Head (and Bike) In The Clouds (July 15th)

Last night was another very successful wild camping experience. The small patch of land on which I was able to fit my tent had a slight slope to it but not as much as I had initially thought. Translation: I wasn’t sliding off my sleeping pad all night.

Despite not being a morning person I once again was up rather early. Personally I’d say very early. It was 6:30. Normally I’d have just gone back to sleep but I kind of had to use the facilities. Of course, when one is wild camping there is usually a general dearth of facilities to be found. In fact, in this case, the facilities were about 3 km away.

So, I packed up my gear in rather rapid fashion and was ready to go by 7:15. And mercifully by 7:30 I was riding up to the public washrooms. Whew. Or not. It turns there it wasn’t as merciful as I had thought since the public washrooms were locked until 8:00. I won’t lie, that didn’t please me. At all. As one of Murphy’s Laws states, “The length of a minute depends on which side of the bathroom door you are.” And I was on the outside. And 30 is a lot of minutes.

To make a short story longer, I ended up going over to The Co-operative and they were kind enough to allow me to use their facilities. Whew. For real this time.

With nature taken care of, I could focus on more pleasant aspects of the day such as where I would be going and where I would be staying. The former would be Perth. The latter was still to be determined. The lack of WiFi last night meant I couldn’t seek out any potential Warm Showers hosts until this morning. I really don’t like making same day requests but desperate times call for desperate measures. In reality, the matters were far from desperate. That said, I sent off a request and not only did I receive a quick reply, but I received a quick and favourable reply. I officially had a destination for the day. The only thing standing between us was another large hill.

With accommodation confirmed, I moved on to the next task at hand. Breakfast and bike maintenance. Breakfast was cereal again. And an orange. And a banana. The bike maintenance was a minor adjustment to the rear fender which was rubbing slightly against the rear wheel. An easy fix.

And so I was almost ready to take on the road to Perth which, as mentioned previously, included another significant climb and, perhaps more concerning, a significant descent. If it was a straight descent then my lack of brakes wouldn’t be much of a concern. However, if it was to be a road full of sharp curves, well … there could be problems. Unfortunately, there isn’t a bike shop in Braemar but there is a bike hire shop so I thought I’d stop in there to see if they could help. Spoiler Alert: They couldn’t … although, they tried their best to find a solution. On the upside, I confirmed that the descent was essentially straight.

So NOW I was really ready to take on the road to Perth. That’s when I discovered the strong headwind that was waiting for me. A very strong headwind. Probably around 25 km/h. I’ll admit that I’ve been pretty lucky from a headwind perspective thus far so it was only a matter of time before I had to face one of this magnitude. Sadly, it would be on the same day as a big climb. At least it wasn’t raining.

The wind continued to hamper my progress up the hill but the rain continued to stay away. I kept asking the weather gods to let me get to the top before the rain started. They obliged.

As I neared the top of the climb, the temperature dropped noticeably. And as I slowly pedalled into the low cloud that was covering the summit, the rain started to fall – and when I say rain, it was actually more like rain/sleet combo. Charming. As for the visibility, well … that too started to become a factor. Sure I had my bright yellow rain covers. And yes, I had turned on my red blinky light on the back of my bike. But I really wasn’t sure how visible I actually was.

As I passed the summit and slowly started my way towards the descending part of my ride, I actually started to wonder if riding down a mountain in these conditions was actually a smart decision. I mean, at this point my visibility was about 50 metres … and that’s not really factoring in the fact that my glasses were covered with drops of water, rain and sleet were pelting my face like little needles and making squinting pretty much a necessity. Oh, and I really didn’t have much in the way of brakes.

As I pondered the intelligence of my actions, gravity and inertia had pretty much taken hold of my bike and with it any real choice I had in the matter. I was going down this hill and I was going down this hill now.

In a matter of seconds I went from potentially reconsidering my actions to being about as focused as I’ve ever been on a bike. The occasional glance to my rear view mirror showed nothing but cloud. The not-so-occasional glance at the road in front of me showed much the same. All the while my velocity grew. And grew. I wasn’t about to check my speed at that point because, well … I had other things to focus on. Bottom line was that the only way I was stopping was if things went horribly wrong or I reached the bottom and started going back up again.

I’m not sure at what point a hill becomes a mountain, but to reach the summit of this particular 1,200′ climb took about 90 minutes. The descent of that same 1,200′ took less than 10 minutes. A very intense 10 minutes. And while it may not have been the smartest 10 minutes of my life, I have to admit it was more than a little fun.

After that the ride was essentially easy and relaxing. I stopped for lunch just before Cairmgorms National Park where I made myself a couple of sandwiches and had the last of my CLIF bars. I’m not going to lie, running out of CLIF bars is a bit sad. On the upside, those Soreen loaves aren’t the worst things I’ve ever had. Did I mention there’s a banana flavoured version? Definitely my preferred choice.

After lunch I worked my way to Blairgowrie. Another small town but this one had a bike shop where I made a not-entirely-quick stop to improve my braking capabilities. On the upside, I can now stop again. On the downside, my brakes seem destined to squeal. C’est la vie. At least I can stop again.

From there I made my way to Perth and eventually met Andy and Sheila, tonight’s Warm Showers hosts. And, as hosts go, they were great. They were so energetic, fun, welcoming, generous. The list goes on. We enjoyed a great dinner including pie and ice cream for dessert. It was all so great. And did I mention that they were just fun people? Thanks to Andy and Sheila for a great night.

The only real downside of the day was that between the intense climb, even more intense descent, the rain, and then the relaxing final ride into Perth, I really didn’t take many photos. I’m sure I’ll make up for it another day.

Today’s totals:
Distance travelled: 90.54 km
Ride time: 5:11:09
Average speed: 17.45 km/h
Maximum speed: 139.28 km/h (I don’t believe this is accurate … although the wind, rain, sleet, and poor visibility certainly made it FEEL like I was going that fast!)