The Snow Roads - 23 February 2019

The Snow Roads is a classic hilly 300km Scottish Randonee; we chose to start from Banchory as it was the most suitably accessible location for us.

We set off just after the abnormally civil time of 8am and were soon riding through the flatter sections of the Aberdeenshire country side, the route via Echt and Kemnay took us past a Maiden Stone wrapped up for winter and then on to the Gairoch and Oyne where due to the absolute lack of facilities we answered an information question, I already had hints that I was still recovering from the East Lothian efforts as I wasn't maintaining a particularly good pace despite the strong tail wind and the gentle grades. 

Curving round Bennachie

The mass of Bennachie one of the "twa landmairks frae the sea" and possibly the site of "Mons Graupius" where Tacitus claims the army of Imperial Roam routed the Caledonians, is the primary navigational landmark here with it sitting prominently to our left.  Robbie pointed out the Brindymuir and Suie hillclimb roads which cross the foothills to Alford.

Rolling into Rhynie we were glad to see the shop open and stopped for a top up, which comprised of a pastry, juice and sweets.  One of the down sides of Audaxing is there's never a swanky delicatessen selling health foods when it would be handy, then again a sausage roll is a good concentrated source of carbs, protein and fat.

The realization that it's going to be a long day

The start of the Cabrach climb is directly after leaving Rhynie, in the summer I had hardly noticed it but today I was realized I was struggling already and this was the easy bit. I ground out the climb, it eases for a bit which gave a chance to recover slightly before the last dig up to the Aberdeenshire/Moray march at the summit.  A windfarm is under construction up here and Robbie was telling me about how the unique Aircrane helicopters had brought in the new style pylons, these are comprised of two fibreglass towers wrapped to look like large wood pole style pylons.

Robbie taking water from the water spout

The drag to the Lecht from Dufftown

The descent is long and fairly smooth except for a narrow section where we stopped at a water spout so Robbie could top up his bottles, I didn't bother as if I kept to drinking "schedule" I'd have two empty bottles for filling when we reached Dufftown where we stopped for a long lunch break in which I looked enviously at Robbie's cooked breakfast while I ate a distinctly average burger and chips.

The Lecht

Lecht Summit

Sunset at the Gairnshiel

The stretch through Glens Rinnes and Livet from Dufftown to Tomintoul feels like it should be down hill, but it's actually a very long and lumpy 100m climb that takes 300m of rise and 250m of fall to do it; not only is this a horrible drag on a good day we had the strong southerly wind head on now and rather than watch our average speed start to climb following the stop, we were watching it drop further.  There is little to credit Glen Rinnes with and Glen Livet has little more than the old shop in Tomnavoulin for interest, unless you like Knockandu?

In that slog I started to wonder if I would turn left at Crathie, what would it be like to pack there? I could go back to the car and wait for Robbie to finish, but then well once you're there you've over the worst, just the ride into Braemar, over the Cairnwell and then round to Kirrie and the Cairn O' Mount.  I decided to ignore this thought process and let it work through.  Eventually Tomintoul was approaching and we took the turn for the Lecht, I had suspected we'd find shelter here and I was proven right, the wind now hidden from us by the steep sides of the glen we rode onto the 20% ramp.


The Lecht beat me at the same point on that ramp last summer but the driver behind was a bit more forgiving this time, Robbie was a pink dot up the hill; He had chosen a 32t cassette for this ride while I had stuck with the 30t option, the only option I currently have.

Amazingly at the summit where the sides of the hills open up the view there was still no wind; Robbie set off down the hill first and I watched him as much as my line down to see where he wobbled due to wind, but he didn't. This was enough to give me comfort to go for it on the long straight sections but the twisty switchbacks and the corkscrew onto the 25% ramp in the trees beat me mentally, why can't I turn Right properly?

There isn't much of rest as you ride between the crossings of the Don before the first BH hits you and the return to relentless climbing saps more of your strength.  I got over here without too much trouble, the odd motorist offering encouragement as we went.  The sun started to glow red as we reached the Gairnshiel.  BH2 isn't as bad as the first sadly the sky turned to a mid-blue just before we summitted so never got to see the sunset properly.  The descent to Crathie is probably the most technical of the day with many tiwsts and turns and a couple of cattle grids you can hit at speed, on approach to one of these I realized Robbie was slowing rapidly before Bunny Hopping a huge hole on the approach; I spotted the raised centreline of the road was clean and shot past rather relieved to get over the grid in one piece.

