Highland Perthshire 100miler - The CC Ecosse Version

[Louch]

MOD NOTE:
With apologies to @Louch for barging in on his post, I have started a new thread on this subject to expose it to the wider CC audience - but am unable to put my Introductory post at the beginning ...

Here is the content of that would-have-been post:
Originally posted in a thread in Road Rides, Audax and Sportives, the ride report by @Edwardoka is considered worthy of wider exposure, so here it is - with a little background and some selected other posts ...


Louch posted:
Let's start at 9 then

 

[ShooglyDougie]

Let's start at 9 then

This man speaks good words, an extra hour in bed, see you all at the start .

Also will have the car so can get Ross to a station at the end of the day if Steve cant.

 

[Louch]

Ton for fun

 

[Edwardoka]

A hunner for funner.

 

[Edwardoka]

Full report to follow later.

Three cracked riders and one cracked rim, but everyone finished in high spirits. Organisers were magnificent, one guy in particular.

 

[Edwardoka]

Saturday dawned clear and promising, which I was thankful for, knowing that I had one of the hardest days on the bike ahead of me, I didn't need the elements to be against me as well as the road.
Shortly after waking, I was running around like blue-arsed fly trying to find everything. In traditional Ed fashion I had completely failed to prepare the night before.

Eventually I had found enough and wasted enough time looking for the rest that I deemed it time to get ready.
A quick espresso followed by some fettling and minor maintenance on my bike (during the Islay ride, @Pat "5mph" insisted that I give my bike a name, and after yesterday I have chosen a name for it which is too geeky to share in a public place).

All as close to readiness as possible off I trundled, with my full day's ride loaded onto the Garmin, the readout showing "124mi to end" did not fill me with confidence.

Riding into a big headwind almost as soon as I left my new home village, negotiating a tractor, then heading west along back roads north of the Carse of Gowrie on the fringe of the Carse hills.
My colleague Jimmy (who also rode the 100, but had left considerably earlier than I, is also far faster than I and is part of a local club of insanely fast people) had warned me about the Rait climb over the Carse hills but it was much worse than I'd anticipated, and when I arrived at the airport 20 minutes later than scheduled, the sweat was lashing off me.

Ah, there were my fellow riders for the ordeal to come, @Harry_Palmer79, @ShooglyDougie and @Louch - greetings and apologies!

In the paddock, @Fubar was already limbering up for his crack at the 50, having ridden from Dunfermline to the start point. (His total for the day exceeded mine by 0.4 miles. I am not amused)

The four of us started in the same pack as a group of three who were doing the 50 mile ride, and, aside from one guy with very expensive deep-section carbon rimmed wheels (who, when I jokingly suggested a wheel swap decided to move his bike away from us), and one other guy who started well after us, we were the last ones on the road for the day.

The other three quickly dropped by my pace-setting it was down to the four of us again.

Part two to follow...

 

[Edwardoka]

Within the first mile, as we were travelling along the main road along the route that I was to take home, my Garmin lost the plot, bleeping at me to turn right, and that the finish was 11 miles away. Would that that were the case!

Soon enough we turned off the main road and into the first headwind of the day, which blew the group apart a little. We need to work on our pacelining skills, chaps

Following the Tay northwest towards Dunkeld was very pleasant, and we seemed to make good time, swooping along little country roads with the river on one side, then crossing over the turbulent water to the other side, as the hills on the horizon loomed larger with every passing mile. We ended up mixed up in a Dundee wheelers club run and I was sorry to have them turn off after a couple of miles.

As the two official rides split in Dunkeld there was no sign of @Fubar, who had arrived in Dunkeld six minutes before us but blasted straight through, and we stopped to regroup by the bridge, at which point expensive deep-set carbon rims guy zoomed past, clearly on a mission.

