Ride 17/08/2025

12 of us on the bun run today and what a glorious day for cycling, hot and sunny, just the way I like it 😁 We were doing a different, longer route today which would take us over Knockhill, through the Ochil Hills and down to Dunblane and Bridge of Allan before heading back home through Stirling and Alloa and along the coastal road back to Crossgates. It was a fairly easy ride, not a lot of climbing, at a fairly sedate pace, but I kept it interesting with a few sprints and efforts here and there. We would be having our cafe stop at Braco Coffee shop, where I had soup, strawberry milkshake and chocolate muffin 😋 We then proceeded down to Dunblane and along to Alloa before we would split up at Cairneyhill. I followed the guys along to Inverkeithing before we headed back up to Crossgates and our finish line. So, overall I clocked up 76 miles at an avg speed of 16 mph and what a nice ride it was 🙂

Ride 16/08/2025

6 of us on the early bun run and weather wise it was warm, overcast with little wind, although it would get sunny after lunchtime. Usual route to the cafe stop this week with a little dig into Tillicoultry as per usual 😉 Coffee and cake were had before heading back home. I was going to be going over Cleish again this week so I stayed with the group until we got to Yetts before I soloed off on my own towards the Cleish hill climb. I did a couple of reps up that before heading into Townhill and home via Cowdenbeath to bump the mileage up to my target of 60 miles. So 63 miles clocked up at an avg speed of 18 mph, which with the hill reps I’ll take as a win 😀

Ride 10/08/2025 Aug Randonee Pitlochry

Forgot to post this yesterday.
Today’s ride was the Aug Randonee up to Pitlochry and back. 5 of us doing this today and weather wise it’s warm, little wind but a little overcast here and there. This is the longest Randonee I’ve organised this year, since I’ve never actually ridden up to Pitlochry, but one well worth doing on a ‘good’ weather day 😀 Not exactly a flat route, which does make it a little harder with the distance, but not an insurmountable one either. We would start off by heading over Cleish and along and down to Milnathort before heading over Wicks O’Baiglie and Glenfarg and down to Bridge of Earn. From here we would head into Perth for our first stop of the day, which for me was just a cup of coffee, I was carrying a lot of energy gels/bars just for this occasion. Once out of Perth we would be cycling quieter roads on our way to Dunkeld, over a still lumpy route, although most of the big stuff was behind us, and of course would need to be traversed again on the way back 😬 Once at Dunkeld we would then be using mostly cycle track (route 77/7) which was because at this point we were paralleling the dreaded A9 which at points we would have to cross, and unfortunately this is where my routing skills would let me down ☹️ it pays to ride this route myself just to iron out the kinks, but I just don’t have time for that. One of the A9 cosses was right across the A9 itself, which wasn’t too bad the first time since it was still morning, the other times were via the cycle path which was fine, but on the way back this would cause some issues. Anyway we got to Pitlochry without incident and stopped for our second cafe stop at Escape Route cafe (formally Jessie’s) for some much needed food. Soup, coke and pancakes were had for the day and most welcome it was, although I may have over done it on the pancakes, I ordered 5 but could only manage 3, the guys picked up the leftovers 😁 We then headed back the way we came back to Dunfermline. It was on this part of our journey we had to do a little detour, as said crossing the A9 was an issue if you weren’t using a path or bridge and we did try to cross the road itself on the way back, at the same place we came in on, but by this time the road was just too busy to cross so we detoured back a little bit to use a underpass to get across but other than that the route back was identical as the route up, next time I’ll amed this to take the A9 into better consideration. Anyway on the way back we stopped in Perth again to fill up on water and food as required before heading back to Bridge of Earn and up to Milnathort. Of course we would now have to do a lot of climbing on very tired legs, especially over Wicks O’Baiglie and Cleish 😆 but we hadn’t gone too fast today and I had fuelled well, so the climb, although slower than usual was fine. From here it was mostly downhill to Dunfermline although I didn’t go into town but rather along to Kingseat and Cowdenbeath and home that way. So, 132 miles clocked up, over 7500 feet of climbing 🫣 at an avg speed of 16 mph, which equates to a tough but great ride to do 👍😄