The thoughts of packing were long gone from my mind now and I easily turned Right for the blast in to Braemar where we raided the Co-Op of their wraps, sweets and juice.  We chose the Golf Course Road route out of Braemar, the gentle climb up here beside the river seems to be nicer than the main road which climbs early before dipping.  Near Fraser's bridge my lights picked up a mountain hare bounding across the road, looking splendid if vulnerable in it's winter coat of white making it stand out against the green of the unseasonably clear grass.

In the darkness I couldn't see the ski centre or the road climbing up ahead of me, the sensory deprivation helping to alleviate a large part of the mental struggles with roads like this where you can see the suffering ahead.  Rather surprisingly I reached the start of the Clearway section seemingly without too much effort although looking back at the data I can see that it's more a case of being unaware of just how slow I was riding!

At the summit I again expected to be assaulted by the wind in some way or other but it was once again perfectly calm on the descent to the Spittal although those right handers play with me.  Rolling through Glen Isla a column of fire rose into the sky from a garden  and cows stared at us from lit barns while frogs hopped across the road in front of us.

Robbie takes a snooze in Edȝell

We rolled into Kirrie too late for the knowhead shops so we had little choice but to descend into the town centre, unfortunately we'd missed the town centre shops by minutes so a tour of the cash machines to find the one with receipt paper.

A sharp climb up the Roods took us up to Northmuir where we skimmed along to Edȝell on roads I'm sure weren't this lumpy back in May.  At a bridge not far out of town I saw Robbie clearly not judging what was ahead and only just missing the Parapet.  He told me he needed a snooze so we agreed to stop at a bench outside the Panmure Hotel before carrying on along to Fettercairn and Clatterin' brig.

On the Cairn O' Mounth climb the first ramp beat me within a few meters, and it was a stop start climb all the way to the summit viewpoint. Sadly mist down over Angus meant we didn't get the normal amazing night views across to Edinburgh.  The climbs on the plateau hit harder than normal and after crossing the Bridge of Dye the sharp climb out beat me too.

I missed the AA box for the dark but the lights of Strachan were glimmering ahead. The last drag into Banchory was a major relief and climbed past the car to reach the ATM we started at just after 3am.

A full value day on an epic ride.

A Tour to, of and home from East Lothian - 16th and 17th February 2019

With the Tour of East Lothian running on Sunday there was nothing else for it but to get a second 200 in for the month on the Saturday. 
It took a bit of clicking on Google Maps and RWGPS to figure out how to get to Musselburgh from Dundee without being either 2km under or 20km over distance, eventually settling on what should have been an easy route...

Captain RF Scott's RRS Discovery

I met Robbie in front of the RRS Discovery and within 2km we'd stopped for a rest at the roll carriage at the end of the esplanade to kill our average speed. 
Not to worry the Carse of Gowrie is great for getting speed up as it's the only extensively flat bit of ground in the area, however being a vast expanse of flat in an otherwise steeply sided river valley it's also a nightmare when there's a 30kmh South Westerly blowing.  

Curious locals on the Carse of Gowrie

The shelter of the Balthayock was welcome for once and we were soon getting the views over Perth the climb rewards you with.  Perth was largely uneventful and we took to Necessity Brae to get out of town, a stiff wee climb but at least it's sheltered from that wind.  Strathearn was exposed and we struggled into Dunning where we got some shelter from the Ochils, plans for a relaxed lunch in Auchterarder were scrapped in favour of bouncing the Co-Op.



We passed another Audaxer going the other way in Gleneagles village (which isn't in Gleann na h-Eaglais at all, and someone needs to point out to the incomers that it means Glen of the Chapels, nothing to do with Iloaire before they put up their eagles).  Back out in to open at the top we were back in the wind, a large slow moving group of riders from a stirling club passed us near Braco and in a change from my usual route we took the Auchinlay road to get round Dunblane rather than go through.

The Water Horses in Falkirk

The ride into Doune wasn't too bad at least, and we stopped at the Spar for a quick snack and water top up before heading down the A84 which was thankfully relatively quiet to the Kippen turn off where the road ramped up, this was meant to be the "hard bit" of the ride but it didn't seem too bad in comparison to the incessant headwind.





After a bit of respite on the descent into Fintry and then it was the "Highlite" of the ride, the Climb over to Lennoxtown on the Crow where we hard our arses handed to us by:
Someone doing hill repeats on a commuter
Two mountain bikers
and a Squirrel.

The top was a major relief as we knew we "should" get a tail wind through to Musselburgh after the Gravity assistance down to Lennoxtown, right enough we got a good shove along through Kilsyth and Bonybridge before deciding that having meddled with a deil of a headwind all day we'd visit the Kelpies in Falkirk.  I had thought we'd be here about 2 hours earlier than we were, but we also managed to be early for the Café opening... by a month and a half.