In Dunkeld the Highland Games were being held, and on either side of the road, there were "No thanks" campaign stalls and "Yes" stalls set up at the entrance, glowering at each other, one of which was populated by maybe a half-dozen middle-to-late middle-aged affluent looking people, the other populated by people of all ages, backgrounds and status, and with a palpable buzz.
Four cyclists shortly continued on their way, en-wristbanded and en-stickered. Can we finish this route? YES proclaimed our fresh adornments.
(Thus concludes the political broadcast)

Shortly after Dunkeld came the first real climb of the day (or for me, second, Rait be damned!), a 13 mile climb of just over 1,000ft. We stopped to re-group at a flat section and had a chat, as the last rider on the road went past us. We then continued on the rest of the climb, which people handled in different ways. I elected to hang back, pacing myself, @Louch rode up behind me, and as he came past he shouted about the new-to-me fact that my lycra had worn through (presumably done by the bag on the Islay trip) and that the top of my ass-crack was plainly visible for all to see through the mesh. It seemed to genuinely bother him as he powered up the hill like a goat on amphetamine - I can only presume he was fleeing from the mixed feelings that the sight will have raised in him.

A combination of shame, strategy and amusement kept me riding up the hill at pootle pace, but when I realised that we were nearing the summit, with me being a fair distance behind everyone, the word "Strava" came unbidden to me, I clicked onto the big ring and surged forward. I'm sure the KOM points I earned on the climb will come in handy some day...

The descent into Aberfeldy was absolutely magnificent, and made all the posterior-related shame and slog worthwhile. at 45.6 mph I was spinning out. Need more gears!

At the bottom of the descent was the first food stop, the guy who had overtaken us on the climb while we were stopped set off moments after I arrived. Maybe he'd seen something he was afraid of...?

Part three to follow...

 

[Louch]

view at the top of the climb after dunkeld. I took pics while the others took on the descent

my bike with its free saltire at the Aberfeldy food stop

 

[Louch]

considering we were the last to arrive, amazing food layout for us at the 51 mile stop at pitlochry. I shoudl have eaten more, as the next steep grind of a climb brought on my bonk as id eaten so little all day and been battered by the wind.

so I stopped at took this, to fool the broom wagon man that I wasnt in need of a lift..

 

[Louch]

after ten miles on my own to catch the group back up, I took these while they took respite and let me catch up

and how we finished up....despite @ShooglyDougie clearly crossing the line ages ahad of Ed the overtaker

 

[Edwardoka]

PART THREE OF OUR GLORIOUS ADVENTURE

The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer, when @Louch finally descended from the hills above Auchenmadeuplacernethy, with a haunted look of fear in his eyes.
"THE WHITE WALKERS!" he gasped, in terror.
"What are you talking about, this is the Highland Perthshire Challenge, not A Game of Thrones," @Harry_Palmer79 gently reminded him.

It was around about this time that Ed remembered why he never did finish any of his creative writing efforts because of his tendency to go off on wild tangents.
--

After the amazing descent and a couple of minutes of arriving at Aberfeldy and chatting with the guys manning the feed station who had passed us on the moor, my colleagues arrived in the following order: @ShooglyDougie, @Harry_Palmer79 and @Louch, looking traumatised from his encounter with the direwolves, who had stopped to take photos of the Moness burn which feeds the River Tay, still relatively swift and narrow this far northwest (ignoring the existence of Loch Tay to the west for the purposes of narrative)

We had a good natter with the organisers (aka broom wagon operatives) and refuelled for our next leg.
After hanging around for what was definitely far too long for a sportive, our intrepid heroes set off once more, with @Louch protesting about not being allowed to finish his caramel shortcake. This, like us being last on the road, no coffee at any rest stops and jokes about my seethrough cycling shorts (@Harry_Palmer79 described it as a window into my soul), was to be a recurring theme for the day.

