McCraw's route round the hills
After reading Dave's ride round the Pentlands I thought I would have a go in the clockwise direction..
Got down to Carnwath inside 2 hours... used the A702 though which goes through West Linton.
Then turned right onto A721 and discovered some places in South Lanarkshire I hadn't come across before.
Elsrickle does appear on google map - unless you enlarge map too far whereupon it disappears. Entrance sign has the legend 'Thriving on safe driving'
Then into Carnwath and turn sharp right onto A70.
At this point i realised that the wind direction would be ideal for recumbent riding and set the Fuego even lower to make myself as invisible as possible.
The road out of Carnwath has a couple of uphills before getting higher up onto the moor. At this point I realised that even dodging the headwind it was going to be big push home.
Had a nice chat with someone doing road repairs and was led by mini tractor in a convoy..
During the loop I saw five road bikes. Two were going with the wind. One acknowledged my wave (If it isn't in Cycling Plus it isn't a bike?).
One ERC kitted guy came round in same direction while I was adjusting bike near Harperigg and remarked I was cheating. Made mistake of going ahead of him after he had stopped for a minute and he caught me before entering Balerno - anyway I was on autopilot by then having eaten last of my cereal bars! i did reckon he must have taken a pounding on his arms on teh road surface so pretty sure I was ahead on comfort (but no prizes for out comforting him)
Even more depressing when you realise that many of the hard core riders were on the Tour 'o The Borders today!
I knew I was tired when I intentionally looped through Harrision Gardens to get onto canal path just to avoid the hill past the diggers (!)...
All in all a good training route and happy to try again. Judging by number of wind farms todays weather was pretty standard. Cold though with snow showing on hills to the north and roads still slightly frosty.
"The ‘lang whang’ climbs around 650 feet from the bypass, up to around 1100 feet – but this is over 14 miles, so the gradient is slight and nothing to worry about.
Do note that there is little shelter from the weather on top, so the foolhardy and the ill-prepared may still be punished."
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