Stirling on A9 finally able to make decent time. On this stretch the wind was cutting across us and didn't to as much damage as it had earlier, but conditions were still far from perfect. I let Sam go ahead here as I stopped on the side of the road to adjust a few things, telling him to turn off right on the roundabout 5 miles up onto the A91. Fortunately I caught him up 30 yards after he had missed the turn. The great thing about the next week or so would be the lack of roads and therefore less need for constant navigating.
We stuck to the A91 and followed it alongside the Ochil Hills on our way to Alva. The wind was now coming right at us and it was a tough stretch of road as a result. We found Harviestoun Brewery without too much difficulty and pulled in for a much needed stop. I rang Bridge of Allan brewery to tell them that we were not going to make it. Two breweries missed out in one day was annoying, in fact of the 8 Scottish breweries that we could have gone to we only managed 3 in the end. Fortunately the three that we did see were very good.
Harviestoun is owned by Caledonian but while the parent company deal with the marketing side it seems that they leave the Harviestoun team to brew as they feel fit. It makes sense because Harviestoun make some of the very best beers in the country and easily surpass Caledonian's brews (not that they are bad or anything). We met Yorkshireman Stuart Cail, the head brewer, and he proceeded to show us around the establishment. After talking to Stuart for half an hour my head began to hurt - there was a lot of info to take in and I was in no fit state to do so. Stuart obviously knew his trade inside out and we would have learnt plenty if a little less knackered. We tried the bottled versions of 'Bitter and Twisted' and 'Old Engine Oil' and were suitably impressed, well I was anyway, Sam looked as though he wanted to either go to sleep or go home but he did appear to enjoy the second beer. 'Old Engine Oil' is a 6%, strong, dark and very smooth beer and is frankly the exact type of beer I was hoping to find. Not a tough decision to make award it our 'bottled beer of the trip' award, although there would be others that took our fancy later on as well. (Click the Harviestoun link to go to their page as usual)
We left Harviestoun for once last stretch into the wind for about ten miles. The juction onto the B934 arrived eventually and we finally given some protection from the wind as we climbed steadily over the Common of Dunning. After a really crap day for the most part with too much traffic, weather and other annoying obstacles we were able to enjoy this stretch to some degree and although the conditions were not great they were certainly better. Would have been even better if we didn't end up winding around in cirles and adding 3 or 4 miles to our route after Dunning, but we made it to Perth with out too many dramas and were happy that the toughest day was probably behind us now.
We couldn't find a suitable eatery in town so picked up some fish and chips and headed for the campsite at the racecourse. It was about 9pm as we finally sat down to eat. My cheeseburger was deep-fried so we couldn't mistake which part of the world we were in. It wasn't long before we fell asleep this night, I don't remember anything after laying getting into my sleeping bag.
Day 13 review
Mileage - 98
Breweries visited - 1
Pints drunk - 6
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