Almost immediately we picked up National Cycle Network route 7, aka Lochs and Glens North, and part of the route for the tour that is being bandied around on this thread. Dougie and I headed off along it, through the woods and then into Strathtay where I recounted my solitary, tedious Strathtay anecdote about a snapped gear cable. Although I will say that the road from Aberfeldy to Strathtay was much longer than it was in my memory from my trip along it 10 years ago...

Coming to a relatively main road, we paused to see what our options were, trying to work out whether the road was suitable for riding, while waiting for Ross and Stephen to catch up. Regrouping once more, a decision was made, and with a cry of "ANDIAMO!", we headed off again, and the fears about the fast main road were quickly confirmed, as some extremely questionable overtaking took place. I don't want to say anything potentially inflammatory about Audi drivers or BMW drivers here, but seriously those guys.

Eventually our route took us away from the River Tay once more and thankfully off the main road, into a sharp-left hander straight into a wall of a climb. I had been forewarned about it and told Dougie, so we got up it in one piece, but the others were not so fortunate and had to get off, downshift, and get back on.

While I can't speak for anyone else, at this point I was starting to feel my legs grow tired, my shonky knee was deeply unhappy, and my Garmin cheerfully reminded me that I still had 65 miles to go. The track that we followed was back on the NCN route again, but was undulating (some bumps, no real hills) and was hard work - the hardest part of the day to this point, but the exertion was somewhat rewarded with excellent views over the River Tummel valley, but Pitlochry in the distance was in the shadow of some rather substantial-looking hills.

We finally came down out of the forest, under the A9 and into Pitlochry. I think we could sense a food stop nearby as we all sped up a little bit in anticipation, legs burning up the Perth road, travelling under the main railway bridge, which lead directly into a debate about the relative merits of getting the train back to Perth and riding to the start... but with one last push and another of my lame, non-sequitur anecdotes about a wedding and a boating pond in Pitlochry we arrived at feed station 2.

Part four to follow...

 

[Edwardoka]

A Cake for Louch - Edward R.R. Oka
Book Four in his epic series "Four Guys Somehow Survive a Century Sportive"

As you can see in the photos posted above by @Louch, Feed Station 2 was very well-stocked, particularly for people trundling in well behind the main pack. Lots of tasty goodies, the chicken tikka rolls were excellent (I wouldn't mind one just now as I write this), as was the chocolate cake, the flapjack, and the bananas, and the jelly babies...
The volunteers manning this feed stop were nice and genuinely appreciative of our effort, as were we of theirs. Much food was had and mostly great chat with the volunteers (although my crappy gear cable anecdote rightly died a death ), and one of them immediately noticed that my bike was carbon fibre, came over to it and started cooing and pawing at it. He had in a previous job worked for an engineering firm that prototyped carbon fibre sports equipment before it was mainstream.

"It would be a terrible shame if you fell off and couldn't continue the ride," he said, eying up the now-geekily-named bike, "If something did happen you'd be sure to leave your bike behind?"

Slightly vague threats and bike envy aside, they were genuinely lovely people. While it's fresh in my mind, the charity (http://www.maf-uk.org/) is a very good cause, and all of the volunteers we met on the route were truly passionate about it - the sportive is quite unique in just how much of the money raised goes directly to the charity.

After again spending far too much time sat down (Strava says 21 minutes! A 21 minute stop on a sportive!), we reluctantly decided to head off into the big climb of the day, at which @Louch muttered again about not being able to finish his caramel shortcake, and we bid the feed station volunteers a warm adieu.

As we headed off, I failed to clip in and nearly went down but luckily my cycling madskillz kept me upright while Ross and Dougie shot on up the hill. I realised early on that there was no point in chasing them up the hill; their power-to-weight ratios are so much better than the heffalump Ed could ever manage.
It was a very sharp climb out of Pitlochry, along a residential street, past the high school and with a sweeping righthander we were out of the town and onto the more gradual part of the climb proper.

