# And I'll take the high road



## GrumpyGregry (22 Jun 2011)

Where was I? Oh yes, sat on a bar stool in the Waverley Hotel Calander.

The taxi duly arrived just after six and an Englishman (me) and a Sctosman (him) both damp and slight drunk climbed into the back. We made it back to Drymen slightly faster than it had taken us to get to Callander and only had a couple of 'OMG!' moments including a classic when we were overtaking a camper van whilst being overtaken ourselves by some flash late model Z-series Nissan.

On return to the B&B we are delighted to find that the other three members of our team for the next day's challenge have arrived, one has driven over from Dunblane whilst the other two have flown up from the south of England and been driven from the airport. Further delight is that our hosts promise of drying our clothes holds true. We explain that our combination of mernio wool and technical fabric makes his tumble dryer a no-no but this doesn't throw him. "We will put them over the Aga don't you worry". Showered and changed, oh so glad I brought those changes of clothes with me, we decant to the local hotel and I gorge on beer, macaroni cheese and chips, a local speciality, and a couple of large Bruichladdich Waves whiskies for pudding. We stagger the 100yds back to the b&b and retire to our rooms. I'm sharing a twin with m'colleague from work and he discovers a minature White Grouse in the goodie bag supplied for the morning. The only sensible thing to do is to drink these whilst recollecting the events of the day. Soon we are laughing hysterically at the various comedy moments of the last 24 hours and I am rendered insensible as tears of laughter stream down my face before lights out and the last stiffled giggles subside.

Next morning and we are up at 6:00. The panniers are to be repacked and are to go in our support van so we can change at the walk/bike interchange and access stuff at the various checkpoints of the day. I decide to walk in technical T, merino long sleeve top by ground control and a 'waterproof' shell up top with convertible full length trousers and merino socks and my trusty trail running shoes which I know are at least worn in. Van is loaded. I check for the umpteenth time that the keys to the bike locks are stowed in my Camelbak Rogue along with some snacks, and we are off to the start. Midge spray is applied as the van rolls up the hill we had climbed on our bikes the day before and very quickly we are at the drop off point about half a mile from the start. The other team from work is there, we all greet, and off we go. Next stop Aberfoyle en route to Callander as we trudge in the footsteps of Rob Roy.

Four hours and sixteen miles of drizzle and rain and wlaking later I am standing in a field in Callander, wet, blisters on the soles of my feet, a chicken roll in my hand, and a pannier of dry gear at my feet. Suffice to say the walk was a tough old hike through some of the best scenery the trossachs has but it has left me slightly befuddled and I don't seem to be able to decide what to do. I alternate between eating and getting changed, a mouthful of roll (from the bakery in Callander - wow they do good food there) and whilst chewing swap wet items of clothing for dry ones. My fave "Dark Star Brewery" cycling shirt, my shutt VR gilet, topped off with an old audax shell go on over apair of endura humvees I bought from someone in the CycleChat forum. Wollie Boolies merino socks on the feet and my spesh mtb shoes. On top of my saddle bag are strapped an altura night vision jacket and a pair of overshoes. For some reason the fact I'm about to ride my Revolution Country Explorer in its native land in a sea of mtb's seems highly captivating. One of the team decides he has had enough faffage and sets off alone, a second declares that as we had drunkenly agreed the night before that it was "stick together on the walk and every man for himself on the ride" he is going to go too.

A decide that a coffee and a trip to the loo is needed. Thank goodness for wet wipes and assos chamois creme I say. On goes my cap, over it goes my helmet, resentfully as helmets are compulsory on this leg of the event and I have a thing about compulsion, on go my riding glasses. "Blimey, at least you look the part" quips one wag in the support team. The bikes have been unmolested during the night and are retrieved from under the tree. The bar tape is soaking wet, and despite the cover so is the saddle. We all know the rule about not riding a wet Brooks. Well rules are made to be broken and I convince myself that the saddle was probably soaked when I left the bike anyway. Why would it not have been everything outside my Ortliebs was and even the inside of my carradice barley was damp.

I climb on the bike and pose with my remaining two team mates for a couple of photos. My head is a bubble of concentration as I try to psych myself up into getting going again. My old bones find restarting after any kind of stop a peculiar purgatory. We have to cycle from the van across the field to the check out. If my bike had a dashboard then it would be fair to say the little red lightnext to the symobl for 'legs' that warns of impending failure would have flicked on at this point. One the tarmac we aren't taking NCN 7; instead I look up to the opposite hill side and see an escalator of cyclists zig zaging up the hillside. "Why the flip are we going up there?" is quickly answered as this shortcut will eventually be incoroporated into the route as an alternative to rding through Callander town centre. It is loose gravel and many people, including the 3rd member of our sqadron are struggling with the gears on theiir hired mtb's. He's wearing my camelbak because his hire bike doesn't have any cages in which to put his goodie bag bidon. M'colleague has one cage+bottle on his bike and I'm smug with two along with a couple of spare bottles on the support van.

