Looks very good tack4, you've certainly done a nice job. I really like the Bear Valley as a good honest durable steel ride.
Yesterday up here was very foggy and looked a bit wet but I needed to get a few miles in the legs so thought I would get a couple of hours in out on the Merckx. Do the usual type ride and cycle the back roads on a circuitus route to Thurso, meet Heather and Caleb for a coffee and then ride home along the coast.
I didn't end up getting out until after 1pm and thought I would just head for town.
As is sometimes the way I got to one of the usual junctions where I normally turn right and head along the valley towards the coast, this time I turned left as I could see a small road on the opposite side to me heading away over the side of the valley. I thought it may run parralel to the coast so cant go too wrong and as I hadn't been along it before I thought it may be interesting as well. It turned out to be a great little singletrack road with a couple of short, sharp little climbs and suprisingly, it deposited me onto the main road about 5 miles on the far side of Thurso. This bit of the main road is the return run for the local time trial course so of course I had to ride it as quick as I could, even with a head/cross wind, to arrive in town slightly early. So as you do when you arrive early in town I went to the bike shop and chatted with Sam who ownss it for a while and was then late for meeting Heather and Caleb, only just
It was nearly dark when I left Thurso and with twelve or so miles to go I put my lights on that I thankfully remembered to fit before leaving. It was then I realised the cross/head wind was really strong and the temp had dropped considerably, uneventful and not as pleasant or as 'easy' as before thats for sure.
Nice ride and while thick fog along the way it remained dry and while it was pretty cold it wasn't uncomfortable.
I hadn't been on the Merckx for a while as its either been the Pugs, 1X1 or the tourer and just thought with a few rides coming up I needed to get the legs spinning but it was one of those rides where the legs were far better than expected, maybe all that singlespeeding mountainbike over the winter.
About to head back out just now for a few hours but we currently have very high winds showing 37 miles an hour from the east. Maybe I can get Heather to give me a lift somewhere on the eastern side of the district
(I doubt it)
Just thought I'd share
Jamie
Can you tell which dirrection the winds coming from