Thankfully I have no memory for much of this climb, except lots of profusely sweating and struggling, and @Louch shouting about "put a ing sticker on yer erse!". Evidently the emotion of looking into the abyss was getting to him.

I do recall seeing a road sign that said "Blairgowrie 22" and groaning.

It was to be a long slog, and Dougie and Ross stopped by the side of the road, as I rode past them I called out "Why are you stopping? There's still a hill to climb!" and carried on. Looking at the Strava Flyby it appears that Ser @Louch had slowed and was struggling, and Dougie went back to ensure that he was ok, which it seems that he was.

At this point I had disappeared up the hill, too focussed on my own effort to concern myself with those of my colleagues.

Hills are a very personal kind of torture, and while there's no "team" in "SHUT UP LEGS", there is "team" in "steam", plenty of which was pouring off me as I ground my way up.

I tried justifying abandoning my team mates to myself as I summitted the col, and as I powered down the far side at 30mph I had a series of obnoxious thoughts which I am not proud of:

• My legs are feeling surprisingly good after the IT band massage I gave myself in Pitlochry and that horrid climb
  
• What if they close the timing section? If I wait behind I might get a DNF.
  
• Can I catch the next rider on the road?
  
• Would that make me a bad person?

Now that I am removed from the situation (and have access to the Strava data), I am certain that the answer to the last two questions was undoubtedly yes.
Luckily for team unity I found my moral compass in Kirkmichael when Jordan, the amazing broom wagon / feed station driver waved me down.
We had a good chat about why he had volunteered his time, he told me about himself and his involvement with the charity and his passion and enthusiasm was very clear to see.

One by one my colleagues rolled in and I was glad that I hadn't taken the easy option out.
What use is putting in a hard effort if it means you abandon your buddies to toil in your wake? After all, @Louch stayed with me when I cracked badly on Arran.
The rules, after all, are:

• No one left behind
• There will be cake
• Something about bikes

Regrouping once more, we chatted briefly and Jordan told us about the next feed station in a dozen or so miles and waved us off.
The road from there until Bridge of Cally was largely uneventful, although the highlight of this section was when @Louch bombed past on a downhill, spinning out at maximum gearing, and the guttural cry he gave when I sped past him. Sorry dude!

After the climb out of Bridge of Cally, we encountered some horrendous tarmac, so rutted that I could feel my brain bouncing around in my skull, my wheels wouldn't stay planted, which sapped my energy, spirit, and took all the momentum out of my wheels.

As we rode along I would point out obstacles in the road, to which @ShooglyDougie said "It's good that you point these things out so that I know what to aim for!" Oh how I wished for suspension on that road.
A few miles later we saw a sign indicating a feed stop - but there was nothing in sight but a gated farm road. What devilry is this? Then I saw a gel wrapper by the side of the layby and my heart sank. The feed station has gone. We've been abandoned.

Part five to follow (tomorrow)

 

[Fubar]

Jeezo, I thought I waffled on! really enjoying your write up, mine would be along the lines of: cycled up, did sportive, cycled back - bit windy.

 

[Edwardoka]

A Tale that's Too Long
Part Five of the WHY DID WE AGREE TO DO THIS saga.​

*** E. R. Hartley ***
Written but not read.​

SCENE: Four cyclists stand in a layby in the middle of nowhere. A young French woman in black and white, wearing a black dress has a face streaked with tears and makeup. A child cries in the distance. The sad version of Mad World is playing. (Only one of these is true but hey shut up stop judging me, I'm indulging my creative side)

This is the real weepy and like tragic part of the story beginning. O my cycling friends and droogs.

The feed station was gone, which meant that race control would likely be gone as well.

All that slog and effort, to no avail. We tried to joke about it, "Well, at least we'll not be marked down as last!" but nevertheless, it was a bitter drop to swallow.
Negative words will continue for some time from your humble narrator, so here's a picture of kittens to cheer you up.

