The Pentlands Perisher

The East Calder crew rode a longer than normal route on Saturday in preparation for the Caledonia Etape. Neil Greer explains what happened and why the words "epic" and "eventful" could equally be used to descibe this ride! 5 punctures, 2 riders down, 3 having to abandon!

In what was a record for an EC social ride 12 riders met up; apart from me there was Rob Hemesley, Steve McCaw, Julie Dominguez, Ian Robertson, Iain Crombie, Steven Fleming, Jay (the Frenchman), Dave Gillies, John Craig, Grant Craven and, making his first appearance at EC, Shaun Heard. Thanks to all for joining this muti-option ride...

With a challenging westerly headwind and overcast conditions we set off round the back lanes of Murieston towards Auchengray. Shortly after the first short climb where we turned right we had our fist "incident". As Dave Gillies overrtook me and there was the sudden sound of metal on metal as one of his pedals tried to "massage" the spokes of my front wheel; Dave hit the tarmac, but not before being accompanied by the valve from said wheel - Puncture No 1 With no other damage we did the repair then resumed. We said farewell to Steve and Julie at Tarbrax as Julie is competing - on a tandem! - on Sunday (we hope it goes well...)

The 10 of us pressed on towards the junction with the Lang Whang where Iain Crombie turned back to towards Balerno to complete his 50 mile loop. Thanks to Ian Robertson's sound navigation we then took a cross country route towards Biggar via Newbigging. It was on that stretch that rider No 2 went down; in a classic "I'll have a drink now, but won't drop back a little" manoeuvre, Jay hit the deck after clippping Steven's rear wheel. Although a tad dazed as he sat by the roadside he was delighted to announce: "But I deed nut drop zee bottal!"

With no serious injury other than a dent to his Gallic pride the 9 of us pressed on to Biggar. There was now very little chance of meeting up with Bill, Steve and Jamie and the cafe staff confirmed that we had missed them by at least half an hour - I think they were being kind!

With no room at that particular feed stop anyway, we opted to press on down the glen road to Broughton and refuelled at the Tea Rooms there (c 35 miles)

Energised, we headed towards the Tweed and Stobo. It was on that stretch that things became "interesting". First Grant got a rear wheel puncture (No 2 for the group...). Tube replaced and inflated his bike was then turned the right way over, only for the dreaded Psssttt! sound to be heard again as his rear wheel instantly repeated its earlier act (No 3...) A split in the tyre wall was diagnosed and Rob brought all his engineering skills to the fore to strengthen the tyre before Ian provided a latex tube to finish the task. Gingerly, the bike was turned over again and Grant set off, appearing to be trying to keep his weight off the saddle....

Having got quite chilled hanging around we were looking forward to warming up again; unfortunately, in less than 200 metres Jay now punctured! (No 4....) Wheel repaired (and riders re-chilled!) we resumed only for Jay to puncture the same wheel again (No 5) with, oh, it must have been at least 1/2 mile this time (and, yes, in all cases the tyres had been thoroughly checked for thorns etc before the new tubes were inserted...) Not only that, he noted that his bike had suddenly become a "fixie" as the free-wheel hub had apparently seized too!! And all this on the most remote stretch of road at the furthest point from home - sense of humour failure was beginning to set in big time...

After considering all options, and because Grant was also now running so late, Jay and Grant agreed to cut their losses and walk back the 3 miles or so to the Broughton Tea Room where his dearly beloved had kindly agreed to come and rescue them from; we hope she likes the flowers and chocolates that Grant ordered....

So, now down to 7 riders, we had a collective pray and resumed the ride. By this point Ian, who was recovering from a mid week bout of some nasty bug, suggested that he might need to be the next in need of calling home. Despite being clearly well below his usual high standard of performance he soldiered on admirably to civilisation at West Linton (c 55 - 60 miles) before he decided to make that call; he was last seen going into a pub....

So, 7 became 6 as we looked forward to the Moor Road stretch that leads into Penicuik. This is an arrow straight, well surfaced back road and we had the benefit of a tail-wind now. The chain gand went into action and what started as an 18mph(paceline) / 16 mph (recovery) quickly cranked up so that after a few miles we were doing 32/30 mph as we approached Penicuik - arguably the most enjoyable part of the whole ride.

Fortunately the rest of ride was - relatively - incident free. Shaun, who was also now quite late, left us at Juniper Green to head back to Corstophine as the remaining 5 of us turned back into the headwind for the 9 miles back to Kirknewton. Our stats were c 80 miles at c. 14mph. and, by the way, I sauntered in at 10 to 5 to be met by kids saying: "How came Mum went out on her training ride at 2 o'clock and she got back before you?"

Just another routine day out on the bike really...

Route: www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/399508
Club runs info here: www.westlothianclarion.co.uk/clubruns