Ride 09/08/2025

Just little me on my own for the early bun run this morning and given it was pissing it down and blowing a gale, I decided to potter around the town to await for the 09:00 group and join them instead. 2 groups for this ride and I joined the slower second group, I’m doing a big ride tomorrow so don’t want to hard one today. Given it’s the 09:00 group the route is slightly shorter and slower which was fine with me in the wake of tomorrows ride. Cake and coffee were had at the cafe stop before heading home with a wind assisted normal route over Knockhill thus clocking up 50 miles at an avg speed of 15 mph.

Ride 03/08/2025

8 of us on the Sunday bun run and weather wise it was a little damp to begin with but pretty warm to start and windy too. AS the day went on the sun came out and dried pretty much everything up and it became a glorious day, albeit still windy a bit, especially with the headwind out to the cafe stop to start with. We did the usual route over Knockhill to begin with and down to Dollar and along to Tillicoultry for our cafes stop of coffee and cake. We of course now had the tail wind all the way home 😁 so the pace picked up a little bit and for the last section of the course I lead a small train of me, Ken, Mark and Chris back to Rosyth before I split on my own for the rest of the way. I was looking for about 60 miles today so I carried on to Dalgety Bay before turning north for Mossmorran and Cowdenbeath. From here it was back to Crossgates and home for 60 miles at an avg speed of 17 mph 👌

Ride 02/08/2025

4 of us on the early bun run today and weather wise it’s warm, sunny and not too windy 👍 Again the usual route to the cafe stop, for roll with hash browns and sausage before heading back home again. Like last week I was going to go up Cleish hill so I followed the group up to Yetts before departing along the Aldi road this time to head towards the Cleish road. I didn’t bother doing reps this week, wasn’t really in the mood but I did do a little bit extra once past Townhill by heading into Kingseat and along the Cuddyhouse road and into Hill of Beath before heading back to Crossgates. So I was still 60 miles for the day at an avg speed of 18 mph 😃

Ride 27/07/2025

4 of us on the bun run today and it was a wet one. From the get go it was raining, so I had my wet gear on but on the summer bike with no mud guards, so wet arse it was 😕 The planned route went out the window due to the weather so we opted to do a loop around Loch Leven instead. We stopped at Lochend Farm shop for our cafe stop where soup, coffee and strawberry tart were had for food 😁 before carrying on. It was then over Benarty hill and down to Cowdenbeath before heading to Crossgates. I decided to carry on with the guys as I had only done about 45 miles and was looking for a bit more, so I continued on into Dunfermline and along to Cairneyhill before returning back the way I came to home. So, 61 miles clocked up at a easy pace of 15 mph and thankfully the rain stopped by the time we had climbed the hill so I was starting to dry out a bit by the time I got back home.

Ride 26/07/2025

5 of us on the early bun run and weather wise, it’s overcast, not much wind and warm. Usual route to the cafe stop but about the last 2 miles from the cafe stop I upped the pace to TT speed and eventually ended up on my own 😁 It had been fairly easy going up to that point and I had taken Friday off the bike to recover to Thursday beating… For the ride home I followed everyone up to Yetts but rather than going over Knockhill I was looking to do some hill reps up Cleish, since the hill climb race is in 4 weeks and I need to train for that. So 4 reps up Cleish was enough to tire me out and head back home again. So 67 miles clocked up at an avg speed of 17 mph, which isn’t to shabby when you include the hill reps in it 😊