Somewhat fortunately for the pacing of this story, Jordan the broom wagon guy pulled up in his van, told us that the feed station had gone, but luckily he still had plenty of food in the van, which was gratefully snaffled with thanks and a good chat to raise our spirits.

Unfortunately he also confirmed our worst fears - race control was set to close at 5pm, at this point it was 4:10pm and the finish line was 25 miles away.

While I speculatively asked my esteemed comrades "Team time trial?" , there was even less enthusiasm for that than there was for sitting in a paceline with my cleftal horizon directly in their eyeline for 25 hard miles.
In any case, as we are not pro-tour athletes, an impossible effort was required and so we were resigned to defeat and being marked as the dreaded DNF.

Jordan, having broken the bad news, promised to keep us appraised and to make sure that we were OK - and to his credit he absolutely did, for which we are extremely grateful.

Nevertheless, it was a disprited bunch who readied themselves to set off (once again @Louch was foiled in his quest to have a full slice of caramel shortcake, which he reminded us as he flung the remaining bit back into the van)

(I am very aware that this is turning into a negative and-then-and-then-and-then, but bear with me, it will be over soon! )
All jokiness and camaraderie aside, I was personally gutted and I think that goes for the rest of the group, and so the gruppetto that rolled out of the layby was not full of fire and enthusiasm (or in the case of Louch, shortcake).

Fortunately the road from the layby continued downhill, which helped to lift our spirits a little, but all the aches and pains that I had been ignoring started making themselves known in a vocal manner, our heads dropped, my left shoulder decided that it had had enough, Ross's knee was giving him some bother and even the usually irrepressible @ShooglyDougie seemed a bit less enthusiastic than usual, only going out of his way to deliberately bunny-hop over every second or third pothole.

Rattray came and went without event, largely skipping past the town of Blairgowrie, and looking at the route I knew that we could shortcut the twisty section of the last 20 miles or and head straight back to the start point through Coupar Angus and Burrelton, or, to give you an indication as to my frame of mind, I calculated that I could be home in just over half an hour - and with the clock having run down and tired legs all round I was frankly eager to get the rest of it over with.

However, we continued to plod on, following the course, not least because our new esteemed directeur sportif Jordan was on the route picking up signs and watching out for us, and would get worried if we disappeared from the signed route.

After we crossed the Forfar Road, @ShooglyDougie reported an issue with his bike, namely that his rear wheel wasn't running true, and as we reached the northern fringe of the Carse hills, we stopped to regroup and check. The problem was quickly spotted by Dougie himself - his rear rim had cracked and thrown the wheel out of true. It appears that his technique of riding straight at potholes had paid unhappy dividends.

With no way of repairing it or ensuring that it was safe, the only option was to continue, and so we turned west into the wind along the foothills, and with about 11 miles to go, @Harry_Palmer79 and I really started to struggle, and the mission now was to make sure everyone survived and that we would get Ross round his first ton in one piece, but Louch and Dougie, unaware that we'd dropped off the back, disappeared off into the blue yonder.

Ross and I pootled along, determined to grind out the remaining miles, when something magical happened!

Part six to follow.....

 

[Edwardoka]

... now.

We rounded the corner onto the Collace road, where Jordan was parked up. 5pm had since been and gone, but he had somehow managed to arrange for race control to be kept open solely for us.
His briefing was short and to the point - you've got half an hour to get there, it's 6 miles away, GO!

In all of my years of cycling I have never before encountered what happened next; a group of cracked riders newly energised into machines designed for efficiently turning cake into forward momentum.
The Collace hill, being the last barb in the tail of the route, lay in front of us. With a fresh sense of purpose, we attacked it, gradient scarcely noticed, as Jordan raced ahead, to park up at the next junction, wave us through and applaud us as we rode on towards the finish.
What a wonderful, fantastic human being, giving his day for such a cause, and to give us a magnificent end to a tale that would have likely ended on a downer in an empty car park at any other event.