tug benson
Survived the Tour O the borders 2013
- Location
- Alloa
where did you get your tyres from?
Scotland : Perthshire Highland Perthshire Challenge 2014
- Thread starter Louch
- Start date
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OP
OP
Louch
105% knowledge on 105
- Location
- Kingdom of Kinnard
Too many greggs visits and chippy dinners.......or if you mean the bike ones, wiggle
PART THREE OF OUR GLORIOUS ADVENTURE
The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer, when @Louch finally descended from the hills above Auchenmadeuplacernethy, with a haunted look of fear in his eyes.
"THE WHITE WALKERS!" he gasped, in terror.
"What are you talking about, this is the Highland Perthshire Challenge, not A Game of Thrones," @Harry_Palmer79 gently reminded him.
It was around about this time that Ed remembered why he never did finish any of his creative writing efforts because of his tendency to go off on wild tangents.
--
After the amazing descent and a couple of minutes of arriving at Aberfeldy and chatting with the guys manning the feed station who had passed us on the moor, my colleagues arrived in the following order: @ShooglyDougie, @Harry_Palmer79 and @Louch, looking traumatised from his encounter with the direwolves, who had stopped to take photos of the Moness burn which feeds the River Tay, still relatively swift and narrow this far northwest (ignoring the existence of Loch Tay to the west for the purposes of narrative)
We had a good natter with the organisers (aka broom wagon operatives) and refuelled for our next leg.
After hanging around for what was definitely far too long for a sportive, our intrepid heroes set off once more, with @Louch protesting about not being allowed to finish his caramel shortcake. This, like us being last on the road, no coffee at any rest stops
and jokes about my seethrough cycling shorts (@Harry_Palmer79 described it as a window into my soul), was to be a recurring theme for the day.
Almost immediately we picked up National Cycle Network route 7, aka Lochs and Glens North, and part of the route for the tour that is being bandied around on this thread. Dougie and I headed off along it, through the woods and then into Strathtay where I recounted my solitary, tedious Strathtay anecdote about a snapped gear cable. Although I will say that the road from Aberfeldy to Strathtay was much longer than it was in my memory from my trip along it 10 years ago...
Coming to a relatively main road, we paused to see what our options were, trying to work out whether the road was suitable for riding, while waiting for Ross and Stephen to catch up. Regrouping once more, a decision was made, and with a cry of "ANDIAMO!", we headed off again, and the fears about the fast main road were quickly confirmed, as some extremely questionable overtaking took place. I don't want to say anything potentially inflammatory about Audi drivers or BMW drivers here, but seriously
those guys.
Eventually our route took us away from the River Tay once more and thankfully off the main road, into a sharp-left hander straight into a wall of a climb. I had been forewarned about it and told Dougie, so we got up it in one piece, but the others were not so fortunate and had to get off, downshift, and get back on.
While I can't speak for anyone else, at this point I was starting to feel my legs grow tired, my shonky knee was deeply unhappy, and my Garmin cheerfully reminded me that I still had 65 miles to go. The track that we followed was back on the NCN route again, but was undulating (some bumps, no real hills) and was hard work - the hardest part of the day to this point, but the exertion was somewhat rewarded with excellent views over the River Tummel valley, but Pitlochry in the distance was in the shadow of some rather substantial-looking hills.
We finally came down out of the forest, under the A9 and into Pitlochry. I think we could sense a food stop nearby as we all sped up a little bit in anticipation, legs burning up the Perth road, travelling under the main railway bridge, which lead directly into a debate about the relative merits of getting the train back to Perth and riding to the start... but with one last push and another of my lame, non-sequitur anecdotes about a wedding and a boating pond in Pitlochry we arrived at feed station 2.
Part four to follow...
The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer, when @Louch finally descended from the hills above Auchenmadeuplacernethy, with a haunted look of fear in his eyes.
"THE WHITE WALKERS!" he gasped, in terror.
"What are you talking about, this is the Highland Perthshire Challenge, not A Game of Thrones," @Harry_Palmer79 gently reminded him.
It was around about this time that Ed remembered why he never did finish any of his creative writing efforts because of his tendency to go off on wild tangents.
--
After the amazing descent and a couple of minutes of arriving at Aberfeldy and chatting with the guys manning the feed station who had passed us on the moor, my colleagues arrived in the following order: @ShooglyDougie, @Harry_Palmer79 and @Louch
We had a good natter with the organisers (aka broom wagon operatives) and refuelled for our next leg.