Soon we hit the old railway line that takes us north and although we can hear the traffic on A64 on the east bank of Loch Lubnaig we cannot see it. I am accused of setting to fast a pace by m'colleague who seems to have no trouble in keeping up so I continue to sit in the middle ring and spin my heart out to get the blood and my legs moving. A short way south of Strathyre we climb the 'black zig zags' a series of loose hairpins that many push up and which carry us onto the hillside before we pass the fourth member of the team and leave him for dead in the drizzle. I pause to remove my outer layer at the foot of this climb, needless to say m'colleague doesn't wait for me but hey ho, he is a competitive type and I'm not.

Rejoining tarmac and we find the third of our trio struggling to keep up, mtb tyres and wheels are no match for 700c touring tyres on the sorts of surfaces we are on, and the pattern of the station is set at the Balquhidder feed station. I arrive first and have a drink and a snack, by which time m'colleague will have arrived, so I'll have a second drink, by which time the third of our band will turn up, and seeing our fourth member rolling up is the sign for us wish him well and to depart. One short stretch of tarmac and we are back on the abandoned railway line, passing mtb's right left and centre. You can spot the novice riders from miles away as they grind away in ridiculously high gears. One feature of this stretch is the narrow, one bike wide cattlegrids on the route. Comedy moments abound as people get off bikes and try to push through and fall over o the slippery grids, or remained aboard their bikes and catch hadlebars or elbow on the frames and fall over. Needless to say these are despatched with elan, and without slowing, by yours truly.

A note to sustrans engineers 

"Dear Sir

When building a series of switchbacks to raise a cycle route from one level to another, such as that found on NCN 7 at Craggan don't make the last two hair pins and the length of track between them the steepest of the lot your stupid sadistic bar stewards. It isn't funny and you made some people cry.

Regards

Greg"


Somewhere off to the right, cloaked in mist is Lochearnhead, and that means we are now climbing up Glen Ogle. The rain is now stair rodding again and the altura top is on. The view from the viaduct is stunning and below me on the other side of the glen I see a long queue of vehicles headed by an Asda artic toiling up the main road. It seems like another world down there. We cross the main road, spin for a bit further and I'm at the next feed station. Pausing only to cram a Tunnocks Tea Cake into my mouth I set off for the main event of the day, the descent to the Falls of Dochart and the Killin checkpoint. I consider myslef a good descender on- and off-road. Stupid enough to take a few risks and stay off the brakes as much as possible, experienced enough to know when you reach the unhappy state of "too fast" rather than "fast enough", and smart enough to mostly avoid trouble. Three people came to grief and one bike was wrecked on the descent. One chap was gald of his shattered helmet. I had a 'moment', inevitably given the wet and slippery conditions, when it all got a bit sideways but made it safely to the bottom having exceeded 50kph several times on the way down. and yes, I had to brake. thank goodness for avid bb7 discs I say.

At the checkpoint and feed station at Killin it is, frankly, chaos. Our support van is nowhere to be seen, apparently I rode straight past it on the way in, and the organisers have laid a course across a couple of open fields in a loop at the end of which includes a very short and steep climb onto a sort of embankment. Another of my audax special rocket fuel drinks is made up thus sacket of hot chocolate, sachet of coffee, sachet of suger, two plastic thimbles of milk, and I drink it whilst staring at the route map waiting for m'colleague to arrive. He does, to advise that whilst I was tunnock stuffing he thinks he left his drinks bottle at the water point (I think it more likely it simply fell off on the descent to Killin). I tell him of the spares in the van and his spirits lift. 17 miles without a drink does sound a bit grim.

I roll back in granny gear across the field in a chaingang of slowly moving bicycles and watch the riders in front dismount and clamber up the bank. "Sod that, I'm not pushing or walking any of this route" I think. I hang back, wait for the bank to clear of clamberers and then SPIN. Natch I clean the bank and scare the crap out of someone coming along the top at right angles to me. I don't give a damn. I'm riding the whole route, every damn pedal turn.

The notes on the map describe the run along the south bank of Loch Tay as undulating. I'd describe it differently, and using words of an anglo-saxon stripe not normally printed on maps. 25km with 350m of climbing. The overshoes and full finger gloves went on for this bit. Really heavy 'hose me down why don't you" showers with steady light rain in between. Not funny. Not funny at all. At times I was the only person I could see still on thier bike. When riding most had their granny gears were out in force and after about 10km that horrible "my legs are empty" feeling swept over me. Thank goodness I had picked up a sugared almond and a packet of walkers shortbread fingers at the last drinks station. 

