Fresh Legs in Pentlands - 17/2/2007

George and I cycled off to the Pentlands early Saturday afternoon after morning errands. The sun was out. The day felt relatively not cold. When we got to the top of the evil Balerno hill that I now know is the evil Currie hill because I have a shiny map of the Pentlands, my legs felt pretty good. Dangerous. I didn't need granny gear and my legs weren't mad at me yet. At the top of the dirt continuation of that hill, we turned left. I'd never gone left before.

Left meant more up, but not as steep as evil Currie. We crested the pass, zoomed a little and then stopped to climb us and our bikes over a fence. Zooming down the other side was good fun. The track was wide open so we could see those climbing up on bike or foot and therefore correct speed in time. In between people, zooming could be fast safely.

We chose to do a loop behind Black Hill, which meant a right turn onto a paved track at the bottom of the hill. The loop followed the paved bit for a while. Sunny day, not much rain lately meant Saturday afternoon on that path was much like Saturday afternoon along the Union Canal towpath. Lots and lots of bodies to dodge. The paved path followed a loch and eventually became dirt track. Generally the direction was up but challengingly so. Dirt track brought us to the aftermath of the Carnethy 5 hill race and we considered ourselves fortunate for the timing. One of the race officials made fun of George’s accent when he asked about runners. I stayed silent and smiled on cue. George and I laughed about it a few seconds later, not just about pots and kettles but also the wise choice of staying quiet.

Up became slightly more up, across a burn with a head-over-handlebars wooden bridge that we walked. Then the path crossed some interesting rocks in a sweeping left that I didn’t need to step out of but unfortunately did. Soon we took a short break to decide where next, didn’t break long and continued to a stretch of trail that I recognised. We were now on the stretch of trail that Jim, Jason and I rode in December, except this time heading in the wrong direction. The boggy muck that Jim led us through was up the steep bit to the right. We continued straight on, enjoyed a few zooms and climbs and crossed the field to Bavelaw Castle. On the way down the small evil hill, George hit 39.4MPH. I was only slightly behind him.

George and I parted ways near the car park below. He was going to send me down through Balerno but I decided to play on the trails through the woods back to the visitor centre. Unlike the trip with Jim and Jason, I didn’t fall off my bike but I did find a quagmire of my very own that required some creativity to walk around. My legs were done just before the visitor centre, so I skipped that last bit of trail. On the way out, I was fortunate to bump into Brian and had good company for the cycle back to town.

My best guess is I did about 25 miles of cycling. It was definitely the farthest I had ridden in a good while, at least over challenging terrain. I paid the price on my long run the next day and fell apart at mile 8.5, not finishing a 12 mile training run.