Glencoe Epic

Recently it's not normal for me to describe any of my rides as 'epic', but today's I can safely scribe as one of those, 160km from Oban, round the coast, up Glen Coe and across Rannoch Moor, all in hideous weather. It's also not normal for me to decide to go out in the rain, but I'm on holiday and determined to forget any health problems I've been experiencing this year and get some decent rides in my legs to salvage something from this season, I can't think when I've had the motivation to do that kind of distance by myself before, other than on a foreign touring holiday when I've had to get to one place for a flight home.

Everything seemed to be going pretty well, feeling good in the light rain, but as I hit Glen Coe, I could see the cloud hanging around the top of the glan, tourists seemed quite happy not to venture too far up the hill, taking photo's from the lower car parks, but the top looked dark, cloudy and not particularly pleasant, but no point in turning back, there's plenty more bad weather behind me too. Having hit the cloud and stopped to pull on the goretex another time, as I set off the bike didn't feel too good, on I went and things seemed to be getting 'draggy', the wind was picking up over the drag to the highest point of Rannoch Moor, you could also see your breath and it was getting colder all the time and near the summit a gusty headwind, visibility down to about 200m, like in the werewolf film on the moor. You know when somethings not right and you think, "I've not got a puncture", you bounce the back wheel only to find that's what you have, well it was one of those days, a slow puncture, but a puncture none the less.
So, you have 2 options.
1) Replace the tube
2) Pump it up and hope for the best
I went for option 2, as anybody who's been across that bit of road knows, there's no shelter, so along with it absolutely chucking it down with rain and a freezing wind (+ the werewolves), I wasn't going to be faffing about with fixing a puncture if I could help it. Quick fill with air and on I went, did this another couple of times and eventually made it to the first settlement, Bridge of Orchy, the hotel was serving food and was filled with walkers, I was directed to what must have been the 'cyclists table', it has what looks like waterproof seats, they seemed used to this, so went for the lentil soup and what I assumed would be the biggest dish, fish n chips, plus the obligatory two coffees. All the walkers looked dry, don't think it was nice enough weather for them, but they were dressed in the full clean & dry kit, pretending they were willing to brave the elements. A pair of old motorcycling mates came in, sounded like they'd ridden up from Yorkshire in the last couple of days, they both had bikes (loud ee by gum type conversation) and still had to ride up to Fort William, both sank 2 pints quickly and said "that were better than last one", made me slightly frightened to think how many pubs they'd stopped at, but no accidents on the news tonight, so they must have got there in one piece. Fixed puncture properly after I'd eaten, then off I went.

Set the virtual partner on the Garmin at 30kmh, he beat me back to Oban by 2 minutes, I cracked on the final climb, so not a bad days training on a nasty day, a shorter hilly ride tomorrow afternoon I think, needed an epic today, just to prove I could still do it.