Ride(e) - The Cowal Peninsular

Well, I promised something suitable epic, and here it is. 9 hours of ride time, and 235km covered (not a good ratio, but I've got excuses! For some of it). Naturally I am now feasting on whatever I can get my hands on, and infinite cups of tea (infini-tea?). And just because I like lists, here is a list of the lochs I have seen and cycled by today:

1. Loch Long
2. Loch Goil
3. Loch Fyne
4. Loch Eck
5. Holy Loch
6. Lock Tarsan
7. Loch Striven
8. Loch Riddon and Loch Ruel
9. Loch Lomond
10. 

So, here's the tale of the day. As I left for Queen Street Station, a cold mist hung over the city - so cold, I began to worry I wouldn't be able to do any serious passes. The train was packed with cyclists heading to Fort Bill and Oban, none of whom (including myself, for once) had pre-booked our bikes on, because it's a Scotrail service, and it doesn't matter on Scotrail. Apart from when it's Good Friday and there's only one useful train per day to the highlands - which happened to be the same train I wanted.

I squeezed on for the hour-long journey to Arrochar and Tarbet, where things began to brighten slightly, and headed straight for Rest-and-be-thankful, the only paved pass into the Cowal peninsular. The name had struck some trepidation in me, and I was consciously holding myself back as I shot past a couple of other riders. About ten minutes later, I realised I shouldn't have bothered.

The road rose at a steady and smooth 4%, for maybe 100-150 vertical metres, and that was it. Bored of the A83 already, I turned off onto the B828 and things instantly improved, with a short, sharp 10%+ climb leading into a 16% decent on singletrack tarmac. At the junction with the Lochgoilhead road, the road starts climbing Hell's Glen, another name that I don't mind admitting worried me a bit, but in reality is just a long 10% climb into a series of steep switchbacks that take you back down to the Loch Fyne road.

The minimal elevation of the loch road grew wearing quickly, and at the long, thin freshwater Loch Eck took the road to Ardentinny, which kicked off with a few sharp 1:5 rises. The loose gravel in the centre of the road doesn't invite craziness on the decent, but I was touching 70k at times, into the wind.

Another long, flat coastal drag took me to Dunoon, the southernmost "useful" point on the east coast of the peninsular, where ferries dock from Gourock. With 75km on the clock, it seemed a fine time for lunch, though I still felt fresh, having ridden well within myself, putting almost no stress on myself up the climbs. An egg roll and a muffin later, and I decided to cut across the peninsular to Otter Ferry.

The road to Bailliemore is fast and smooth, especially with the wind behind you, and the descent from Loch Tarsan to Bailliemore is superbly fast, especially if you can get a leading car to clear the way for you - though hopefully they might travel fast enough that you don't catch them!

From Balliemore the climb over to Auchenbrook is brutally steep, but the descent has such smooth corners that it's impossible not to get up to stupid speeds.

The pass to Otter Ferry is deceptive. As you get to the turning, you see a rocky cleft perched high on the barely undulating ridge to your left, and you think "that can't possibly be it".

You'd be right. The real pass goes on much higher.

For kilometres at a time, the gradient barely dropped out of double figures - whilst my speed quite happily did. As I began, I was cursing myself for being so conservative about climbing, and holding myself back so much. Later, I was just cursing.

The descent is over far too soon, and watch out for the loose gravel as you turn onto the B8000.

Along this road, with the wind against me, I started feeling it. At about 4 1/2 hours, 125km, I began to realise that I couldn't really set my own speed any more - the power I was putting down was pretty much the power I could put down, without my quads having a go at me. As expected, then, I don't have the same endurance form as I used to have. Nevertheless, I had decided to show my legs who's boss, and ride fully back to Glasgow rather than wait until 8pm for a train that might -indeed, probably would - be full of bikes.

Then things began to happen.

I had decided to go back to Arrochar directly along the A83, with the hope that the gradient would be more gradual than Hell's Glen, and missing a pointless descent/climb. After practically freewheeling down the the junction, however, my plan was scuppered by a single police car. There had been an accident on the road, possibly fatal, and it is perhaps indicative of my state of fatigue that my first thought, rather uncharitably, was "they never think that putting in diversions like this costs cyclists some serious energy." Nevertheless, I, personally, wasn't dead yet, so I headed back up to Hell's Glen, where it became clear that something had gone wrong.

Traffic was backed up the entire incline, caused by a pair of lorries smack in the middle, unable to pass each other. All the traffic would have to be cleared to allow one of them to get out of the glen. Suddenly, I'd gone from bitter and knackered and annoyed with cycling (I'd just passed 180km at the top of the hill, at about the 6 hour mark) to being the only guy who could get on or off the peninsular.

I spent most of the next half hour pedalling very slowly and telling everyone who I could get to stop to turn around. When I got into Arrochar for a cheap dinner of sandwiches and a surprisingly tasty 50p ice-cream, I was informed by the shopkeepers that this happens about 5 times a year. There has to be a weight limit on that road, but somehow seriously HGVs reckon they can take it on. Smart.

The rest of the ride back into Glasgow was uneventful, flat, slow and boring. For the first 5 miles or so as I went past the tailback for the closed road I took to shouting whenever I saw an open window that going west was right out. It was tiring, but I hate sitting in queues and not knowing what's going on.

Well, that's enough for now. 235km might not seem all that far for a round-the-world cyclist, but hey. I'm training.