LEJOG Day 12 - Tarbolton to Tarbet

If yesterday was all about hills (did I mention it was hilly?), today was half about the wind. I still had some of the height gained yesterday but my route was mainly in a north/northeast direction and guess where the wind was coming from? It may only have been blowing at about 15mph but it did make the morning quite a slog. The hilly bits also carried on for the first few miles but eventually I had a nice freewheel down into the Central Lowlands and into Paisley, southwest of Glasgow. I worked my way through there to Glasgow Airport and enjoyed watching a couple of planes landing and taking off - but, the wind! Cue photo of windsock. After this I negotiated my way to the Erskine Bridge over The Clyde. It has a cycle path and footpath as well as three traffic lanes (in both directions) and is pretty damned high. I stopped to take a couple of photos but was getting blown around a bit so didn’t stop for long (have I mentioned the wind?). I now picked up a cycle path heading west which followed the route of an old railway (no hills) and with a smooth surface I was cruising along at 16mph. I soon came to a point where my route went back onto some roads to get through Dumbarton but I noticed the cycle path had a finger post suggesting it went all the way to Loch Lomond (todays lunch halt). At that point I had caught up with another cyclist and I asked him for advice - he recommended staying on the cycle path and offered to guide me through the next couple of miles as it went through a couple of housing estates. His guiding was excellent and eventually we reached a bridge over the river Leven. Here he pointed me onto a cycle path (NCN 7) which went all the way to the Loch. Thanking him, I headed off. The track was superb, level and was easy to follow as it tracked the course of the river north. There were loads of cyclists on it ranging from family groups to soloists like myself. On reaching the Loch I met up with Jan at a shopping cum tourist centre called Loch Lomond Shores and we sat outside and had lunch looking at the mountains over the water. If the overcast morning had been dominated by the wind, the afternoon was dominated by sunshine and beautiful scenery. Although I had planned on using the main road (the A82), I was aware of a couple of small roads I could possibly use. Yes! The small roads were actually signposted for cycling combined with a path alongside the road as the West Lomond Way and I had a wonderful, relaxed and very enjoyable almost flat ride all the way up to Tarbet. Here Jan was waiting for me and having packed my bike in the car we drove off my route to our B&B in Arrochar. There’s a lovely view of the sea Loch and a mountain peak called The Cobbler. The ride gets serious tomorrow as we head through the mountains over Rannoch Moor to Fort William - the weather looks good though. Todays stats: Distance: 65.45 miles Avg. speed: 10.7 mph Max speed: 34.7 mph Climbing: 2682 feet Accumulated mileage: 701 miles.