After hanging around for what was definitely far too long for a sportive, our intrepid heroes set off once more, with @Louch protesting about not being allowed to finish his caramel shortcake. This, like us being last on the road, no coffee at any rest stops
and jokes about my seethrough cycling shorts (@Harry_Palmer79 described it as a window into my soul), was to be a recurring theme for the day.Almost immediately we picked up National Cycle Network route 7, aka Lochs and Glens North, and part of the route for the tour that is being bandied around on this thread. Dougie and I headed off along it, through the woods and then into Strathtay where I recounted my solitary, tedious Strathtay anecdote about a snapped gear cable. Although I will say that the road from Aberfeldy to Strathtay was much longer than it was in my memory from my trip along it 10 years ago...
Coming to a relatively main road, we paused to see what our options were, trying to work out whether the road was suitable for riding, while waiting for Ross and Stephen to catch up. Regrouping once more, a decision was made, and with a cry of "ANDIAMO!", we headed off again, and the fears about the fast main road were quickly confirmed, as some extremely questionable overtaking took place. I don't want to say anything potentially inflammatory about Audi drivers or BMW drivers here, but seriously
those guys.Eventually our route took us away from the River Tay once more and thankfully off the main road, into a sharp-left hander straight into a wall of a climb. I had been forewarned about it and told Dougie, so we got up it in one piece, but the others were not so fortunate and had to get off, downshift, and get back on.
While I can't speak for anyone else, at this point I was starting to feel my legs grow tired, my shonky knee was deeply unhappy, and my Garmin cheerfully reminded me that I still had 65 miles to go. The track that we followed was back on the NCN route again, but was undulating (some bumps, no real hills) and was hard work - the hardest part of the day to this point, but the exertion was somewhat rewarded with excellent views over the River Tummel valley, but Pitlochry in the distance was in the shadow of some rather substantial-looking hills.
We finally came down out of the forest, under the A9 and into Pitlochry. I think we could sense a food stop nearby as we all sped up a little bit in anticipation, legs burning up the Perth road, travelling under the main railway bridge, which lead directly into a debate about the relative merits of getting the train back to Perth and riding to the start... but with one last push and another of my lame, non-sequitur anecdotes about a wedding and a boating pond in Pitlochry we arrived at feed station 2.
Part four to follow...
Strathlubnaig
Guru
- Location
- Alberta
Damn right, and that last multiple turn 10 miles with the nasty final Collace climb thrown in has ruined lesser folk, especially with the wind.
A Cake for Louch - Edward R.R. Oka
Book Four in his epic series "Four Guys Somehow Survive a Century Sportive"
As you can see in the photos posted above by @Louch, Feed Station 2 was very well-stocked, particularly for people trundling in well behind the main pack. Lots of tasty goodies, the chicken tikka rolls were excellent (I wouldn't mind one just now as I write this), as was the chocolate cake, the flapjack, and the bananas, and the jelly babies...
The volunteers manning this feed stop were nice and genuinely appreciative of our effort, as were we of theirs. Much food was had and mostly great chat with the volunteers (although my crappy gear cable anecdote rightly died a death
), and one of them immediately noticed that my bike was carbon fibre, came over to it and started cooing and pawing at it. He had in a previous job worked for an engineering firm that prototyped carbon fibre sports equipment before it was mainstream.
"It would be a terrible shame if you fell off and couldn't continue the ride," he said, eying up the now-geekily-named bike, "If something did happen you'd be sure to leave your bike behind?"
Slightly vague threats and bike envy aside, they were genuinely lovely people. While it's fresh in my mind, the charity (http://www.maf-uk.org/) is a very good cause, and all of the volunteers we met on the route were truly passionate about it - the sportive is quite unique in just how much of the money raised goes directly to the charity.
After again spending far too much time sat down (Strava says 21 minutes! A 21 minute stop on a sportive!
), we reluctantly decided to head off into the big climb of the day, at which @Louch muttered again about not being able to finish his caramel shortcake, and we bid the feed station volunteers a warm adieu.
As we headed off, I failed to clip in and nearly went down but luckily my cycling madskillz kept me upright while Ross and Dougie shot on up the hill. I realised early on that there was no point in chasing them up the hill; their power-to-weight ratios are so much better than the heffalump Ed could ever manage.
It was a very sharp climb out of Pitlochry, along a residential street, past the high school and with a sweeping righthander we were out of the town and onto the more gradual part of the climb proper.
Thankfully I have no memory for much of this climb, except lots of profusely sweating and struggling, and @Louch shouting about "put aing sticker on yer erse!". Evidently the emotion of looking into the abyss was getting to him.
