SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
I wasn't feeling too good yesterday, so we didn't have a ride. Today I was better, but not 100% (combination of factors from coming off steroids, cracked rib, sore thumb, black eye, bruises everywhere still & painkillers amongst other things 
) so we settled for a ride around the loch again. It is one of those routes which we love, is always varied simply because of the light and tends to only happen in 1 direction only. (We had been planning to ride up the Schiehallion road, up to the Lime Kilns and back, but the weather is not 'favourable' at the moment, so we baled.)
We knew it was going to be slow, you only had to look at the weather conditions today. One minute you can see across the loch and see some wonderful light on the mountains, the next you can't see your hand in front of your face for snow flurries and it is as black as night behind you. So we decided against 'going light' given the conditions - it would not have been sensible and packed the flask, waterproofs and plenty of spare layers. Wind chill has temps down below -10C here at the moment, on the summit of Schiehallion they are saying -21C wind chill factor, so sensible has had to come out to play!
Within the 1st km we nearly ran into a mountain hare! (This happened a couple of day's ago as well when I nearly hit one and Stuart nearly hit another as 2 came around the corner up the middle of the road running a full pelt and we, well we were not going as slowly that day as we were today.) We got to watch it for a few minutes before a wren nearly flew into me. Initially we thought it was a leaf, caught on the wind, but it then turned around after landing next to me and flew in front of me for a few moments before aimlessly wandering back into some trees. Before long a buzzard did something similar and to be honest, if it had not have taken a crap on the power lines between the trees about 3m from us, we would not have actually seen it! After that, it was back to watching white throated dippers on the rocks of the loch, oyster catchers and hundreds of geese - the fields around the loch are full of them at the moment.
A nice patch of light on one of the local Munro's.
One of the hydro electric power stations on the northern shores of Loch Rannoch
My OH enjoying a patch of sunshine.
The weather was hit and miss, but when we had sunshine
, it was glorious and way too warm, seeing me stripping off layers almost as quickly as I had to put them back on! . The snow flurries, dark threatening clouds and freezing conditions were never far away though, but made for some wonderful light on the snow capped mountains around us.
A patch of light over the hills at Kinloch Rannoch.
A case of spring is around the corner, honest, but winter is still putting up a good fight.
A nice, if somewhat slower ride due to a rather brisk headwind. I have also found a new "P fairy".
Every time I stopped for a photo, I would come back to my bike and find a fairy visit on my garmin edge....
) so we settled for a ride around the loch again. It is one of those routes which we love, is always varied simply because of the light and tends to only happen in 1 direction only. (We had been planning to ride up the Schiehallion road, up to the Lime Kilns and back, but the weather is not 'favourable' at the moment, so we baled.)We knew it was going to be slow, you only had to look at the weather conditions today. One minute you can see across the loch and see some wonderful light on the mountains, the next you can't see your hand in front of your face for snow flurries and it is as black as night behind you. So we decided against 'going light' given the conditions - it would not have been sensible and packed the flask, waterproofs and plenty of spare layers. Wind chill has temps down below -10C here at the moment, on the summit of Schiehallion they are saying -21C wind chill factor, so sensible has had to come out to play!
Within the 1st km we nearly ran into a mountain hare! (This happened a couple of day's ago as well when I nearly hit one and Stuart nearly hit another as 2 came around the corner up the middle of the road running a full pelt and we, well we were not going as slowly that day as we were today.) We got to watch it for a few minutes before a wren nearly flew into me. Initially we thought it was a leaf, caught on the wind, but it then turned around after landing next to me and flew in front of me for a few moments before aimlessly wandering back into some trees. Before long a buzzard did something similar and to be honest, if it had not have taken a crap on the power lines between the trees about 3m from us, we would not have actually seen it! After that, it was back to watching white throated dippers on the rocks of the loch, oyster catchers and hundreds of geese - the fields around the loch are full of them at the moment.
A nice patch of light on one of the local Munro's.
One of the hydro electric power stations on the northern shores of Loch Rannoch
My OH enjoying a patch of sunshine.
The weather was hit and miss, but when we had sunshine
, it was glorious and way too warm, seeing me stripping off layers almost as quickly as I had to put them back on! . The snow flurries, dark threatening clouds and freezing conditions were never far away though, but made for some wonderful light on the snow capped mountains around us. A patch of light over the hills at Kinloch Rannoch.
A case of spring is around the corner, honest, but winter is still putting up a good fight.
A nice, if somewhat slower ride due to a rather brisk headwind. I have also found a new "P fairy".
Every time I stopped for a photo, I would come back to my bike and find a fairy visit on my garmin edge....
). Played it safe and opted for the flat Fens! The winds blew the roads dry but made speeds very variable (7-10mph along Crowland Road, North east bound and 18-20 mph along Glassmoor Bank, South west bound!). It was actually turning quite warm or so I thought, stopped for a comfort break, took the gloves off and opened the jersey, jacket and wind proof bibs and 
