Everyone in great spirits as it’s fancy dress day – as if all the lycra wasn’t bad enough, women’s clothing wigs and make up were taken on with a worrying amount of enthusiasm. Bondy looks very fetching in his pink knickers – or is it we’ve been away from the WAGs for too long.

Having successfully negotiated the 133km to Dumfries we thought the hard work was over. Little did we know that the 107km to Lanark would be almost all uphill, into a north wind on lumpy roads. Bondy put his head down and ground his way along with Pierre and Shelly for inspiration, while Ray was on the end of a Bozo beasting which added to the pain. The ride into the hotel ended with a 1.5 mile steep downhill which was welcome at the end of the day, but also filled with trepidation as it was clearly 50:50 whether we had to ride back up it in the morning.

The glory boys (Andy NIcol, Gavin Hastings and John Inverdale) arrived at the hotel in advance of the international invasion of Edinburgh the next day.  Awards as well as a very long list of fines were given out at dinner. Ray received his second fine of the tour – as Shelly went past the Chuckle Brothers she rode out of the saddle to give the guys a Spearmint Rhino moment.  Normally she would have received the fine, but the Brothers were charged with excessive and over enthusiastic voyeurism and all 14, including Sister Mel took a tequila.

Each team leader awarded a yellow jersey to a member of their team.  Pierre, with only Mike in his team resisted the temptation to award it to himself and gave it to Bondy. The main benefit of the award was the winner could nominate a bitch – Bondy chose the bus driver so no fears of that hill for him.

The start….

…. the finish!