Day 11 - Onich to Alness

With the precision of a swiss watch (30 mins behind schedule) the finely tuned team set off from Onich, in light showers and a breeze on their backs. Setting a fast paced team time trial up past Fort William along the A82 towards Loch Ness. We stopped in Fort Augustus for lunch where Scotty got ripped off in Scot's cafe - £2 for 2 slices of toast. This was shortly followed by the sound of gunshots echoing around the car park in the vicinity of our support van - apologies to the Highlands and Islands armed response, Matty was a bit over enthusiastic on bike pump and blew up 3 innertubes in a row.

Out from Fort Augustus the boys followed the undulating road alongside Loch Ness before turning left at Drumadrochit and then right to Beauly climbing up the mother of all hills (1 in 15), even Neil had to go down to his small front cog. But Al got the king of the hill with a classic sprint finish to sneak it on Andy who he'd followed all the way up. Coming down the otherside saw speedo's hitting 46 mph as we headed down towards Beauly, where we stopped for tea and cake and met up with Mike Bond, Neil's mate and a triathlete from Highlands and Islands Fire Service. Meanwhile Paul had dropped into to Highlands & Islands Fire Service HQ at Inverness where he caught up with our x-Merseyside colleague Tony Woods, now Deputy Firemaster for Highlands and Islands.

Later Tony and Sue Woods caught up with the boys as they sprinted towards the finish, hitting 28mph on the flat with Alness in sight, and Sue getting some moving action shots on her camera. We pulled over for a chat, thanks for all the well wishes - great to see you both looking so well! Finally we arrived at the Kincraigh House Hotel where a tired bunch of cycling were warmly welcomed by friendly staff at a very fine hotel, missing those Travelodges.... NOT!!!!!