drumlanrig bike ride

today we went down to Drumlanrig castle to go for a bike ride, they've got numerous trails throughout the ground which are colour coded to show the experience level you need - they have loads of green ones (novice level) so we thought it'd be perfect.

We first started getting sorted to go at just before 11... Paul was attaching the new bike rack to the tow bar just to discover that there was a wiring fault and only half the lights were working... so he had to do some digging about and eventually found that there was a connection (or something) not wired together properly actually within the car.

So eventually, gone 12, we set off.

now I don't know if it's just me, but there seems to be roadworks EVERYWHERE in ayrshire at the moment, so we got held up at a fair few of those, then we got to this wee village called Kirkconnel just in time for the only road through being shut off for Gala Day... literally if we'd been there 30 seconds earlier we would have got through! instead we were stationary for the best part of half an hour waiting for the parade to go up the main street, turn and come back down again.

so, after over an hour after we set off, we eventually arrived at the castle.

by this time, my fuse was already pretty worn.

Caelan was bearly out the car a couple of minutes, had begun carrying on, tripped over his bike and very closely avoided giving himself a castration with a pedal! instead he ended up with quite a spectacular graze along the top inside of his thigh.

Well I just about blew, I feel horrible about it in hindsight, but everything had been going wrong all morning and I just really couldn't take any more, so I hauled him up and dragged him to the car so at least he wasn't wailing in the full view of the public!

quick patch up and he was good to go.

Paul chose the trail we'd be following, supposedly mainly flat with 1 short sharp incline.

1 short sharp incline my arse!

we must have walked the first km because it was too steep for Caelan to pedal up, we eventually reached a flat and Caelan fell off 3 times within the space of about 30m, then came ANOTHER uphill bit, so off the bikes again and pushing....

eventually came to a downhill and despite being told to use his brakes, he didn't and ended up going head first into the banking at the side which is overgrown with weeds and thorns.

so we were back to the walking, again.

got to one of the wee lochs there and had a sit down so Caelan could have a snack, he was still moaning incessantly about his hand and we eventually found he still had a teeny tiny thorn still stuck in it from when he'd landed in the banking.

after a wee sit down, we carried on - on a flat, actually on our bikes.

and then we came to ANOTHER hill.

by this point i was just about ready for heading back, I'd really just had about enough as I could cope with. Novice trail my arse, ok it's been a while but I'm no novice when it comes to bikes and even I was struggling with the inclines!

we eventually got to a part of the trail which is private road which was downhill, and so for the last 3km or so I think we did actually ride most of it back to the car park, and to be fair, Caelan did really very well, considering he's not been riding without stabilisers for very long.

I think I'd chilled out a bit by this time, thankfully! I had a wee sit down in the sun while Paul took Caelan and Kieren to the gift shop.

when they came back we decided to go for another wee ride, just down the castle drive to the road and back, but it still took us about a half hour due to it being slightly uphill all the way back up and the fact that the castle had just closed so there was a pretty steady stream of cars coming towards us.

eventually all sorted and got into the car to head back home, Paul was driving pretty fast (within the limit, but mind these are windy country roads!), esp around the corners - now considering I had that spin just over a week ago, my nerves are still a little tattered from the experience, so I had a white knuckle grip on the door handle and arm rest, thankfully Paul noticed and did actually slow down a fair bit. we got home in 1 piece, fit to fight another day.

AND since I got my new seat my arse doesn't hurt, which is good considering my legs and abdominals are still really sore after Zumba on thurs and fri!