Ride 20/07/2025 July Randonee Lite

Me, myself and I on the July Randonee today, and given the past few days of me getting soaked with rain, I was once again out on the winter bike with full wet gear. It started out quite foggy this morning and since I was on my own I decided to do the Randonee Lite just to keep the time down in the rain, this turned out to be pointless as the weather for today was perfectly fine 😕 as it would turn out. The route was only 30 miles long with me heading into Cumbernauld before heading towards Airdrie but not actually getting to Airdrie before I turned towards the road that would take me to Slamannan. From here the route would take you down to Falkirk and back to Denny, but given the weather was actually hot with no rain and little wind to speak of, I decided to bump it up by carrying on and going to ‘auto route’ mode via my brain rather than following my Garmin 😁 I knew all the roads around here from when I lived in Falkirk so rather than heading down to Falkirk I carried on to Shieldhill and then down to Falkirk before heading out to Polmont. I’d ridden this route a few times in the past but haven’t done this in years, so it was nice to be back to familiar roads. From Polmont it was onto Grangemouth, where I had a quick stop for a bite to eat at a petrol filling station and then it was back on the road to Skinflats before following Bellsdyke road to Larbert. Rather than take the main road back to Denny from Larbert I took the less familiar road to Dunipace which would ultimately take me to Denny and my finish. So, 45 miles clocked up at an avg speed of 16 mph, 30 miles is a bit short for a Sunday run so the 45 miles was perfectly fine for me 🙂

Ride 19/07/2025

7 of us on the early bun run and weather wise it was warm, a little wind around and dry for the time being, that wasn’t to last. I had come prepared for rain so winter bike and wet gear were on tow. It was pretty uneventful to the cafe stop, at a decent pace, wind assisted a little bit. On the return journey we decided to keep it short today because of the weather warnings, so took the route over knockhill to get home, and sure enough by the time we got to Knockhill it was raining. So thankfully with my wet gear I didn’t get soaked to the skin like I did on Thursday’s ride, still got a little wet, but my feet weren’t swimming in waterlogged shoes and I wasn’t getting sprayed with water from both wheels, now that I had put my mud guards back on. So 55 miles clocked up at an avg speed of 18 mph and not a droont rat by the time I got back home 😁

Ride 13/07/2025

Todays ride was one Nick organised and one that was going to be a long 100 miler one for me. Given the glorious weather we are having it was decided yesterday to go for a long one today whilst we have the opportunity to do so. So the route we took was the Loch Earn one and weather wise it’s just as hot and sunny as yesterday again with little wind 😁 The group started out with 8 of us but would ultimately split once we hit Gleneagles. To start with we would be heading over Knockhill and up Glendevon to Gleneagles where 3 of the group would split to go home via Dunning Common and the rest of us would continue on to Crieff. Our first cafe stop was closed, apparently they closed down last year so we headed on to St Fillans, just at the eastern edge of Loch Earn where we stopped for some fried egg rolls, coffee and cake 😋 I had ridden nearly 50 miles at this point so the food was much needed as well as replenishing my dwindling water supply. We continued on along the Loch.s north shore before heading into the Trossachs and around to Callendar where we had our second stop for some more coffee and cake (can never have too much cake 😆) It was then onwards back to Stirling using some of the same routes as last Sunday before we hit Alloa. From here it was the usual coastal route via Clackmannan and back to Dunfermline. So, I clocked up 115 miles and a decent pace of 17 mph, can’t complain at that 😀

Ride 12/07/2025

A day belated but I still remembered 😁 8 of us on yesterday’s early bun run and boy was it a hot one 😅 The weather yesterday was perfect cycling weather, hot, no rain and not much wind around. We did the usual route to the cafe stop for my usual fuel top-up but for the route home we decided to do something completely different from the usual routes we take home. That day we decided to head back into Stirling and and take a trip up and over the North Third road and around the reservoir. Not the best of road surfaces, quite rough in places but a route I haven’t taken in a long time. We would then ride to Plean for a pit stop of water and ice cream 😋 before heading on past The Pineapple and into Airth before Crossing over the Kincardine Bridge. We then basically followed the usual coastal road back to Dunfermline with me ultimately clocking up 75 miles at an avg speed of 17 mph.