I do recall seeing a road sign that said "Blairgowrie 22" and groaning.
It was to be a long slog, and Dougie and Ross stopped by the side of the road, as I rode past them I called out "Why are you stopping? There's still a hill to climb!" and carried on. Looking at the Strava Flyby it appears that Ser @Louch had slowed and was struggling, and Dougie went back to ensure that he was ok, which it seems that he was.
At this point I had disappeared up the hill, too focussed on my own effort to concern myself with those of my colleagues.
Hills are a very personal kind of torture, and while there's no "team" in "SHUT UP LEGS", there is "team" in "steam", plenty of which was pouring off me as I ground my way up.
I tried justifying abandoning my team mates to myself as I summitted the col, and as I powered down the far side at 30mph I had a series of obnoxious thoughts which I am not proud of:
Luckily for team unity I found my moral compass in Kirkmichael when Jordan, the amazing broom wagon / feed station driver waved me down.
We had a good chat about why he had volunteered his time, he told me about himself and his involvement with the charity and his passion and enthusiasm was very clear to see.
One by one my colleagues rolled in and I was glad that I hadn't taken the easy option out.
What use is putting in a hard effort if it means you abandon your buddies to toil in your wake? After all, @Louch stayed with me when I cracked badly on Arran.
The rules, after all, are:
Regrouping once more, we chatted briefly and Jordan told us about the next feed station in a dozen or so miles and waved us off.
The road from there until Bridge of Cally was largely uneventful, although the highlight of this section was when @Louch bombed past on a downhill, spinning out at maximum gearing, and the guttural cry he gave when I sped past him. Sorry dude!
After the climb out of Bridge of Cally, we encountered some horrendous tarmac, so rutted that I could feel my brain bouncing around in my skull, my wheels wouldn't stay planted, which sapped my energy, spirit, and took all the momentum out of my wheels.
As we rode along I would point out obstacles in the road, to which @ShooglyDougie said "It's good that you point these things out so that I know what to aim for!" Oh how I wished for suspension on that road.
A few miles later we saw a sign indicating a feed stop - but there was nothing in sight but a gated farm road. What devilry is this? Then I saw a gel wrapper by the side of the layby and my heart sank. The feed station has gone. We've been abandoned.
Part five to follow (tomorrow)
Book Four in his epic series "Four Guys Somehow Survive a Century Sportive"
As you can see in the photos posted above by @Louch, Feed Station 2 was very well-stocked, particularly for people trundling in well behind the main pack. Lots of tasty goodies, the chicken tikka rolls were excellent (I wouldn't mind one just now as I write this), as was the chocolate cake, the flapjack, and the bananas, and the jelly babies...
The volunteers manning this feed stop were nice and genuinely appreciative of our effort, as were we of theirs. Much food was had and mostly great chat with the volunteers (although my crappy gear cable anecdote rightly died a death
), and one of them immediately noticed that my bike was carbon fibre, came over to it and started cooing and pawing at it. He had in a previous job worked for an engineering firm that prototyped carbon fibre sports equipment before it was mainstream."It would be a terrible shame if you fell off and couldn't continue the ride," he said, eying up the now-geekily-named bike, "If something did happen you'd be sure to leave your bike behind?"
Slightly vague threats and bike envy aside, they were genuinely lovely people. While it's fresh in my mind, the charity (http://www.maf-uk.org/) is a very good cause, and all of the volunteers we met on the route were truly passionate about it - the sportive is quite unique in just how much of the money raised goes directly to the charity.
After again spending far too much time sat down (Strava says 21 minutes! A 21 minute stop on a sportive!
), we reluctantly decided to head off into the big climb of the day, at which @Louch muttered again about not being able to finish his caramel shortcake, and we bid the feed station volunteers a warm adieu.As we headed off, I failed to clip in and nearly went down but luckily my cycling madskillz kept me upright while Ross and Dougie shot on up the hill. I realised early on that there was no point in chasing them up the hill; their power-to-weight ratios are so much better than the heffalump Ed could ever manage.
It was a very sharp climb out of Pitlochry, along a residential street, past the high school and with a sweeping righthander we were out of the town and onto the more gradual part of the climb proper.
Thankfully I have no memory for much of this climb, except lots of profusely sweating and struggling, and @Louch shouting about "put a
ing sticker on yer erse!". Evidently the emotion of looking into the abyss was getting to him.I do recall seeing a road sign that said "Blairgowrie 22" and groaning.
