"This was a Bob Elder route south over the river up past Knockburn Loch winding around via the slug road and down to the south deeside road. Then over the Dee at Crathes and up the past the new crematoriam to head through Crathes castle to a well earned coffee at The Milton."
The stats were 33 kms/319 m.
John Morton did the business for Monday's ride:
''A fine day for a decent distance, so the destination was set
as 'To Echt and Beyond' or something like that. Apparently the team had not
been in that direction before.... so off we 'boldly went'.
Deeside way, Through Crathes castle grounds (passing hordes of
Easter Egg hunters and Go-Apers with two even wearing ape like suits) and
onwards to Floras. We paused briefly there to check OS map 38 and possible
onward routing, but resisted all temptation to enter the premises for tea.
The route took us via Landerberry, past the Echt Tandoori and
round the edge of Dunecht estate.
Loch of Skene was tempting, but ''left for next time'' as we
headed through Garrick, back past Floras and down to Drum for scones. One of
the team fancied pancakes and was told that two was better than one ... at
least that was his story when the mega-cakes were presented.
The run home along the Deeside way was fine apart from a short,
sharp sleet squall around Drumoak.
April Showers eh.
The outward route is summarised in this relive replay...
It was the longest ride of the year - maybe even the longest FW ride ever - at 52 kms. John backed up his match report with some photos:
 |
| Huddle at Flora's |
 |
| Check the tyres |
 |
| Which way? |
 |
| This way |
 |
| Where are we? |
 |
"Nine of us out today for a superb Tarland run in the sun from Aboyne with 15 degrees or so.
No adders at Loch Kinord, but we spotted a buzzard looking a bit
the worse for the wear as we came up from the loch to the Tarland road.
At Dick's request Dounside House offered sumptious scones on
their patio - well worth the wee pech up the driveway.
Tarland way gave us the route back to Aboyne with great views of Morven, Pressendye, Mount Keen, Clachnaben and a few more."
Compared with Monday's record distance, this was a mere stroll of 34 kms/274m.
Four of us who couldn't manage the early start on Thursday chose to go out in the afternoon. It was a glorious day and we decided to head east on a riverside ride. Along the Way, then crossing the stile at St. Ternan's ground, under the bridge and back up towards the Way again, but before we got there, Ken P suffered a puncture. Now we know Lewis Hamilton's team can change a tyre in 3 seconds, but this team - well Ken really - took a factor of almost 1,000 times this to change Ken's rear inner tube, most of it spent re-assembling his rear wheel. Ken professes to have been an engineer, but he couldn't figure how to get the wheel back on properly and insisted on me taking my bike and inverting it so he could see how the chain/derailleur set up should work. Colin and Robin admire Ken's patience:
Finally, we got going again. We clambered over the gate at Myrebird which took us back down to the river and sailed along towards Drum for tea/coffee/scones/toasted teacakes etc, not forgetting to stop at the traditional spot at Park bridge for our team photo:
Our stats were a fairly modest 32 kms/82 m.
Elsewhere, lots of FW's in action - the Reillys warming up for their Loch Ness ride, Les Gray crossing the Spanish border to cycle with old pal Derek Kemp and his boys for a few days, but the daddy of them all was John Larkin again, whose Wednesday Deeside ride was a colossal 136 kms, with 1,434 m of climbing! It's no surprise, therefore, that he was top of last week's BVCG/FW leader board again:
Last Week's Leaders
| Distance | Longest Ride | Climbing | |
|---|---|---|---|
224.9 km
|
2,597 m
| ||
166.9 km
|
1,998 m
| ||
158.6 km
|
1,993 m
|
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