Potty - Platform 22 Loop

John P reports:

"The email was quite quiet on Monday morning, but Jeff flagged a muster at the Guide Hut for 1pm and six of us turned-up; Dick, Jeb (who I kept calling John, sorry Jeb), Jeff, Bob, Ken (who I did call John once) and myself (John, really I am called John not Jeb). Now we have got that straight, it looked a fairly strong group and we set off at considerable pace along Blackhall. We went by the river (through the gates) but we still feel a bit nervous about this in case we are (metaphorically) treading on toes, or at least fishing rods. Along to the quarry and then foot to the metal and up. Still a good pace being maintained. Just before you dive down again towards the Shoot Greens path, there is a flat spot and breather at which all sorts of things get discussed (In the past we have covered Plate Tectonics, for example). It is clearly an energised spot. Today after Bob spent a couple of minutes trying to hit the wire fence with a stone to demonstrate Superhamonization or some such, Jeb announced he had figured out the Torque Question. We held him at bay and said he could have the floor at the coffee stop; after all it is a bike ride. So we crawled and puffed our way up to the path that drops from Shooting Greens to Potarch and let loose on the downhill; which can be quite edgy, loose surface at speed with chicanes. Technical and down hill; what is not to like!

Cross the ‘ol 93 at Potarch and head up and across to Torphins and Platform 22. As always a great welcome, good coffee and scones to die for. This time Emma said she had just tweeted, "Seem to be a firm fave with cyclists these days, always great to see and read lovely comments too!” Followed by a link to our blog <grin>. Emma’s Twitter handle is @Platform22Art This is social media at work… Jeb was let loose on the Torque Question but Bob didn’t see it his way. As (I think) they are the only two qualified engineers, we watched on with interest. If either Jeb or Bob feels moved to enter in the comments to this post what they think, they’ll do a much better job of it than me. Suffice to say, having glimpsed a promise of a definitive answer, it slithered away just out of our grasp.

After coffee we reclaimed Banchory via a familiar route through Craigmyle, Glassel and Inchmarlo. Everybody still seemed to have plenty of ‘legs’ but it had been a brisk enjoyable ride, even though the air temperature seems to have returned to February levels. "

John's route map shows:

John's Strava stats - https://www.strava.com/activities/293589988 ca.35kms, 2 hours, 400 and a bit metres of climb.

Jeff always has a bit more to add of course - his distance was 44 kms with 750 m of climbing, viz:

Dick's team photo: