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.
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Deep snow: fun but really, really, hard work
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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…
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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…”.
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| 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!”.
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| 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).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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)
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| Top of Maidens Cleugh, feeling like a hero (and an idiot) |
