I had some insight one day a couple of weeks ago into the regard in which bicyclists are held.
I was at the controls of my automobile heading over the unclassified single track road between Garbole and Farr on an eagle hunting trip when I came across my first set of cyclists. Three young ladies behind a slightly grizzled gentleman, all on mid-range racing bikes, wearing lycra. This road is the ninth highest in Scotland and it is extremely steep in parts. I expect some of us have cycled it. There are passing places, but would the ladies pull in and let me pass? No they wouldn't.
I ambled along behind them, politely past one, two, three passing places. One lady pulls into a turn-off to the wind farm, but her pals keep steaming up the hill at below walking pace. Do they enjoy having me on their tail? Who knows? Any standard issue motorist would be fuming.
Eventually, their coach up ahead spots me and furiously beckons his team mates (they're in club colours) to pull in and let me through. I give him a thumbs up and he rolls his eyes.
Later, at Dalbeg right at the head of the Findhorn, I came across a party of four bicyclists - two couples - in their sixties and seventies. They are hugely affable, and engage in great banter. One couple has Gary Fisher MTBs from the nineties. The other couple have Ridgeback hybrids with city tyres. They're planning to cycle up a track I walked up a few years ago and found challenging. They assure me they'll just ride up to the 700m contour and turn right to make a loop. I tell them there was no track corresponding to the one on the map the last time I was up there, but they laugh and say they're up for the adventure. I suggest they may run out of gears and they smile and say they'll push if they have to. Great people, attempting a bike ride that would have most thirty year olds in tears.
(Eight eagle spots that afternoon, including one white-tailed. They don't call the valley of the river Eskin 'eagle alley' for nothing.)
posts
