West Highlands of Scotland tour, Day 1, London to Helensburgh

Who thought a 6am start was a good beginning to our trip to Scotland?.....
An early morning ride up through the south west suburbs of London was actually a really enjoyable trip, with traffic levels way down on normal ( what is normal now?) and we arrived at Euston in plenty of time for our train to Glasgow.
We loaded our bikes and settled into our socially distanced seats fully masked up, looking not like cyclists but more like people ready to hold up the London to Glasgow express. Welcome to the new normal!!

The weather gods did not like the fact that we were going to Scotland, and to say that the forecast was dire is underselling it somewhat!!

The rain poured down on the train for big chunks of our journey, and we arrived in Glasgow to........sun!! Well at least a small glimpse greeted us before the clouds re-appeared. We set off following the cycle path along the banks of the Clyde for a few miles, until we hit the badlands (and appalling roads) of Clydebank, where we eventually picked up the NC7 cycle route.

5 miles out of Glasgow and the first rain of the day arrived and the rain jackets went on. This was to be the first of several short but sharp showers, none of which lasted more than a few minutes.

The NC7 followed an old railway line for a few miles and then onto the towpath of the Glasgow and Clyde canal. This took us under the massive Erskine Bridge, past Bowling Basin and on towards Dumbarton, where we stopped for tea and cake.

Refreshed and re-fuelled we pushed on along the cycle path along the banks of the River Leven until we reached Loch Lomond. A brief stop for some photos, and then onto NC40 which would lead us straight on to our nights stop in Helensburgh.

The days weather forecast had started out looking grim, but ended up being much more benign than we had expected and prepared for....3 or 4 heavy but brief showers were the extent of the rain, and virtually all of the ride on extremely good quality cycle paths, probably no more than 5 miles in total on actual roads.

To cap a great start to our adventure, the sun came out for the last half an hour or so, and we rolled down the hill into Helensburgh in glorious late afternoon sunshine....a fabulous end to our first day.
31 miles in total , with 1350 feet of climbing....surely more testing days to come.

More photos to follow.