Ride(s) - Milngavie-Strathblane-Lennoxtown loop

The day after a 235km epic, and I feel fine. Well, evidently not perfect - the "formality" of completing a run at over 32kph still eluding me - but it does seem like progress has been made, as even a couple of months ago the idea of doing a ride at 30+kph after a day like yesterday would have seemed completely absurd (and, yes, it was 30+, once you take into account lights, to which I lost almost 5 minutes today. Incidentally, I don't know why Runtastic hasn't been uploading the full ride data for the past couple of days. It's definitely displaying it on my phone. Hmm)

The loop is my most level 40k+ ride, consisting of the Balmore road up to Milngavie, then straight up the A81 to Strathblane, where I turn right to Lennoxtown, and then take the Torrance Road to rejoin the Balmore road, close the loop and go home. It's a fairly good run, with only three sets of traffic lights on the main loop, one of which (touch wood) has never interrupted me, and has both the fastest bit of almost-level road I know, and the slowest bit of descent.

The road from Strathblane to Lennoxtown, with the wind slightly behind you, is blisteringly quick even though the gradient barely ever gets above 1%. It's what I imagine the pros feel like all the time, 40kph coming and going with only the breathiest touches of the pedals. The drop down on the Milngavie road into Strathblane is just the opposite - no matter how steep it gets, you really have to jam on the pedals to get above 50kph. By the time the road really noses down and stays down, it throws in a steep, sharp, blind left-hand hairpin with far too much traffic coming up the hill to dream of running wide, and then a quick, shady run into the village itself on a surface so broken up I've lost a front light to it before.

Overall, though, the run is a good one for a local, with the climbs mostly consisting of short, sharp, rolling starts which you can just stay in gear and jam on the pedals for. One of the things I've noticed most coming from a background of heavy, poorly-built bikes and a heavy, poorly-built me is how I now seem to descend far further than I remember climbing in the first place.

Perhaps this is the first step in developing a form of cycle-psycho-analysis. Instead of having a glass half full or half empty, perhaps one could ask whether a mountain had a long ascent or a long descent.

Of course, cyclists being the perverse buggers that they are, I suspect that many might choose "a long ascent" as the more positive option.

Good trails!