Day 5 - Perth to Edinburgh

Distance: 43.3 miles
Elevation: 1839 ft
Average speed: 11.6 mph
https://www.strava.com/activities/2439340695


Ride report:

Day 5 of 15, a third of the way through the trip - seems like time for a "rest day". Except, with time limited by the amount of leave I could feasibly take, and a planned trip to France with friends at the end of the month, we've gone for a short day rather than a day of no cycling at all.

After a bit of a lie-in and a good cooked breakfast, we left Perth at about 10.30am.  Navigating out of the city was interesting, but with only a couple of very short bits of accidental dual carriageway, we were soon out into the countryside.

Such different surroundings to the Highlands!
Noticing that there was a cycle route signposted to Kinross, where we'd be meeting Mum for coffee, we decided to follow that instead of the route I'd planned and loaded on the Garmin.

Oops.

The road very soon "rose up to meet us" and once the gradient hit 10% we were both off and walking - as the signposts said that the road was "walking and cycling friendly", we thought we'd better check both!

Halfway up the hill - I think we have a different definition of "friendly"!

Once we finally reached the top, a short descent took us back to my original route, and this time when the little blue cycle route sign pointed off in a different direction, we didn't fall for that again! The wind had definitely picked up today, and so we took it in turns hiding behind the other for a break.

Dropping into Kinross, our intended coffee shop was easily located by the bright yellow bike on the wall outside - a decent sign that they'd be amenable to a couple of slightly sweaty, lycra-clad cyclists!

Without turning this into a tour of Great Britain's coffee shops, today's stop at the Unorthodox Roasters in Kinross was truly excellent - really good coffee that went beautifully with the rich brownies and left a lovely nutty aftertaste - highly recommend it.

Today's "sports nutrition"

Having already climbed most of the elevation I'd forecast for the day, we hoped for an easier time of it as we left to head towards Inverkeithing and the famous bridges over the Firth of Forth.

We had a brief stop in Cowdenbeath where we re-routed around some roadworks - although not the prettiest town we've visited, they had put the flags out for us!

Cowdenbeath bunting
We soon reached the North Queensferry area, where all three bridges (Forth Bridge, Forth Road Bridge and Queensferry crossing) start. As they're doing maintenance on the Forth Road Bridge, it was closed to pretty much all traffic except buses and bikes -it was like having a private bridge across the river!

Near-deserted bridge for us to cross!
As it was so quiet, we had plenty of time to dawdle across being engineering nerds at both the impressive bridges and the ships/boats on the river below. Reaching Edinburgh feels like a bit of a milestone on the trip - not long until we'll be leaving Scotland altogether!

Bridge selfie! Made it to Edinburgh. Note also the sunshine!
We had a slight hiccup as we reached Edinburgh where my route took us to the wrong hotel! Whoops. Still, we'd got this far without going too wrong, so I couldn't be too annoyed at myself. With some creative re-routing, we made our way a little further into Edinburgh along a cycle path by the A8 - much less picturesque and relaxing than most of the scenery to date!

Although it was supposed to be a "short" day, it was still 5pm by the time we got here, as we'd not really been pushing the speed today. With slightly more distance and climbing tomorrow, we're looking forward to a slightly quieter route!

As always, you can find Dad's trip notes, and our sponsorship page here:
www.virginmoneygiving.com/andyhouse

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