To Aberfoyle and Back - 200Km DIY - 23 December 2019

I'd been mulling over route options that stayed low and didn't climb much.
I'd been mulling over whether 3xRRTY was worth heading out again.
I'd not bothered to sort out the Mavic rear wheel until the Hunt snapped a spoke.
I didn't have a wheel for the Focus.

So it started, I wasn't massively up for the ride, my trusty Dawes Sardar hauled out from the back of the garage to stand in once again for a broken bike. I did briefly mull using the Synapse but that would have meant reduced carrying capacity and so more shop spending.

I hadn't used the Sardar since the Rannoch 210Km from Forfar last summer (2017) so gave it a shakedown on Saturday on my usual short route, being reminded in the process just how slow and heavy it was, I scratched around for the flattest possible route and having decided that any new route would involve risking navigational issues hauled out the significantly over distance "Aberfoyle and Back" route.

The route is a basic out and back, from Home to Auchterarder,  on through Dunblane to Doune then Thornhill and Aberfoyle, a nice simple 210km round trip; unfortunately that doesn't allow for avoiding the A9 which takes me out of Auchterarder on the Braco road, along to Kinbuck and then down into Dunblane, adding another 8km to the total.

First photo of the day, Braco

To assist with enthusiasm the weather forecast was promising, 5C overnight and into the day, decent cloud cover to trap some heat in.  I woke as usual to the Kraftwerk alarms bounced out of bed, breakfasted, got dressed and looked out the door...

After a sharp intake of breath forced by the frigid air that hit me I stepped out and obtained the Sardar from the garage I had it loaded up so only needed to set the computers and wheel it out the drive way onto the glistening road.  Early progress was slow and I passed the submitted start point at 0640.

My first major problem presented itself immediately after leaving the influence of the village's street lighting, I'd used a bad benchmark when setting the light angle and instead of a nice beam on the road I had a nice view of the top of my bar bag and a dim light on the road, thankfully enough to make out the edges. What was worse was that I couldn't get a grip on the tightener in order to adjust it so was stuck with it.

I started to feel wheel slip in places on the Gauldry climb, unseen ice waiting to catch me out. By the summit of the climb at Muir Dens I was below the required average of 14.3kmh, being slow up here is nothing normal, and usually I can claim a fair bit back on the descent of the tay coast road but with poor lighting and ice around I had to ca canny.

Despite taking care at the bottom of a dip my comfort braking was overtaken by the slippy conditions and I crunched along through the ice thankfully without enough squirm to land me on the deck.

Sheriffmuir from the Braco road

Much relief was felt on arriving at Newburgh and the A912 was both quiet and thankfully clean of hazzard. With light appearing in the sky I daftly chose the Dron route to Kintillo and returned myself to a skating rink but again got away with it with the improving visibility helping.

The Dunning road was thankfully pretty clear and I was passing the Maggie Wall monument when I felt the bike sliding down the ridges in the tar, I'm not sure if this was ice or if it was just the low speed and fat tyres make more obvious than normal but none the less it was disconcerting.

Auchterarder was busy and I was glad when I made it up onto the Braco road and stopped at the summit for a roll. With some heat in the sun now and the roads not bad I was able to make decent time and my average was now climbing nicely with over 17Kmh on the clock. I decided to give the shorter route I'd spotted to the Doune road a miss in these conditions and cracked on through Kinbuck and Dunblane with it's annoying one way system.

Braeval shrouded in cloud, but my target is in sight!

The A820 was as usual pretty quiet to Doune where I turned onto the Thornhill road, eventually the Laich of Mentieth appeared to my left and in the clouds ahead was Braeval and the Auchterarder junction, the second 55km of this rider are definitley much faster than the first!

In Aberfoyle I struggled to find the public toilets which I was convinced were in a prefab concrete block rather than outside the tourist info centre, after finding them I contemplated cake in a café but instead popped into the co-op for some water and millionaires shortbread to go with my 2nd pre-prepared sandwich.  Despite this I still spent over half an hour at the turn.

Setting off again the imperceptible wind must have been on my back as despite being a gentle climb to Doune I seemed to be powering along and my moving average was once again rising.  The Kinbuck climb does drag though and at one point I got confused and thought I'd gone through Braco and had missed the turn resulting in me heading to Creiff, a slightly concerning occurrence but I did quite quickly remind myself of where I actually was.

Rolling along slowly... Somewhere!

Braco Tower

Rolling into Braco for real I realized there's no way I could forget passing the tower in the old church yard and brought myself to the junction with the road to Auchterarder.  Finally I could see the top of the climb at the back of the hotel and stopped for the last sandwich from my bag to ready myself for the descent to Aberargie and into darkness.

Darkness finally dropped around the point it had lifted, I stopped in the underpass on the Dron road and decided to try my headtorch as an extra light, wrapping it round the bar bag, the weak beam flickering with the rattles and picking out not very much meant it was of limited use and I soon removed it.

Some interesting Christmas light displays were to be seen, with the cabins near Aberargie looking a lot like a manger scene at a distance, and Newburgh having rather colourful lights including surprisingly happy looking turkeys!  This of course signified the last climb, I had contemplated taking myself up to the A92 for a gentle blast along the main road but was up for the climb which on this side is thankfully much easier than the other.

Thankfully darkness means the 3 lumps of the coast road climb were less noticeable and other than a stop for a photo of the moon at Black Earnside I hardly noticed the efforts to get to Hazleton.

The descent however was another matter, normally I can really hammer it along here but with next to no visibility I had to take care not only of missing a turn but also of hitting pot holes and ice.  A couple of times I was able to make use of a tailing car's headlights to see where I was going and amazingly this happened in rather handy places including the Coultra drop and on the Gutchers! Relieved to finally be in the village I rolled along to the spar where I had the finish point set to buy some celebratory Creme Eggs.