Is That Nut Important Lads? Lads? Lads!!!

We headed up to Fort William on Friday afternoon. Team TLDADS travelled in style in one of Stuart's mini-vans and we all lay back watching comedy DVDs and admiring the cracking scenery on the way up. Mark and Lindsay followed behind us with the support vehicle and the bikes. We made good time - thanks to Charlie's driving but I was nearly spewing as he hurtled round the bends.

Arriving at our digs in Benavie, we unpacked and Mark started giving the bikes a quick once over. Having a mechanic in your midst certainly helped. The hostel was literally 50 yards from the registration area at Neptune's Staircase once again confirming my status as 'king of the digs'. Having fixed Stuarts tyre, I suggested to Mark that my pedals were making a clunking sound (technical explanation: when I pedalled, the pedals went clunk). Mark had a look and asked Alan to turn the nut gently. The nut snapped clean off. Everybody went silent, including my trusty mechanic. The heart started going and after several attempts to get someone to speak (Alan was now a whiter shade of pale), Mark assured me that he thought it would hold together. Good enough for me says I and gave it a wee test run....the clunking had stopped. Spent the rest of the night winding up Alan and wondering if he had recently taken out a life insurance policy in my name.

We set off for the Pasta Party and got ourselves registered. I was asked by Murray from Maggie's to go on stage and do a little interview. The best thing about that was that it allowed me to pick out my fellow blogger Jake and I went across to see him when I was finished. Was great to finally meet him after reading all his posts - an absolute gent. A sound friendly guy as his blog suggests and he wished me well and hoped my foot would hold up (Spoiler for the rest of the blog: It did, thanks to a pair of well worn Nike Cortez trainers!).

After the safety briefing, we headed off back to the digs, got the bags packed ready for the cycle and went down the pub....to watch Mark and Lindsay sink the pints whilst we stuck to soft drinks. Probably just as well we were not drinking as Alan nearly collapsed when the barmaid told him how much the round was! Back to the digs for 11am, alarms set for 5am. Apparently it was a frogs chorus of snores all night but I must have been one of the frogs as I was out like a (headtorch) light.