Scots trip - 3Ply Stagliano's view on it

You'll have read (or at least vaguely skimmed over) where I've mentioned about Kirby Girl and myself popping off to Scotland for a few days last week, on our bikes. Not to avoid the expected, I shall now commence a bit of a rant about my thoughts on it.

I've been looking forward to going away overnight with my bike for ages. Well, for about two years anyway and that's pretty much since I got into cycling after ignoring it for so long. For about the last year, I've been planning to get away somewhere and always trying to coax Kirby Girl into it. Despite 'penciling in' trips last year, we didn't get away anywhere and it's only last week we've got off our arses, loaded up the bikes (more my bike than anything and not loaded terribly heavily) and gone away. Even at that, it was only a couple of nights staying in Scotland but it was a good tester for (hopefully) longer and more regular future trips.

Thankfully I had no problems to speak of with my new bike. The only thing which was causing a bit of bother is the chain tensioner (if that's the right name for the bit where the jockey wheels live) seems to be poinging off the spokes a bit when it's in its absolute bottom gear. I reckon that's just a matter of adjusting a little screw, to control how far the rear derailleur moves. I'm glad I can get the man in the shop I bought it from to do that as I would make a complete pig's ear of it and probably end up losing the use of many gears over the head of it.

So, where was I? Oh yes, Scotland and our couple of days there. Everything started off marvellously and Kirby Girl seemed to be enjoying herself greatly (partly as I was lugging everything about, I imagine). However, things took a bit of a down-turn when we got to the lovely Mull of Galloway. Kirby Girl appeared to be really bothered by the quality (or lack thereof) of the road there. It's one of those skinny little roads with passing points for vehicles to pull in and let others past and the surface has grass growing on it, potholes a-go-go and a fair sprinkling of loose stone lying around. As I've mentioned before, Kirby Girl had a spill in some loose stone near our home a month or two ago. Although she didn't get hurt badly (just a few cuts and grazes), I think this has shaken her up and the mere sight of loose stone on a road causes a bit of panic in her. She's a perfectly good cyclist and has no reason to fear things like this to the extent she does but, alas, sometimes logic isn't enough to overcome such self-destructive emotions.

From the Mull of Galloway on (throughout the whole three days), I felt Kirby Girl couldn't get entirely at ease whilst cycling. Even off the bike, I thought she was a bit uneasy about the prospect of having to get back on at some point. It's a real shame for her as I'm sure it greatly limited her enjoyment of our excursion and it really didn't have to as she's more than capable of any cycling we did or had planned to do. When she was cycling without this hanging over her head, she appeared to be enjoying herself greatly and very positive about the whole cycling holiday premise. It's sad to see someone enjoy themselves less than they might, simply because of some problem they feel is beyond their control. On a completely selfish level, it cut into my enjoyment of our trip too. Obviously I wanted Kirby Girl to have a great time, get really enthused about it and hardly be able to wait to get away again.

Oh, I thought Wigtown was a bit disappointing. It claims to be the Scottish 'town of books' but the bookshops were primarily a bit grubby and unappealing looking and the town in general was a bit minging. There was a butterfly farm nearby but we didn't get to go into it as it was close to tea time when we were passing it. Maybe some other time...