We woke up to snow this morning. We were meant to be doing a mtb sportive, but last night they had abandoned the high level route in favour of something safer, so we had decided against a really early start and didn't go. Our planned car journey would have been 90 mins but with the snow we would have needed to have taken an altogether different route which would have pushed the drive time well over 2hours and well, we can cycle on mountain bikes in a forest any time we want, so we decided that we would do our own thing instead on the last day of our holiday.
7:30am this morning...
So after a session of deciding which bikes, and wrapping up warm we headed off into the snow on the road bikes. Yep, road bikes.
Why take the mountain bikes or fit them with studded tyres when...
just don't go there. the going was slow and we had to take it easy. At times the car tyre ruts were only 12 inches and going up hill in that is not as easy as it could be, but it was not long before decisions needed to be made. We had decided on 'talking' about it at the frog rock - officially called the Frog Stone, but we think it is a rock!
The Frog Rock and an old friend.
Conditions are not looking too bad for continuing, but if that turns to ice up on Rannoch Moor itself, I'm heading back!
the hydroelectric station..
At the top of the climb it was clear we could continue - there were a couple more points that we knew we would need to make a decision at, but as it turned out, whilst the snow got to around 6 inches deep and the ruts only 12 inches wide, it wasn't actually a problem and it was melting fast.
Rannoch station bike rack was strangely empty of bikes today!
Proof we made it - honest!
Not surprisingly we had not met any other cyclists, and only 3 cars. All were great and passed us slowly even though we had had to stop (we were cycling side by side, one in each tyre rut) and picked the bikes up to move them off the road. By the time we got to the descent, which I had been slightly concerned about, most of the snow on the road had melted and instead of 12 inches to play with (
) I now had around 36 inches to play with (OK - for those thinking something else - stop it!!!
). Before long I had scared the living daylights out of the last of 3 road cyclists who decided on the "can't hear any cars" approach to a faster corner and cut it, now having already passed by OH, I was hoping that he might just consider a possible 2nd cyclist - apparently not! But then the first of that pack had actually been wearing shorts!
A quick stop for another photo was called for when the sun made a rare appearance and looked really nice on the loch - I was a touch too late stopping and getting the camera out though...
Then back to the holiday home for a warm lunch - it was getting late before heading out again for a final lap of the loch.
Another patch of nice light was to follow.
But then the weather started to change and the last few miles were in rain, sleet and finally heavy snow. We got back around 3 mins too late to miss the worst of it
Tis snowing hard again right now. More forecast for tonight, but we have managed to get a great final ride in and really enjoyed it.
http://www.strava.com/activities/122924527 71.5km (44.5 miles 1/2 in snow!)
.
here this morning but there are showers forecast for later so I headed out to get some miles in while it lasted. It may be sunny but it was quite cold with a strongish wind which I was riding out against for the first half of the loop.
