Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Can't ask for a much better view than a full rainbow at the top of a grueling MTB climb in beautiful Scotland!!! Life is good!

After very little sleep and nearly 20 hours of traveling, I arrived in Edinburgh where Jaymie had arranged for her friend Andy to pick my up at the airport. I walked through the arrival door and found him stood there waiting for me with a sign with my name on it with the Dirt School logo. I couldn't stop laughing...even though I already knew that my bike had not arrived! I could tell from the first instant that Andy and I were going to get on well!

I filled out the missing bag info and we were on our way to Innerleithen. We arrived in the village after endless laughter and giggles all the way from Edinburgh and promptly went to the pub for some food. After a nice greasy fish and chips lunch, we headed to Alpine Bikes to see about borrowing a rental bike for the day. They hooked me up with a nice Trek and we were off. I had no idea that Andy was taking me on an epic adventure of a ride, but between my jet lag and not so quick climbing abilities, our ride ended up being 4 hours! I was beat, but even though we got hailed and rained hard on, I had a great time and was so glad that we'd managed to get a ride in straight off of the plane!!

Andy is a legend! He has more parlour bike tricks than anyone I know, and his patience with waiting for the slow girl abounds!! I'm pretty darn lucky that Jaymie has such amazing friends who are willing to spend the day entertaining a silly American girl they've never even met before! So, a big thanks to Andy for making sure my first day in Scotland was a really fantastic one. I can't wait for all of the adventures that are still to come...hopefully they will soon involve my own lovely pink Ellsworth Specialist, too!!