It was to be a long slog, and Dougie and Ross stopped by the side of the road, as I rode past them I called out "Why are you stopping? There's still a hill to climb!" and carried on. Looking at the Strava Flyby it appears that Ser @Louch had slowed and was struggling, and Dougie went back to ensure that he was ok, which it seems that he was.
At this point I had disappeared up the hill, too focussed on my own effort to concern myself with those of my colleagues.
Hills are a very personal kind of torture, and while there's no "team" in "SHUT UP LEGS", there is "team" in "steam", plenty of which was pouring off me as I ground my way up.
I tried justifying abandoning my team mates to myself as I summitted the col, and as I powered down the far side at 30mph I had a series of obnoxious thoughts which I am not proud of:
- My legs are feeling surprisingly good after the IT band massage I gave myself in Pitlochry and that horrid climb
- What if they close the timing section? If I wait behind I might get a DNF.
- Can I catch the next rider on the road?
- Would that make me a bad person?
Luckily for team unity I found my moral compass in Kirkmichael when Jordan, the amazing broom wagon / feed station driver waved me down.
We had a good chat about why he had volunteered his time, he told me about himself and his involvement with the charity and his passion and enthusiasm was very clear to see.
One by one my colleagues rolled in and I was glad that I hadn't taken the easy option out.
What use is putting in a hard effort if it means you abandon your buddies to toil in your wake? After all, @Louch stayed with me when I cracked badly on Arran.
The rules, after all, are:
- No one left behind
- There will be cake
- Something about bikes
Regrouping once more, we chatted briefly and Jordan told us about the next feed station in a dozen or so miles and waved us off.
The road from there until Bridge of Cally was largely uneventful, although the highlight of this section was when @Louch bombed past on a downhill, spinning out at maximum gearing, and the guttural cry he gave when I sped past him. Sorry dude!
After the climb out of Bridge of Cally, we encountered some horrendous tarmac, so rutted that I could feel my brain bouncing around in my skull, my wheels wouldn't stay planted, which sapped my energy, spirit, and took all the momentum out of my wheels.
As we rode along I would point out obstacles in the road, to which @ShooglyDougie said "It's good that you point these things out so that I know what to aim for!" Oh how I wished for suspension on that road.
A few miles later we saw a sign indicating a feed stop - but there was nothing in sight but a gated farm road. What devilry is this? Then I saw a gel wrapper by the side of the layby and my heart sank. The feed station has gone. We've been abandoned.
Part five to follow (tomorrow)
- Location
- Glasgow
Oww!
But I don't get it: how come you all were so behind the rest? Is it because CC Ecosse started later due to your erm ... tardiness?
But I don't get it: how come you all were so behind the rest? Is it because CC Ecosse started later due to your erm ... tardiness?
We started very late (THANKS, ED) and, speaking from my experience, none of us (apart from @ShooglyDougie) were really prepared physically or mentally for the effort required; I've only ridden one ton since picking up my injury, Ross has never ridden a ton before, and Louch has spent too much time travelling around for work lately.Oww!
But I don't get it: how come you all were so behind the rest? Is it because CC Ecosse started later due to your erm ... tardiness?
Nor did we really treat it as a sportive, it was more of an extended CC Ecosse bimble with race numbers, and while our mantra wasn't "Don't die!" our goal for the day was pretty much survival.
Book Five in the series There and Back Again: Why Are We Doing This: A Tale Of Cracked Riders and Rims will go into more detail!
really enjoying your write up, mine would be along the lines of: cycled up, did sportive, cycled back - bit windy.
arranandy
Legendary Member
Good report so far. Lovely part if the country up there
Col5632
Guru
- Location
- Cowdenbeath
Great report so far, looking forward to part 5, i had plans to do 80-100 miles yesterday but after almost giving up on the Tak i decided to stick with the route i had planned 
Strathlubnaig
Guru
- Location
- Alberta
That feed stop you missed I always feel is in a bad spot, as you are normally doing a fair clip down the hill before it, I have always been loath to lose my momentum, and if required I could get a snack in Blairgowrie co-op.
- Location
- Glasgow
This ride report is excellent: awaiting part 5 with anticipation, but don't rush it @Edwardoka, least you forget something important!
OP
OP
Louch
105% knowledge on 105
- Location
- Kingdom of Kinnard
id disagree that I wasnt ready, I was just on the dehydrated side due to Fridays frequent toilet trips and the wind. the rest is all true, even the parts about direwolves 
