looping: glen devon
For once I’ve packed good legs. At least, I think I have. The first 80km has a tailwind so it’s hard to tell how much is the wind and how much is legs, but the hills feel easy so that’s a good sign.
This is the second attempt at this route, the last time having been rained off. Even this attempt isn’t as scheduled but the weather again looked bad on the planned day so I’m a couple of days early. I’m mostly doing it because I feel like I should ride through Glen Devon at some point. It’s supposed to be pretty.
As ever the start is not quite as early as it might be but ten to ten is fairly good going by my standards, and it should be about 7 hours so it’s still a decent time. Early enough that the roads are still emptyish and there’s little waiting at junctions on the way out of town.
Those first 80km are on very familiar roads so other than a quick photo stop to catch the light on the Tay it’s non stop till Dunning and lunch. It’s not the greatest of lunches, being a packaged sandwich and some crisps. To be honest familiarity is the only reason I stop here. The village shop is not great, nor are the views lovely but on a longish ride the expediency of not having to make decisions about where to get lunch wins.
After this it’s the road to Auchterarder which I’ve done from the other direction and then we get to new roads. It feels like I am going the roundabout way out of town but I also set the route up to go by Gleneagles so maybe that’s why. Anyway, brief stop to photograph the stupid entrance to Gleneagles because big gold letters are a passion of mine, and then it’s back over the A9 and on towards the glen, via a brief photo stop at the bottom of the climb.
It’s a very pleasant climb. Not too steep and very steady with some decent views and the odd tree lined bit of shade. As with lots of the climbs round here it doesn’t so much stop as slowly fade out to flat so it’s not clear where the top is. What does become clear is that there isn’t much of a descent. Maybe a slight tilting down of the road but between a bit of a head wind and the usual bad road surfaces there’s no freewheeling. It is somewhat disappointing and if I do this again it’ll be from the other direction.
Glen Devon itself is fine but hardly exceptional. I think about stopping to take a photo but I don’t feel compelled so instead press on.
Before I really expect it I’m at the A91. Other than going through Glen Devon the second reason for this route was to see what the A91 was like for cycling. There’s various routes I’d like to do that would be made much easier by taking it but I’ve been a bit wary in case it’s busy. As it turns out it’s fine on a nice Saturday. Not quiet but certainly not busy enough to make it unpleasant. That so I do take a detour off it on to minor roads because fewer cars is always better.
Once in Kinross the rest of the way back is pretty standard roads. For a change my legs are still feeling pretty good. Tired but still capable of knocking out some decent power which is as well given the headwind. Even the final hill up to Strath is, if not easy, then at least not a strugglefest.
I’m not totally sure it’s a route to repeat. Glen Devon is fine but not exceptional and as well as a lack of super interesting roads there’s also a lack of great cafe stops, or at least cafe stops in the right place. There is a bike shop and cafe in Auchterarder so maybe I should try that at some point, but overall box ticked, no need to revisit.