Lets do something fun. Or stupid, maybe stupid.

One of the things I like about living in Scotland is looking at the weather and selecting an appropriate outdoor activity. But sometimes it’s fun to go and do something wholly unsuitable for the prevailing conditions.

This is the tale of how a 90min ride can turn into a 6 hour epic.

Deep snow: fun but really, really, hard work

Red weather warnings had passed and the snow was thick on the ground. My boating plans had been called off, Laura’s flight to Paris had been cancelled. We were both at a loose end for the weekend, so why not go biking!
The plan: Try to get to the Pentlands and see what we could ride.

2 mins after leaving Laura’s house, we were stopped by a bloke in a 4WD: “you’ll not get much further up road, it’s only ploughed as far as the last house”. Undeterred we carried on, what did he know; we’d spent all winter training for the Puffer of course we can probably cope…

Harlaw Road, shortly after the last house

Pretty soon we reached the last house. Snow had drifted to handlebar-height in places, but there was a clear path where walkers had been through. We intermittently pushed and rode through the snow, the was just a taste of what was to come.

Harlaw Road: Definitely Not Ploughed

The ‘badgers’ path was totally snowed over, so we opted to stick on the ‘road’ to get to Harlaw reservoir. Shortly before the turnoff we bumbled into a digger trying to clear the road from the other direction. We had about 100m of cleared road to cycle on, little did we know this was most we cycle for the next couple of hours.

Maybe we'll not go this way

Turning in to the Harlaw car park, the folks living in the cottage were out clearing their path. They looked at us like we were mad. “What is this, the comedy winter Olympics?”, they laughed at us. I peddled full tilt at the on coming snow drift. Unsurprisingly, my front wheel stuck in the drift and I just about saved myself from going over the handle bars.

We pushed through to the car park exit. I’d suggested, we try to get back toward my house on the tracks. Once through the gate we discovered we couldn’t even see where the track was. Laura pointed out, you could see the sign post marking the next turning, that would give us something to aim for.

Evidence we did some actual riding

Intermittently cycling and pushing we set off, eventually we got to the turning to head back down towards my house. The normal option here is to continue through a gate and climb up the pass through Maidens Cleugh.  I pushed through the gate ‘just to see what it’s like’.  Laura looked at me, “I mean we’ve got all day…”.

Oh more pushing, fun

Before we knew what was happening we were pushing our bikes up the pass, every so often a wind swept piece of path offered 10-20 meters of riding. A group of fell runners passed us with a shout of “Hello fellow Nutters!”.

Two 'Nutters' and their spurious fashion choices

After a lot of pushing and a lot of giggles, we reached the top of the pass. Feeling like heroes we stopped for a quick chocolate break. (Side note: While the rest of Scotland has been panic buying bread and milk, the shops have had no shortage of my essential items. Chocolate, squirty cream and cheese have been available in abundance).

Top of the Pass. We are Heroes.

Since we’d made it to the top of the pass we figured we may as well continue down to Glencorse, and then if it was really bad we could always come home on the roads. The descent was much more rideable than the climb.  Although there were still some patches of deep snow, occasionally sinking up to our waists.  One particularly deep drift caught my front wheel, and I catapulted over the handle bars and landed in soft snow. After a solid minute of laughing, Laura recovered enough to pull my bike off of me.

Descent to Glencouse

Carrying on down hill I stopped to take photos, just as Laura disappeared out of sight I heard a woop and a scream. Gingerly rounding the bend, I found Laura face down in the snow sliding gently toward a gorse bush. Karma.

Pretty soon, some 3hours after setting off, we reached the tarmac road on the other side of the hill. We’d made it halfway round the loop. In for a penny - in for a pound, we might as well complete our usual Pentland loop.

Laura sinks over her wellies

Passing more groups of walkers (funnily no other bikers), we always aimed to be cycling as we passed them ‘looking cool’. Unsurprisingly this failed on most occasions. We did however manage to ride stylishly past one group, “Oh I will give that a round of Applause – well done!”. We rode on to the sound of clapping. Shortly afterwards I sunk up to my waist in another snow drift.

Woo track-stand! (much easier wedged into the snow)

Just as we were getting back to a road we met a rider on a plus bike coming in the opposite direction. He warned us we’d need to be prepared for pushing if we were to continue. We assured him we were now experts at pushing thorough snow.

Back on a tarmac road

On the descent I had my first ever attempt at the single track on the left hand side of the tarmac hill! (My usual right hand side trail was too snow covered as was the tarmac).

Coming to the path round the reservoirs we overtook a group of crosscountry skiers, and much to my surprise, stayed ahead of them. The paths through the trees were a lot more sheltered and mostly rideable through a few inches of soft powder.

The way is definitely blocked.

As we’d noted setting off, the return track was completely blocked. We created an alternative route pushing through the visitor garden, back to the Harlaw carpark. We’d made it! Returning home via freshly ploughed roads, I arrived exhausted, a mere 6 hours and 6 minutes after setting off.

What an experience!

(but maybe never again)

Top of Maidens Cleugh, feeling like a hero (and an idiot)