From there it was a boring flat route through Grangemouth and then Borrowstounness  before climbing up to the back of South Queensferry.
The ride finished with a rapid ride through Edinburgh on the old railway lines with a couple of wrong turns in Drylaw (where we also went wrong on the return ECE) before the blast through Leith and onto the Portobello Prom and the ride into Musselburgh, much later than either planned or expected.

TTEL: https://www.strava.com/activities/2154034950

A warm and sunny start, but there was a nasty wind blowing

The Tour of East Lothian is the season starter for a lot of riders in Central Scotland, a 100km ride in the surprisingly hilly area of East Lothian, from the start the route takes you up a series of small rises and descents to tease you into the harsh climb of the Red Stane Rig.

I was feeling the efforts in the wind from the previous day and I was soon dropped by Robbie and the pensioners "slow" bus that we'd been set off in.  I was to tell the truth struggling with the efforts from the ride down and it was showing on the climbs.

Gifford

On the rig I stalled at the same place as the previous year, partly down to the brain fart of "I stopped here last year".  The descent was interesting in the howling wind and I got down to Dunbar just as Robbie was preparing to crack on having also been dropped by the pensioners.I controlled as fast as I could and set off for the next control at Haddington, which I'd managed to forget the location of... 

The Rig

 On arriving I couldn't see any piles of bikes against any buildings and scanned my memory for where it was. Costa possibly, but I couldn't see a Costa, I climbed up towards the A1 junction where I decided it might be a drive through, but on the way up I thankfully remembered I had the e-mail on my "normal" phone which I was carrying for once.

More of the Rig

Finally determining Costa was in Tesco, and that I had just passed a junction that could take me there I turned and headed there to get my stamp.

I grabbed some sweets from Tesco as I wasn't waiting in the queue for the Empire biscuit I wanted and set off again towards the A1 overbridge, from here the route is thankfully easy with a long shallow descent to the coast road and then a blast into the wind back into Musselburgh.

Randonneurs au café?

I arrived with just enough time in hand for brief socializing and to coax Robbie away from the social occasion. I'm sure I said I wouldn't ECE a Brevet Populaire again due to missing on the social aspect the more relaxed schedule allows.
We set out through Edinburgh retracing our wheel tracks from the previous night, the Portobello Promenade was busy, and despite going carefully through the crowds pinging the bell someone had a moan at us for trying to get somewhere on a shared use, take note Sustrans, Not Fit for Purpose as set up...

I was concerned about the wind strength for crossing the bridge but as it was now coming from the SWS we got a good shove across and then into the darkness through Fife, finally rolling up Newport High Street where we set the finish control just before 10pm.

The Two long hard days had really taken it out of me and it was a few days before I felt recovered

TOEL + ECE: https://www.strava.com/activities/2156780135

A (Wintery) Ride around Ben Klibreck - 2nd February 2019

"There's tyres come in the post for you" - Not a text message to normally elicit nervous excitement.
"Which ones?" I asked
"Schwalbe Winter" was the response, it could have been the GP4Seasons I'd ordered.
"That was quick, I'll come for them at lunch time"
"I'm heading for Dundee, will bring them over"

That really was quick, I'd ordered them from Spa Cycles on the Wednesday and had them in time for setting off into the frozen north for a cycle that just wouldn't have happened without them.

Arrived in the nick of time

Friday night I leave work, the tyres are sitting in the boot of the car and snow starts to fall heavily as I drive up the A90.  I stop in a lay-by to check something and I get a message from Robbie about a jackknifed lorry at Keith on our route north west.  I checked it out and Google was suggesting a tolerable 18 minute delay.
Once I'd collected Robbie in Aberdeen, it was clear when travelling along the A96 why the lorry had jackknifed, a rough surface created by resurfacing in progress had turned into an icy mess on a descent. Thankfully it was now clear but the treacherous conditions meant it took until 10pm to get to Inverness where we were booked into the hostel.

We had both studied the weather forecast and determined that we needed to put the studded tyres on, getting to work outside the hostel reception, I had my first tyre on before Robbie had finished scooping the fluid out of his tubeless tyres but within seconds of removing the pump's chuck there was that dreaded sound of air escaping through a split valve base, lifting one of my spare tubes from my bag I started again on the front wondering what time Velocity opens in the morning.

Robbie, having got the tubeless tyres off and rims cleaned was now going through the pile of "new" tubes he's picked from his box of bike spares and was trying to find one that wasn't pre-punctured. My dubious choice of electrical tape for rim tape on my rear wheel added extra concern for the ride but it had survived 400km with imprints in the tube, so it was going to have to last long enough for me to purchase some tape. With bikes finally set up and breakfast ordered we retired for the night at near midnight.

