Over the last 2 days, I rode the old Scottish classic route, the Twilight 600.
This is my longest ever solo ride.
https://ridewithgps.com/trips/10610083This route deserves a bit more description than a one-liner, so here goes...
This classic Scottish route goes diagonally across Scotland, from Edinburgh in the South East, to Ardgour in the North West, taking in much of the varied scenery and terrain that Scotland has to offer.
From a 5am start, we head North across the Forth Road Bridge, with views of the Forth Bridge and the near-finished new Forth Crossing.
After negotiatating major road-works at the North of the bridge, we pass through some of the less scenic parts of Fife, before bearing westwards towards the more gentrified pastures of Perthshire.
There's a great ride up Glen Devon, and a massive descent down towards Gleneagles.
Control at Crieff, where the cafes are not yet open, so it's a bacon roll from the bakery.
From Crieff, a classic ride through the Sma' Glen, and on to Aberfeldy.
Down past Loch Tay, to Killin for snacks and drinks. This had been a possible lunch stop, but I was way too early for lunch, so I press on to Crianlarich.
Joining the A85 at Lix Toll, this is where the bad traffic begins.
The traffic and standard of driving is nothing short of horrific.
Busses and HGVs will make no effort to pass you, and will fly past at 70 an inch away from your handlebars.
This requires pretty aggressive road positioning, and glowering over your shoulder to force them to slow down and pass more carefully.
Cars were mostly well behaved, but I did notice that most of the ones that did dangerous overtakes had NL plates, which surprised me.
Perhaps with so much segregated cycling in NL, the drivers don't know how to deal with cyclists on main roads?
Camper vans ( probably hired ) all pulled in too soon, probably because their drivers are not used to such long vehicles.
Anyways, Lunch at Crianlarich, on to Tyndrum and the climb up to Rannoch Moor.
You know you are on the West Coast when you see Buachaille Etive Mor glowering across Rannoch Moor.
This is the gateway to Glencoe, and a hooning great descent town the glen.
Across the Ballachulish Bridge, at arrive at the Corran Bunkhouse before 4pm.
Get checked in, and dump some stuff off the bike and we head out for the evening loop of 130k round Ardgour.
The bunkhouse is on the ferry slipway, and as I set off I notice the navigational instruction on my Garmin says 'Board Ferry'.
This seemed like good advice, so I did.
Corran Ferry by
Ron Lowe, on Flickr
The loop round Argour is quite rugged, and not particularly fast.
I set off around 4:30, but the road along Loch Sunart is constantly undulating, so you feel like you are climbing all the time.
Through Strontian ( the element Strontium is named after it ), and on to Salen where I stop for dinner at the Salen Hotel.
The road North to Lochailort goes over a couple of fairly long draggy climbs, and I get to the Lochailort inn at about 9.
The guests are just finishing their dinner, and I am served some drinks and crisps by some cheery East Europeans.
As I go to depart, one of the diners offers me some advice. I'll need some lights, apparently.
Grateful for their words of wisdom, I turn my lights on and head East towards Fort William in the Twilight.
This is a flat section, and fairly fast. I pass Glenfinnan, where the monument was floodlight.
At Corpach, a couple of miles from Fort William, I come across stationary traffic. There is nothing coming the other way, so I pass it.
The gridlock goes all the way to Fort William, and I come to the Police road block.
Pedestrians are directed down a steep bank into a field, where I can re-join the road after a couple of hundred metres.
The tailback stretches for a couple of miles the other side of Fort William too.
This meant I had no traffic coming my way all the way back to the Corran Bunkhouse.
So to bed at 11, and up at 6 for a 7am start on day 2.
Drinking my coffee, I read the news and it turns out the incident in Fort William the previous evening was a cyclist fatality involving an HGV.
With this sobering news fresh in mind, and bearing in mind the traffic I endured the previous day, I decided to use the cycle path NCN 78 from Ballachulish to Oban.
I've used this before, some years ago on the Port Navigation 200, and remember it as being of good quality.
And indeed it was; I followed it all the way.
This was all well and good until you come to the Connel Bridge. The NCN78 points off to the left, saying Oban 6.
That's a bit longer than the main road, but what the heck. I had time in hand before the Oban control. DO NOT DO THIS!
The route takes a big loop away from Oban, along a bastard hilly single track road. Unless you are looking for a few over-distance Km, and a bunch of gratuitous climbing, take the main road.
And that was the Good News.
The bad news is that NCN78 to Oban DOES NOT GO TO OBAN!
It's an Oban Bypass, dropping you out on the Taynuilt road 2.5 mile beyond Oban, on the wrong side of a Bastard Hill.
Since Oban was a control, I had to climb over said Bastard Hill to get to Oban.
And then for extra fun, a Hill Rep back over said Bastard Hill in the other direction, because my next destination was Taynuilt!
Lovely road to Taynuilt, though.
Then up a seemingly endless climb to Tyndrum and back to Crianlarich, with only 100k or so to go.
It started to rain on the climb, and the waterproofs went on and remained on for the remainder of the day.
Back along the Dangerous A85 as far as Lix Toll, where I turn south up another endless climb and to Lochearnhead then Callander.
The weather was a bit grim, so I was just head down and pushing on by now.
The final stretch took me through Stirling, but I think my route could have been better planned through the city; I was on cycle-hostile main roads and multi-lane roundabouts in heavy fast traffic.
Then through Grangemouth, which is dominated by the massive Ineos refinery and petrochemical plant.
The whole place has an unwholesome stink about it. Who knows what volatile aromatic compounes are in the air. I do wonder how anyone can ever sell a house there.
This might be the only place where a Daily Mail headline might actually be true: Ineos gave my house price cancer.
The final part of my route could do with a bit of refining itself.
Through Bo'ness, and up a Bastard Steep road out the other side, followed by some nice lanes which took me directly back to South Queensferry for a 8pm finish.
I checked in at the Dakota hotel, had a shower and got changed in time for a decent dinner in the hotel, and so to bed.
Another SR in the can ( STV etc etc ).
