Ride 31/05/2026 DCC ToK Sportive

I forgot to write about the clubs sportive last Sunday so a belated update for today. This year’s Tour of the Kingdom had a slightly different start this year compared to last year. Rather start at the club house we started at Queen Anne High School, not that it made much of a difference to the distance, but a difference nonetheless. I rode with the guys this year, which meant a 05:30 start 😫 to be at the start line for 07:00 but made it was a couple of mins to spare. There was 6 of us doing the long route of 92 miles and weather wise it was wet to start with. Not heavy rain but enough to make us damp, thankfully it didn’t last all day and eventually turned out nice and sunny which eventually dried out the roads as well. The route has a lot of climbing in it over 5000 feet of it with 3 major climbs with the last one at mile 87, which makes it pretty hard on tired legs 😩 The start is our chain gang route so that’s fine as it’s mostly flat until you hit the climb out of Saline which takes you to the first feed stop. I only stopped for water and a toilet break before heading on to the first climb of the day over Cleish, the easier side to begin with. We will visit this climb again on the way back, but for now it’s onto Leslie and our second big climb of the day over Falkland hill, again the easier side, I race up the harder side when I do the hill climbs in September, but this side although longer is an easier climb, so all fine with me 🙂 Once over Falkland we head for Freuchie Cricket club (race headquarters for me in the Fife TT season) and our second stop for food and water. I was also able to oil my squeaky chain thanks to the rain washing it out at the start before we continued on. By now the sun was out and it was warming up but we also now had to deal with a head wind most of the way back to the finish line. Before that though we would head to Lindores and another climb back up to Auchtermuchty, Dunshalt and Strathmiglo, but before we got there we had an unscheduled stop at the Pillars of Hercules for toilet break and fuel. We then headed for Strathmiglo and Dryside road into a head wind heading back to Loch Leven and Kinross. We were now heading for the last climb of the day over Cleish, the harder side (the side I race up) and by now we’re all pretty tired. Thankfully the harder side is quite short and sharp, a 7 min effort when I’m racing up it but today I took a leisurely 10 mins to climb it 😁 From here it’s a steady ride back to the finish line for a medal and a well earned cup of coffee for me. So, by the time I got back home I had clocked up 100 miles at an avg speed of 16 mph.