A Journey through a Battlefield

Scouting the Glentrool-Kirroughtree route seems to have become one of my annual rides, almost by default. Two years ago I rode it simply to check that it was possible. Last year I rode it to check an new route (and to waymark it). This year, it had to be waymarked again...

I have to confess I wasn't looking forward to it. It's a tough ride, I didn't know of anyone planning to come with me, and the weather forecast was horrid - heavy showers and thunderstorms blowing down the wind. I'd decided to ride the loop from Newton Stewart, despite the fact that that meant riding up the Cree to Glentrool before even starting on the ride proper, simply because it would be easier to get back to the truck afterwards.

So I was unloading my bike in the carpark at Newton Stewart rather gloomily when a man turned up and introduced himself as Laurie; about my age, looking a good bit fitter. He said he was an ex fell-runner, turned to cycling due to knee problems; he maintained an impressive cadence throughout the ride. We set out together up the Wood of Cree road, running up the Stewartry side of the river - a very pretty back road. I very soon stopped to strip of my waterproof jacket, as it was getting warm.

At Glentrool visitor centre we stopped for coffee and cake, our last chance of victuals before the big climbs. And then on up the Glentrool road - and, incidentally, NCN7 (offroad). Glentrool is impossibly scenic - it knocks the English Lake District into a cocked hat, but nevertheless is almost deserted. The glen road up to Bruce's Stone has been resurfaced since last year; what was a rather dreadful surface is now smooth and easy rolling. A couple of sharp little climbs brought us up to Bruce's Stone, where the metalled road ends. There's a short but very sharp descent back into the bottom of the glen, and a mile or so of absolutely gorgeous riding through open oak woodland. Then across the rive, and the first climb starts. On that first descent Laurie's back brake seized; we bled a little fluid out of it just to get it turning, and it worked all right after that.

You can't characterise the climb out of Glentrool as vicious. It isn't. It's very long, and in parts tough; but you have a view one side or other most of the climb, and from about half way up you have a reasonable view of the top. So we climbed. At last the view down to Loch Dee and the Silver Flow opened up ahead, and we stopped for a slice of malt loaf.

This section of the route is along the Southern Upland Way. While we were stopped, up there on the watershead a long tough hike from anywhere at all, an elderly gentleman wandered up and passed the time of day with us. He'd given up cycling, he said, in his seventies, because he found the traffic too intimidating. Now he just walked. He'd set out that morning with a friend to climb one of the hills, but found the going too rough. So his friend had carried on up, and he was walking the path - obviously quite happily - by himself, intending to rendezvous with his friend some miles further on.

And then the first descent, to Loch Dee. We'd been warned that the track had been resurfaced with crushed shell, and that this was hard on the tyres leading to a lot of punctures. In fact the shell seemed to have bedded in well, and made a nice fast surface. So I descended in my normal mode, crouched as low as I could on the bike, just letting it go... great stuff. And then waited at the bottom as Laurie came down at a more sensible pace...

One of the encouraging things of the day was that for once I wasn't the slow member of the party. I was climbing a little better than Laurie, and descending a lot faster. And that meant I didn't feel under pressure.

Up by Loch Dee, the landscape really is high and wild. Sheep have grazed here, and wild goats still do. There's some forestry, not a great deal. There's a hut used by the anglers. But it's not in any sense a domestic landscape. The track circles wide around the south shore of the loch, climbs another brief rise, and then descends another lovely long descent - with a locked barrier at the end. At the barrier were a party of geordies, on rather heavily laden bikes, just preparing for what would be - for them - a very long drag up.

Then over another short rise and down past Craigencallie, onto a (slightly) more populous track. Here we met cyclists doing the loop of Clatteringshaws or just enjoying the uplands - a couple of oldsters, and a family with two small children each on their own little bikes and a baby in a child seat on father's carrier. But just past Craigencallie NCN7 turns left, following round Clatteringshaws, while we turned right and started our second big climb, up to 360 metres.

And it's a bitch.

I started this climb behind Laurie, because I had had to fix waymarks at the two junctions by Craigencallie. The climb twists up through forestry, so you never have a good view ahead; and although I knew Laurie was ahead of me I never saw him on the climb. And, although it's landrover track, there are sections that are so steep that it's hard keeping the front wheel on the ground. Tough, tough, tough, tough, tough. Eventually I topped out the climb just above the treeline... but still no Laurie. Bother. Well, there are no turnoffs; he must still be ahead of me. So I rolled over, shifted up into the big ring, and wound the bike up before getting back into a tuck.

The landscape fled by, the bike slightly harsh with its tyre pressures so high. Laurie came in sight ahead, descending responsibly. A nice person would have braked gently and come alongside him... but I didn't. I like descending. Picking your way down a 60Km/h slope at 20Km/h is not my idea of fun. So I barrelled past down to the bottom of the descent and on up the next climb until my momentum ran out, and there I waited. The dip here is to 290 metres and the next climb is only 50 metres of ascent; it's also less steep. We climbed the rest of it together and had another bite to eat at the top.

And then, of course, the descent to the Black Loch, one of my favourites. A descent on which even I use the brakes. You lose 150 metres of elevation in under 2Km, and it ends with a couple of hairpin bends to leave you in a sheltered, sunny glen with the loch lying limpid in the bottom, lily leaves lying on the lightly rippled surface. There's a piece of landscape art there - a tall red sandstone spire - for no apparent reason. All in all a rather startlingly peaceful place.

From there the forest track follows the line of the Old Edinburgh Road, but we'd sadly bypassed the sections of the Old Edinburgh Road which are really epic mountain biking. We climbed past cyclists coming up off Heartbreak Hill on the Kirroughtree black route, to put up our last waymark at the turn off to the new Black Craigs singletrack section; and then, duty done, we rolled for home. The forest road parallels the Queens Drive for a few miles, and then we took a junction right and started descending, not precipitously but gently, into a landscape more farmed, more cosy; into little gentle untrafficked lanes where occasional walkers strolled. We exchanged greetings with cyclists out for gentle pootles. Still the long hillside carried us down at little cost to our own muscles, past watermeadows and little woods all lush and green, past farmsteads brightly white. And then, very suddenly, Minnigaff and Newton Stewart and the ride was done.