Monster Munch 200Km - 16 March 2019

 I'd spent a while humming and hawing about which ride to enter this weekend, the Scottish Borders Randonee from Selkirk or the Monster Munch from Duffus near Elgin.  I've hardly visited the North East of Scotland except for a trip to the Kart track at Boyndie my trips to the North East limited to being south of the A96.  That and the Organizer of the SBR confirming that it was the "snow" route was being run again, last years adjustment to deal with snow on the more remote roads saw the decision made.

In the days before the event the forecast was bad, strong winds in the days leading up to it before calming down to allow a load of precipitation of the white kind to fall, heavily over the borders which resulted in the SBR being cancelled, but there was the possibility it'd nudge far enough north to affect us.



I had Annual Leave left to take and I considered making my way up with a series of stops the preceding three nights however with work to do on the motorhome I ended up staying at home in the run up and drove up on the Friday afternoon, a sunny, dry but windy and chilly day via the Cairnwell and Lecht before stopping to have a look at the old bridge at Craigellachie.  Arriving in Elgin just down the road from Duffus I went on a quick sightseeing drive to Burghead and then along the coast to Lossiemouth before returning to Elgin to peer over the railings at the Cathedral ruins and check in.

Robbie arrived late on having been Bustituted due to a broken down train, every forecast we looked at showed something different, but the consensus was that we were going to get soaked.

The Start

I drove down to the start while Robbie rode down, Mark the organizer had provided pancakes and laid out nearly 50 cards for the 200km and a good few for the 100km ride due to set off an hour after us, as 8am approached there was considerably less than 50 riders waiting to set off, the weather was dry and not too windy. No sooner had we set off than the drizzle started, almost imperceptibly at first but building.

The Start

The first couple of riders on the road were going a bit slow for my liking at the start and I shot off ahead of them, but by the first turn I had a small train behind me as well as the wind, this didn't last though as inevitably as the route carried on I drifted slowly backwards before losing all contract, passing the first info control I decided to memorize rather than stop as there was a check point not too far up the road.

Dava Muir in the snow

On reaching the checkpoint most of the group ahead of me were just setting off and a few others caught up with me as I got ready to set off, I fixed a wiring issue with my lights before cracking on up to the muir.  It was a fairly gentle climb up but as we climbed the drizzle turned to hail and then to snow, the sides of the roads changed from Green and Brown to White and Brown the expanse of the muir hidden by the encompassing whiteness of the snowfall.  I must admit I've never been up here and I wished to see it on a nice day feeling fed up already of the conditions and contemplated riding down to Aviemore to get the train back rather than continue. The rocks with names like Creag na h-Iolair (Rock of the Eagles) jutting out of the whiteness, the road started to descend but patches of snow and not being sure if there had been a chance to freeze since falling tempered the pace as much as steamed up glasses and cold hands did.  In Carrbridge "The Kitchen" was the location of the control and I got out of the now heavy snow for a quick break, other riders sat round a roaring log burner but I knew foul as my mood was that to sit by the fire would be terminal for the ride, I procrastinated briefly and then took a lump of Rocky Road to go and got back out on the bike, eating as I rode up towards Slochd. 
 

The Road to Slochd

 At the junction the Yellow road to Slochd village was white, cycle and car tyre tracks cut into the otherwise pristine whiteness, I chose to try and ride in the tracks cut by a 4 wheeler, skittering around, not considering what the other cycle tracks were telling me.  Under the A9 and past the old hostel that still claims to be a bike shop the gentle climb to 400m continued to another junction, here the cycle track heads up through gates onto the old A9, with only a single line of tyre marks I knew the group had taken the road, but on my own that wasn't an option I was considering, presumably the sole other rider to take the track thought the same.

The Track up Slochd

Slightly surprisingly I soon found that cutting fresh tracks was easier than following existing tracks and other than the odd bump I could see the outline of the track well enough to avoid plunging off the side.  It perhaps also helped that I've been over here twice before and knew that the road surface having not been touched by heavy traffic since the late 1970s is although littered with stones rather decent.  Finally I passed the railway summit where a new surface is in place as the old road is partly swallowed by the current, up a bit more and I was on the track alongside the A9, sections having been caught by the gritter and so quite clear.

I stopped for my second ever snowy picture at Slochd Summit, though this time with a Road bike rather than MTB.
It was cold, I was cold, I was wet, but it was down hill from here, the Findhorn road was clear so some decent pace was achievable, unfortunately I hadn't uploaded the "alternative" route option that avoid the second Muir of the day which had been found to be impassable during a route check on the Friday. I kept dropping, increasingly worried I was getting a bit close to Inverness.  I had in my head the statement "Turn under the A9 at Moy", but Moy village passed and I was miles from being beside the A9 I kept descending, what if I found myself at Culloden where this road enters Inverness? What if, oh wait! Moy Junction on the A9 is at Daviot, of course.  I rolled up to a flat junction on the A9, slightly confused again, peering south up the hill I saw the sign for Fort Augustus that I was expecting... The road was quiet and it looked about a 500m sprint up hill to get into the turn lane, I went for it, 2 cars passed before I got there but all was good.

Once there I saw the perfectly metalled farm track running under the dual carriageway oh well.  The snow had stopped for now, but was soon on again, I rolled on and eventually rejoined the route on my Wahoo, now with the comfort of having the line to follow to the next info control, the surprisingly large number of roads out here forcing us a bit further west before descending to Dores. Again I chose to memorize and then started day dreaming dreaming of the food stuff it related to.  Again I found myself at a pretty spot that would look great if only for it not snowing, I considered taking a photo at Loch Duntelchaig but I decided against it. I then started day dreaming about a roaring log fire at the Dores Inn. But when I arrived the bar had only a halogen lamp to get some heat into my soggy kit. I was told a group of us had just set off not long before I arrived, and while there two other riders appeared.  I didn't get the food I'd been dreaming of but the Chicken and Bacon sandwich was excellent.  I steeled myself and headed back out into the rain.

From here the ride became a bit of a trudge once into Inverness, and I managed to catch the Culloden Visitor centre just before it shut for the day, the bonus here being that it's almost all down hill.  The North Easterly was now blowing sleet into my face and as I wrapped up against it by lifting my NotBuff over my mouth a steamed up my glasses, a bit of a fight ensued to try and clean the glasses enough  but eventually I won jsut in time for speed to build along the last long flat section back to Duffus.

On arrival at the finish I found out there was another 5 riders still out there, with Robbie, Richard and another couple of riders still hanging around in various states of showered and defrosted.  The soup was great, the left over pancakes and spread of sweet treats even better. I had a shower and deforested myself and then moved the car out the now muddy field, thankfully I hadn't taken the M+S marked tyres off for the mild weather we'd been having so plenty of grip was available in the mud, but unfortunately others needed some assistance to extract their vehicles.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/2218300942