Torphins - Kinker - Blackhall circle

Monday afternoon is still proving to be a fairly popular time, with 7 of us showing up today. Conditions were pretty good - still very mild for what the weather man calls the official first day of Winter, dry, little wind, but offroad can be tricky after all the rain there's been in the last couple of weeks - can't see underfoot conditions improving for a while, and, if we get a freeze, that could mean tarmac routes only for the rest of the winter.

Dick suggested we try the Torphins - Kinker - Blackhall route again as most of us hadn't done this one before. The peloton was tight until Burnett Park, when Dick suddenly hared off up the old railway line and through the forest tracks round the back of Archie's house and up towards Brathens. Within minutes, he was out of sight, but we assumed we would meet him at one of the next intersections - but it wasn't to be. Jeff had a brief call of nature which may have slightly exaggerated the distance between Dick and the rest of us, and, at one stage, Rob went back to look for Dick, thinking he must have taken another route somehow, but eventually, there was no option but to phone him.

When I got through to him, Dick was well over a mile ahead of the rest of us, so he had to wait for a while for us to catch up with him.

Slight diversion in to Kincardine O'Neil for tea/coffee etc at Dee's Teas - but no scones available. We should have phoned ahead. We posed for the team photo indoors for a change:

Rob Pollard, Jeff Dickens, Dick Taylor, Ian Stewart, debutant Bob Elder, John McWhinnie & Ken Page 

Jeff's on the 5:2 diet and today was a "2" day, so he didn't partake of any of the Bakewell Tarts and other goodies, which was probably a wise idea as we still had the climb back to Banchory via Shooting Greens to tackle.

Rob's i-Pad - which you can see laid out in front of him - was passed round for everyone to consider which was the least painful route back. There was a bit of a disagreement about elevations and I'm not sure who came out on top in the end - it may have been Dick - but off we all jolly well went anyway.

At our high point, Jeff veered off further up the hill back to Strachan whilst the rest of us took the downhill route back.

Most of us have now got front and rear lights on our bikes and with the shortest day fast approaching, these are now essential additions - whether offroad or on. The forest route back in the half light still made it hard to see all the potholes in time to take avoiding action - even with front lights.

If we are to continue to start at 12:30 pm on a Monday (and that's the earliest Dick can make it) and have a 2 hour cycle, then we'll need to ensure that future routes all loop back to Tease for our coffee and cakes, as the 30-40 minutes we spent in Kinker today meant the light was going on our return journey.

For the record, the distance covered was about 22 miles with somewhere between 1,200 and 1,400 feet of climbing, depending on whether you live on the flat (like me) or up the hill (like Dick and Rob) - probably even more for Jeff.

All the stats and the route are at http://www.strava.com/activities/225198640