Morning dawned, breakfast was eaten and we set off for the starting point at Tain. Robbie had suffered further deflation overnight and now had his last two usable inner tubes supporting his tyres; I went into Tesco to see if they had any. They didn't.

Our plan had been to follow organizer Andy Uttley's advice for the route and ride Anti-Clockwise, up the A9 to Helmsdale and then up Strath Ullie and over the muirs via the Garvault to Crask Inn before returning through Lairg and Bonar Bridge, but now with only 2 spare tubes between us, and with the only bike shop in the area in Ardgay we set off on the Clockwise version to get to the shop before the fairy caught us.

Rolling along the Dornoch Firth

Setting off along the south side of the Dornoch firth at 10am it was a late start for a 200, but it's not a particularly hilly route with just one big hill and descent with the odd bit of undulation so we didn't think we'd be pushing our limits too much. 
However almost instantly I realized I was in Zone 5 while seemingly just rolling along and had to back off, I quickly ascertained that I'd put my HRM on a tad low so it was thankfully a data error and after a bit of adjustment got a much more reasonable reading, however it was still high for just rolling along at a normal speed.


The winter tyres are heavy, they take a lot of energy to spin up, don't hold speed very well and with the Carbide spikes clattering away make an absolute racket!  As we clattered into Ardgay I spotted the building where the bike shop was the last time I was there, however it appeared to now be some sort of tartan shop. Worrying!
Thankfully a local woman spotted us looking at the shop and told us that "Heaven Bikes" had moved to the post office in Bonar Bridge, just across the Kyles of Sutherland.
I'm not sure I'd say the bike shop was in the Post Office, more that the Post Office was in the bike shop, where Chris had plenty of parts on sale including most importantly the items of use to us, 700x30c tubes and rim tape.

Passing Carbisdale Castle at Invershin

Despite a fairly flat route out to Bonar Bridge we'd only averaged 20kmh, with the shop stop we were down to 17kmh and we had the long drag up to Lairg and on to the Crask Inn to climb.
In Scottish Geographical terms this is the Far North, but in Norse terms at Bonar Bridge we entered the South Land from Ross.
Sutherland was part of lands controlled by the Jarl of Orkney to who this was the South before the Kingdom of the Isles and Mann was formed.
The road climbs and we push on into the desolation of central Sutherland.

Lairg

The railway, ever present either by our side  diverged from our route at Lairg, the village is spread out along the Shin in the shadow of the Lairg Dam; not only were we saying goodbye to the railway until Helmsdale but we were also saying goodbye to civilisation at the same time, from now the odd outposts along our route would be marking junctions or remote travellers rests rather than sizeable habitations.

The junction just out of Lairg demonstrated this perfectly, with the next nearest signed destination being Scourie, 41 miles away.

The Altnaharra road

The fold down signs were showing their "Road Ahead Closed  - Snow Drifts" message, but the actual Road Closed sign was leaning against the wall, the necessary cones pushed to either side of the road allowing passage.
The road becomes single track here and the passing places were filled with snow, we plugged on.  Occasionally the spikes went quiet or the back wheel gave a squirm in the snow but in the most part it was clear enough to maintain a decent enough speed as the road weaved through a landscape of snow and frozen rivers, on occasion I wanted to stop for a photo I couldn't capture on the go but chose to miss it in favour of maintaining momentum.

The Crask Inn

Eventually I spotted the trees I knew the Crask Inn was situated in and although they didn't have their sign up and the cars outside were submerged in snow, a tentative knock on the door revealed that the bar was tendered, the fire was roaring and the Vegetable Soup on offer was hot and delicious.
Of course I had the Victoria Sponge too.
The roasting bar room was hard to leave. The proprietor told us that Altnaharra may be "different" due to it being in a dip and about being snowed in only the previous day, or at least her husband was. She had been snowed out!

A clear bit of the descent to Altnaharra

From the Inn it's only a short climb to the start of the descent to Altnaharra and when we crested the summit we realized conditions were going to different here.Altnaharra vies with Braemar for the title of "Coldest Place in Scotland" this dip in the vast emptiness of the cleared interior of Sutherland showed its hand with rough snow and ice slowing our descent, now after our stop we were only just holding 15kmh and road conditions were deteriorating.
Robbie has ridden cyclocross so is used to road bikes moving in soft conditions, but I'm not and saw him rolling off into the distance as I struggled to get the hang of my squirming bike.

