Giving it some beans.

Good Friday saw Robin, Stuart and myself head up onto the Moor to see if the snow drifts from last week had receded or not. Leaving the sprawling house that Robin calls home, there was some nice singletrack heading north out toward the road, before the usual slog up onto the moor proper.

View across to Arran

The surrounding hills only had small patches of snow, which looked promising, and the pace from Dalry was brisk, the lungs and legs warming up quickly. First off road climb was the steep, usually muddy, quad track up onto kaim hill. The trails were still pretty dry, with just the odd snow drift across the trail to slow down the climb. The usual Kaim game descent back to the road was not as much fun as usual, as this had more pockets of snow than were visible from the road. The worst areas of snow seem to be the west facing slopes, as they have been sheltered from the unusual easterly wind.

This then led us down to tackle the recently cleared kilruskin glen descents, which being in a forest, were clear of snow, running dry and fast. Good stuff. Back up the usual moor road climb again, although I struggled to get going on this climb today, not sure why. The contour round Black hill and the subsequent descent down into fairlie is more open, and was slow going due to the number of deep drifts, but good fun though.

Robins' demo Ibis Mojo

The village inn, Fairlie, has only recently opened back up again, and seems to be getting better all the time. We ended up having a nice sociable lunch, cracking soup and pitta, with the sugar and caffeine from coffee and coke going down well. Stuart is vegan, and there wasn't much that he cold really take, and when he asked the barman if he had any beans, he received a rather blank and puzzled expression!. So much for a healthy vegan diet - 2 rolls with chips and ketchup. The ibis mojo which Robin had as a demo ride was deemed too expensive to be left outside with no lock on, so the owner kindly let us bring it in.

So, all that was left was the horrible full moor climb up and over to Dalry, with me struggling to get the pedals going again. One of those days, hopefully. The singletrack dropping back into Robins' manor was lovely in the other direction, just getting back in time for a quick drive home in time to tuck into one of Maz's lovely homely dinners. Another good day in the shire.

 

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