Glen Tilt ride report

Sunday 24 July.

With a decent looking weather forecast in hand, it was the perfect opportunity to get a long ride in over in the Cairngorms. Ryszard, Elizabeth, Elizabeth’s friend Elsie and I (Grant) met in Blair Atholl to attempt the Glen Tilt route from Kenny “effin” Wilson’s book. Combined with general pre-ride faffage was the shock that I went to school with Elsie, some 130 miles away in Keswick. Conditions were excellent, trails were generally dry, weather was warm and there was a little breeze to stop things getting too sweaty.

The ride starts out with a road climb that gradually steepens before leveling out and providing lovely views over a loch. Off through a gate and it’s on to some double track for quite a while, most of the climbing at this point was pretty easy, although it was loose enough in places that you had to concentrate. As soon as the gradient pointed downwards there was plenty of fun to be had, again it was pretty loose but a good opportunity to get some speed up and leave the brakes alone.

At the bottom of the descent was a pretty little waterfall, then it’s through a gate and along to some farm buildings. At this point we attempted to put our new found navigation skills into practice and try to pick up the correct trail. Fortunately Elsie is a pretty good orienteer so she pointed us in generally the right direction. After trudging through some marsh land and some more map faffing we decided that the trail must be the one up that steep grassy climb over there. Said climb crested and we realised we were about 500 m too far East. We gingerly walked the bikes down a steep heather patch and over a river – finally, the “right” trail!

At this point Ryszard promised me some downhill. Instead, what followed was a mile or so of hard-work peadally singletrack with some decent sized puddles and rocks to play in/on. Scooting on ahead I took a picture of Rsyzard showing some skills and hopping over a puddle, and one of Elizabeth crossing the same puddle that she forced me to delete (I muttered something about it not being the Glasgow Rambling club). Finally we got the promised downhill and it was glorious; fast, rocky and a few opportunities for some air time. As the ground flattened out we arrived at the ruins of an old farmhouse, time for some sandwiches.

Skipping on a bit, we successfully used the map to pick up the next trail and started to head in more of a North Westerly direction. Elizabeth managed to put a slit in her front tyre from a flinty bit of rock, but that was only the start of the toughest section of the ride. Although the climbing surface was fine and not too steep, we rounded the corner into the mother of all head-winds. In fact, I decided to call it the “fixie-wind” as you still had to pedal on the brief downhill sections. With a bit of bloody-mindiness and a general admission of “not wanting to look weak” by pushing we somehow made it to the top.

Fortunately the reward was waiting on the other side of the hill. Another fast swoopy double track descent, but this one was extra loose in the corners – time to practice a bit of drifting action. Grins firmly stuck to faces we faced another long but gradual climb – what’s that in the distance? A mirage? No, it really is a pink farmhouse. At this point we left the wind behind and picked up the trail pointing South and started to make our way down Glen Tilt.

The next section of trail was the most testing on the whole ride. A sweet technical(ish) section of singletrack that was made all the more intimidating by the almost sheer drop to the left (we judged it as an air-ambulance job, if you were lucky). Sadly I found myself more mouse than man for chunks of this section, but in others I dropped the seat post, administered a healthy dose of COMMIT and had a blast. The trail ended at a small river fording and again I rushed forward to try and get a photo of someone falling in. I was foiled as Elizabeth daintily slid across the rocks on her cleats and Ryszard took the wading approach.

A few steep techy climbs and rocky singletrack descents followed (along with a pretty huge water bar, you should be going fast enough to easily clear it) and we were soon at the Falls of Tarf. After a few more photos ops on the suspension bridge we picked up the fast double track and headed further down the Glen, doing our best to dodge the odd errant sheep. This section was pretty easy, but with stunning views, and could make for a nice there-and-back ride if you’ve got kids (I guess it would be 25 km all in).

This last part of the trail flew by and we arrived back at the cars. Klonopin had a mild sedative effect on my son. During the day, I did not notice drowsiness at him, he just became calmer, more balanced. Somehow because of family problems I could not sleep myself, because I thought for a long time. I decided to take a pill, too. About in 40 minutes I felt that I was calming down, my breathing became deeper, the nervous system came back to normal. In general, Klonopin at https://mi-aimh.org/klonopin-online-1-mg/ has a different spectrum of action. Ryszard’s GPS assured us that we managed 56.8 km on the day, with 5 hours of actual riding and an extra 2 hours of faff/map-reading/photos/lunch. An excellent day was finished off with a trip to the chippy in Blair Atholl before heading back down the A9.

Note: There seems to be some discussion in guide books of which direction to do the loop in. We went anti-clockwise and I can’t see how clockwise would be preferable – hike-a-bike up the exposed singletrack certainly wouldn’t be pleasant.