The Syre road junction, we decided to give it a bash

At Altnaharra the road turned to sheet ice on the approach to the bridge, I held my breath but the spikes gripped as I knew they would and crested the bridge without worry.
Just out of the village we found the turn for Syre, this was our first real point of concern as we were leaving the Primary gritting routes, should this road be impassable then it was game over, the Garvault control would be out of reach, the only options would be to ride the North Coast from Tongue or turn back.
The junction was snowy, and icy, and the rest of the road was pretty white, we chose to press on into the snow and see how it went, our tyres squirming and on occasion spinning.

Riding along Loch Naver

We stopped to drop some air from our tyres to get a bit more grip in the snow shortly afterwards and we were able to ride with care after that.  In the shade the road was snowy, and on the edges it was icy.  In the areas exposed to sun, despite the chill in the air a clear path had cleared through melt and so we could ride faster here.
Somehow we maintained a 16kmh average along the way to Syre despite in places resurfacing works providing bombholes and drop offs to deal with if not the 2hr delay threatened by the signs.

Garvault bound

At the Garvault road junction again things looked sketchy, the driver of a winter tyre shod pick-up told us that the road wasn't great but it was passable.  The initial climb facing west was covered in a shallow coating of snow just deep enough to overcome the limited grip of our road treaded tyres, the spikes having no value when there is no ice to grip.
At times the road camber sucked us down onto the verge, small ridges of snow kicked our wheels out to the side and cleared tracks sent us wiggling across the road to find the best speed. Eventually the Garvault loomed into view ahead, its white walls camouflaging it against the white hillside of Ben Griam Mór.

We already knew no one was in, and photographic evidence had been requested by Andy of the sign by the road as a substitute. We posed just long enough to get the pictures and crack on before we cooled down too much, the temperature was -8C and would be for a long time to come.

I knew that there are some estate houses not too far east of here and was hoping they'd cleared a route out to Kinbrace, which was a wish partially fulfilled as they'd cleared the road fully between the various estate buildings but had only left tracks out to the junction.  The lights of Kinbrace station lit the sky, but it was too late to catch a train South should we want to pack, but we also hoped things would get easier from here.

The descent down Strath Ullie was a mix of fast clean road and an icy mess, at one point while riding a clean tyre track at speed I caught the ridge of snow with my back tyre and got a bit of a wiggle on, thankfully gaining control after the fright. A farmer tending his sheep passed us in his canopy pick-up on a number of occasions during the descent and expressed his amusement with a jocular evening as he passed me for the 3rd time.

Finally down at sea level in Helmsdale we piled into the shop to warm up and eat, the talkative shop girl more than happy for us to eat her stock as she told us about growing up in the area and her work.

When we left the shop our drinks bottles had frozen completely, I had plugged my power bank into my Wahoo while we ate and gassed in the shop and this affected the recorded temperature but I had recorded -8C on arrival rising to -4C before reaching the coast where it "warmed" to -3C.

We had over Nine and a Half hours on the clock and hadn't yet reached the 100 mile mark, but from Helmsdale the route rises and falls along the cost back towards Tain on a trunk road that receives 24hr treatment so we knew the surface would be good for a bit more speed.
Riding along the coast and through villages there was a bit of warmth in the air, but we still had to stop repeatedly to consume some of our Isotonic Slush Puppies as we counted down the villages, Brora passed without ceremony, Golspie with the bastard on the hill hidden in the darkness and across Loch Fleet on "The Mound" a causeway and bridge from Telford's time that was considered an amazing feat of engineering and a significant shortening of the route along the coast.

On the A9, in the dark but almost home.

The route sheet indicated taking a slightly longer route on the minor road along the coast to Dornoch Village and then towards the bridge over the Dornoch Firth, a good idea on a nice day but we chose, quiet as it was to stick with the A9.

One of the reasons for the 5km diversion became obvious with the 95m climb to Poles, a drag at this time of the ride, but the roll down to the bridge was worth it in the end.  Crossing the bridge we knew there wasn't far to go with the lights of Tain glowing in the vicinity and we started to think about where to control.



At the Burgh sign we took photos just in case then rolled into town to find an ATM, the first we found had no receipts.  Further into town at the other ATM we waited for some of the local night life to obtain more beer tokens, discovering once again there were no receipts there either.
We weren't sure whether to roll down to Tesco or up to ASDA to see if they had an outdoor ATM, but Robbie spotted that the bar of the St Duthus Hotel was still open, who allowed us to stagger in for a celebratory drink.

Looking back from the Crash Inn

On the road up to the Crask, rivers frozen.

The drag to Lairg