Sunshine and a strong westerly wind welcomed us today as seven headed out for a short but hard route from the leisure centre. We headed out the Glamis Rd, down the hill to Drumgley then out the Bogside Rd turning right up to Maryton, Kirriemuir and out towards Pearsie.
The climbs are all hard and as we approached the first ust after 9 miles of gradual climbing 400' the rain came on, thankfully we turned to have the wind behind us and we got a wee blow up 200' in about 3/4 of a mile, we then had a wee breather with a gently undulating mile and half into the wind followed by three short 100' or so steep climbs to the Pearsie junction where Keith turned for home.
The junction is the "point of no return" on this hilly loop, at this point we had climbed over a 1000' in just 12 miles and are a good 500' higher than we started, the next three miles sees a series of short sharp climbs totaling about 500' before the hardest climb of the day at Easter Lednathie 275' in 0.6 of a mile then a lovely long descent into Glen Prosen
Taking a breather before descending into Glen Prosen
The descent is into the wind and we hit a few showers before tuning over the bridge and back up the other side, a series of 2 long gradual climbs which were a breeze with the wind behind us where we came upon the new memorial to Captain Scott and Dr Wilson which sits at the top of Mile Hill looking over Prosen Water, the pair had planned their ill fated 1910 -1912 expedition to the North Pole from Wilson's close by Burnside Cottage
At this point we had pedaled 22 miles and climbed just over 2100' - time for a breather before the mile descent into Dykehead where Ron headed for home with the rest of us turning left into the wind into Glen Clova for 11 miles of lumps to the Glen Clova Hotel for soup and a beer.
When we ventured out the sky was an ominous grey with a strong wind, we set of with the wind behind us, Gus taking the pace anxous to "out bike the rain" which we pretty much succeeded in doing. We split at Tulloch Wyne with Charlie heading for home and the rest of us through Cortachy for the last two short sharp climbs
of the day and a long descent into the Drovers and a well earned beer or two! They were out of real ale, disaster, but they also have West Beer on tap, a traditional German beer brewed in Glasgow - take a look here
The sun was out when we left and it was still pretty wind as we did the last 6 miles down into Forfar ad home - 52 miles and over 3000' of climbing - a tough but enjoyable day out! The route is here if you fancy it?
