Day 2 - Balloch to Ayr 54 miles

Q: How many mechanics does it take to fix a Morris Minor?
A: 4 + 1 imperial spanner!

We woke up to a dry and almost bright day today - the heat in the room from the radiators being on full heat last night made it feel like summer had arrived though!

We headed down to breakfast around 8am and were presented with a very good looking plate of breakfast - not too big and all tasted great and was very well cooked. It set a high standard for the rest of our trip and it's going to take some beating - if anyone reading this should be visiting Balloch, I highly recommend the Balloch House Hotel.

During breakfast a gentleman approached us having overheard our conversation in the bar with the locals last night and gave us £20 towards our cause! It really is amazing how charitable people can be, and that takes our 'stranger donations' to £30.

We took our time a little in departing today, partly because our room was a long walk around the hotel, also because we were waiting until the tourist information centre opened so that we could investigate the cycle path from Balloch to Erskine Bridge (we were advised to use this by the charitable strangers in the bar last night). Once we'd done this and confirmed that the path did indeed exist and would take us to where we needed to get to, we collected the valuables from the room, retrieved the bikes from storage, consulted the map and arranged the day's meeting points.

I was in the saddle first again today, for no other reason than I had my heart rate monitor on and was in a slightly better state of readiness, so I dropped down onto the path and headed south. The path was indeed good, wide and smooth tarmac all the way to Dumbarton, at which point the path left the river and the signs disappeared altogether. After a couple of wrong turns and stops to consult the GPS I found myself under the Erskine Bridge - I just needed to work out how to get up to it. I happened upon a small 'path' sign for the bridge amongst other places so was soon crossing the bridge on the dedicated cycle lane.

Shortly off the other side I dropped down to the Erskine Garden centre where I found Lee with the Moggy's bonnet up - not a good sign, I guessed. It turned out that the windscreen wipers had stopped working - a bit of a problem considering how much we'd come to rely on them over the past two days!

We agreed that Lee should head off in the direction of Ayr on his bike while I attempted to find someone to diagnose our problem and then fill up with fuel... AGAIN!

I headed into Paisley town, knowing this to be a sizeable town, but not so big that I couldn't find my way out again in a hurry. Fortunately I soon stumbled across a garage, I pulled in and asked if they could take a quick look but was told they were too busy at the moment - my newfound faith in humanity, still fragile, started to crumble a little.

I headed back out of town to another garage I'd seen when filling up at a petrol station across the road and explained my problem. I dropped the word 'charity' into my explanation and upon seeing not only the car but also the signs on it, all four of the mechanics set to work - well a couple did, the other two mainly 'supervised'. After a few suggestions to oil this and that, and maybe buy a new motor for the wipers, one guy thought he'd stumbled upon the solution; he disappeared and reappeared with an imperial spanner, tightened a couple of bolts and twenty minutes after arriving I was on my way again with fully functioning wipers - and they wouldn't take a penny off me (my faith in humanity was swiftly restored and increased).

Thanks to everyone at Roadside Vehicle Service in Paisley.

As I was 'in town' and in the right part of town, I decided to pay a flying visit to our Aunt and Uncle a couple of miles away. They were suitably surprised to see me, and we had a quick chat before I set off to catch up with Lee. I wished I could have taken them up their offer of tea and food, but after the late start and the mechanical setback we had some ground to make up.

I caught up with Lee just north of Lugton after he'd cycled 19 miles since Erskine. At this point we decided to abandon dividing the day up into quarters and he headed off to Stewarton to finish his 'stint' for the day. I caught up with him (despite a closed road) at about half past two, so after a quick sandwich we swapped roles and I set about putting the final 19-20 miles behind me.

The ride was very enjoyable, and although nothing really qualified as a climb, it was very 'up-and-down' and was a great workout.

So all that's left for today's update is the 'Smith-o-meter':

NEXT STOP: Annan - 86 miles (longest day of the ride).