A weather forecast promising clearing skies with sunny intervals was somewhat tardy and only delivered the goods as we sped down the last descent into Coulter Village rather soggy and bedraggled after about 3.5 hours of rain and strong winds. This was a brisk-paced circuit of 30km with no breakdowns of either machine or spirit with a well-honed team of Joanne T, Nicki I, Karl Z, Jamie T, Andy S and Keith B. The head wind and rain on the climb past the reservoir to the Holme Nick bealach delivered wind chill that belied the mild air from the south.
Turning downwind and downhill towards Chapelgill gave us entertaining steepness, swamps and tussock where Karl demonstrated his circus skills handling the bike where the rest of the team staggered on foot. Back on improving track and tarmac we flew to the road turn-off at Glenhighton. The forest climb towards Trebetha Hill gave us shelter from the wind and rain for a brief lunch break followed by an entertaining fast descent to the farm by Kilbucho House.
If anyone thought the journey was routine and drama free, this was where the balloon went up. Cruising through the tidy farmyard led by pilot Andy we found a very heated debate in progress between the farmer suffering a bout of spontaneous epiglottic inversion and Andy explaining to him the finer details of the 2003 Land Reform Bill (Scotland). We joined the debate with enthusiasm and discovered that the farmer didn’t want us on his Land-Reform-Bill-unexempted land because he was worried about having to claim on his insurance for his extremely dangerous Alsatian devouring a cyclist and damaging a bike. So we also reminded him of his duty of care liabilities. We didn’t get to meet the dog and the debate was escalating rapidly with swopped threats of local authority and police intervention by both parties. Fortunately we were getting cold, so we left the threats hanging in the air and bade this helpful guy farewell.
We had a neighbouring farmyard to pass through at Mitchell Hill on our return leg and approached nervously, thinking that Farmer 1 might have raised a local muster to impede us further. We passed the next farm without further incident and embarked on the delightful endgame of variegated mud and local hills that must have been a very large community a couple of thousand years ago judging from the Iron Age forts around these pretty hills.
Just as we were getting back to routine boring mud, we were thwarted by a belligerent group of cows who became so obstructive that we thought they might have been Kilbucho Man’s final act of revenge. We eventually got past them and they tagged along briefly then lost interest. Just as were flew down the final descent to Snaip Nisbet it stopped raining and the sun broke out!
The Mill Inn provided welcome re-hydration and delicious soup to round off a great circuit of about 30km + 600 m climb in just over 3hrs.
Keith Burns