Thankfully the winds abated here today so I got another 50 miler in the bag, mainly all back roads and very little traffic!
I didn't really have a route in mind today, I was just sort of freestyling as you will probably see from my crazy shaped map!
Lots of climbing as usual but so many lovely descents to enjoy also! There was rain forecast for around 11am so I set off just before 7am to empty roads in my home town, its a very different story any other day...
I headed for Slamannan and used the back road to Avonbridge which meant I could enjoy this lovely descent early in my ride!
I soon arrived in Avonbridge and took the narrow back road up to Standburn, its such a great road for a bike with lots of twists and turns and some nice descents at first followed by some big climbs! This is the final climb up to Stan smooth tarmac!
The road into Standburn is another cracker, its like a rollercoaster and very quick in parts! Then I took the road towards Linlithgow but I made a detour through Whitecross for a change of scenery as I have ridden the road to Linlithgow a lot recently! As I passed through Whitecross all the farms came into view, its a busy time for the farmers!
This road is amazing also, it starts with a big descent followed by yet another climb!
I then joined the main road into Linlithgow but thankfully it was still early and there was very little traffic around, I arrived in the centre of the town and decided to take the big climb up to Beecraigs Country Park! As I turned to take on the climb the summit software on my Wahoo gps informed me it was a 3.8 mile climb with an average gradient of 3.2%! The first part is very steep, known as Preston road lungbuster!
Not so tough on a powerful e bike though, I stopped before the next part of the climb to grab these photos!
As I set off again the summit software now reported a 1.2 mile climb with an average gradient of 6.2%, a bit strange considering I had only covered around a mile of the supposed 3.8 mile climb...I reached the top and grabbed another couple of photos!
Lots of farmland to the north and the Grangemouth Oil Refinery down in the valley with the Ochill Hills shrouded in cloud in the background!
I could have taken the easy route down to Torphicen but I decided to take the big climb up to Cairnpapple hill, a real beast of a climb but one of the best cycling roads in the country with the big corkscrew climb being the highlight and then followed by a spectacular descent down into the valley where I managed 43.2mph into a 20mph headwind!
There are some great views from Cairnpapple and today I could even see the bridges over the River Forth!
I then had another big descent to enjoy down into Bathgate, one day I will tackle this one going up the way! There's a few tight turns so you can't really get up to high speed going down but its still fun of course! From Bathgate I took the road to Whitburn and used the new cycle path from there to Armadale as the road was getting busy now! I passed through Armadale and decided to continue down the descent towards Bridgehouse before taking another big climb up the hills overlooking Armadale! Once at the top I headed back to Armadale down 2 lovely big descents and then it was a straight road home through Blackridge and Caldercruix!
Yet another fantastic ride on my local roads and I arrived home dry with a spotless bike, always a bonus here!
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? Spain?
