For family reasons I've not been away much this year but I managed to
get away for a couple of days on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday I
parked the car at Pitlochry and took the road over the hill to
Kirkmichael. At one point passed a "slow, pheasants on road" sign.
Sure enough in the next mile saw a couple of hundred pheasants on the
road and adjoining fields.
The weather forecast had been for heavy showers and a strong wind
from the southwest and they weren't wrong. I was on my mountain bike
and soon realised why my other bikes have mudguards on them. I was
getting as wet from roadspray as from rain.
I Stopped to warm up at the Glenshee Hotel (soup of the day and
crusty bread not to be missed) and then up the hill over the road past
the ski centre and into the hostel at Braemar.
On Tuesday the weather was dry other than the last hour. Not only
that but the tailwind from the day before had done a 180 and would be
a tailwind for today as I went back south.
The route was back to Pitlochry via Glen Tilt. Five miles road
either end and 22 miles offroad in the middle without having to open a
gate or climb a stile.
http://caithnesscc.co.uk/MTB/Route%20Guides/Cairngorms/the_tour_of_the_cairngorms.htm
For anyone interested in route details Kevin Hodgson gives an
excellent description in the Braemar to Blair Atholl day of his tour
of the Cairngorms route description in he link above. The couple of
miles of singletrack leading to the top of Glen Tilt are (for me)
quite technical and I ended up pushing the bike about half the time.
The SPDs I was using did not have a platform and it was hard to use
them without clipping in. I found that the amount of boulders and
stones on the path made it essential to be ready to put a foot down
instantly. The route at that point is remote enough that having an
accident is not an option. A broken leg would have meant lying there
for long enough to be found by another biker or walker or until I was
missed later on that night and a mountain rescue search organised.
More likely the latter as other than fishermen lower down the Glen I
didn't see anyone else all day.
Anyway once the landrover track in upper Glen Tilt was reached the
next ten miles were superb. The tailwind combined with the gradual
downhill meant around half was freewheeling.
The strange wildlife sighting of the day was a 6 or 7 pound dead
salmon lying about 2 feet from the riverbank. The burn at that point
ran through shallows so my best guess is that it jumped out trying to
negotiate the boulders.
Anyway as I got to Blair Atholl the rain started. So a quick snack
in a phone box then down the road to the car at Pitlochry and back to
reality.
Iain