Suddenly the legendary cream tea food station hove into view. I stopped and stifly walked to the tent. I must have looked rough as hell as a Red Cross volunteer came over to aks if I was alright. I made up a cup of rocket fuel and my ability to do this and hold a sensible conversation seemed to put his mind at rest. Shortly afterwards another entrant collapsed when getting of their bike. He tried to stand up but his legs were not having it. Just as I was making my mind up about another cup of fuel and another cream scone, m'colleague arrived and we waited for the third musketeer, standing in the rain in a field above Loch Tay. I adjusted my brakes, which were now 'shot', for the third time and listened to the water running down the road.

Fed, watered and caffienated and reunited as a trio we decided that we would cross the finsh line in Kenmore together, in line abreast. M'colleague shot off up every hill, I tailed him to the top of each, told him to wait and turned around, and went back for the third man. Thusly, loop, by hilly loop, we dragged ourselves into the lovely village of Kenmore and crossed the finish line. We rode for just over four hours and we took just over five hours to get from Callander, but it isn't about the numbers. Nearly 800 people entered the event, nearly 700 started and just over 600 finished it. Including the walk and our lunch break we did it in 10 hours, and our fifth team member arrived about 40 minutes after us with a dose of gravel rash. His gloves saved him from far worse. Our team raised £5000 for the various charities.

A beer and a hot shower beckoned, as did a good meal, a glass of wine, and a couple of Taliskers at the Kenmore Club and a night's sleep before a man and a van from Stirling came to drive us to Glasgow the next morning to get the Virgin train back to Euston. Uneventful journey, lovely ride from Euston to Victoria via Waterloo Bridge, the south bank and Westminster on a bike with two panniers full of heavy wet clothes and utterly totally defective brakes. Slept well on Sunday night.

Have started planning Kenmore to Inverness and the end of NCN 7. Did you know you can take a sleeper train to Scotland for £100 return and your bike goes free? Looks like train from Euston vernight to Pitlochry, cab to Kenmore, cycle to Dalwhinnie B&B then cycle to Tomatin B&B, then cycle to Inverness, afternoon there an sleeped back to London will be the bones of a plan.

Got to be done hasn't it?


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## Scoosh (22 Jun 2011)

Another excellent report - informative, entertaining, reflective and challenging.






Thanks again.





It _was_ a wet week-end, wasn't it ?


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## fimm (23 Jun 2011)

Was this last weekend? (18th June) We were driving up Glen Orchy and there were lots of people cycling up the cycle path on the old railway line. We assumed there was an organised event going on, especially as there seemed to be extra notices at the point where the cycle path crosses the road. 

Thank you for the report!


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## ColinJ (24 Jun 2011)

Super!

I was up in Scotland with a pal a few weeks ago. As we drove back down the A85 towards Lochearnhead, I spotted cyclists way up on the hillside to our right and wondered if there was a cycle track up there on a disused railway line. It sounds like it was the one you rode.


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## Tynan (25 Jun 2011)

I read all of that and understood about half

It was partly or moslty off road in pouring rain in Scotland?

it did sound epic although I'd have liked some more DNF to increase the epic


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## GrumpyGregry (26 Jun 2011)

fimm said:


> Was this last weekend? (*18th June*) We were driving up Glen Orchy and there were lots of people cycling up the cycle path on the old railway line. We assumed there was an organised event going on, especially as there seemed to be extra notices at the point where the cycle path crosses the road.
> 
> Thank you for the report!



according to the event's technical T-shirt that was indeed us.


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## GrumpyGregry (26 Jun 2011)

ColinJ said:


> Super!
> 
> I was up in Scotland with a pal a few weeks ago. As we drove back down the A85 towards Lochearnhead, I spotted cyclists way up on the hillside to our right and wondered if there was a cycle track up there on a disused railway line. It sounds like it was the one you rode.



That is indeed the one. I reckon you'd be fine on it on a road bike with 28's.


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## GrumpyGregry (26 Jun 2011)

Tynan said:


> I read all of that and understood about half
> 
> It was partly or moslty off road in pouring rain in Scotland?
> 
> it did sound epic although I'd have liked some more DNF to increase the epic



Entirely on Sustrans NCN 7, some road/tarmac, lots of old railway and forest fire road. in the pouring rain.

The crew of dedicated volunteer massueses and BRC medics nursed everybody around. On of the orgs said to me that the DNF would have been much higher but for the huge number of DNS. It seems lots of the more local people took one look at the weather and thought 'no way'.


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## GrumpyGregry (27 Jun 2011)

We made the web site of the paper local to the office.


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## Tynan (30 Jun 2011)

60 mile ride to the start line? wha?

you missed that detail out or is the report wrong?


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