Scotland Coast to Coast Day 1: Aberdeen to Grantown

19th September 2015

I think it was on a train to Aberdeen prior to a birding holiday on Shetland, that I first discovered that Graeme was a bike nut like me. Although we'd known each other for years, since we were teenagers, this was the first I'd heard that he did a lot of cycling, and vice versa. We'd been fortunate to be able to get first class tickets for only a fiver more than the standard fare, and with the aid of some complimentary alcohol, and a few additional purchased tinnies, a plan was hatched to try to cycle from Aberdeen to the west coast of Scotland, taking in the infamous Beallach na Ba climb too.

And so it was that I flew into Edinburgh the following September, all set for the adventure to begin. Graeme collected me at the airport and we headed straight to Biketrax to pick up my Genesis hire bike so the fun could start. Somehow we managed to squeeze it into the back of his Polo and get it back to his house where it was swiftly reassembled for a test run. The rental road bike had no mounts for a rack, but I'd brought a seat post rack that I was hoping would be suitable for taking my fairly meagre baggage. We decided that augmenting this by attaching a longer old pannier rack of Graeme's using cable ties would give a more robust structure to hang the bags off, and stop them going into the spokes. It looked a bit shonky, but actually worked really well!

Nice Rack!

A quick test run and, satisfied that if I could make the roundabout at the bottom of the road and back whilst fully laden, I'd be grand on the C2C. We finished up for the day and retired to the beer garden for the evening, excitement building for the start of the trip!

The plan was to take an early train to Aberdeen, and then cycle down to the harbour, with the official start point being Girdleness Lighthouse. This meant an early departure from Graeme's, and a half hour cross-town cycle to the station, where we managed to find our alloted bike slot and seats - time to relax for a couple of hours before the real biking began!

Graeme preparing for the off

Me propping up the lighthouse compound wall

Before too long we were unloading our bikes off the train and heading down to Girdle. We'd both spent a lot of time birding there over the years, so it was fun to be cycling past some of the old haunts. We took a few photos at the lighthouse, with the North Sea at our backs, and then we had to get on with it! I think we'd only gone about 1.5 km before I suggested the first stop at a bakery in Torry, for the first macaroni pie of the trip - well, you have to get those carbs in on the big rides!

Breakfast of Champions!

Onwards and westwards into Deeside then, heading to our first official stop of the day - "lunch" at Fiona's. Another old birding friend from our Aberdeen Uni days, Fiona had toyed with the idea of joining us for a bit of the ride, but had decided we'd only have slowed her down. The kilometres rolled by and we reached Fi's house after a couple of hours of pedalling. She'd gone to a lot of trouble for us too, hand made hash browns, googling the recipe it seemes pretty complicated and involves wringing the liquid out of the spuds with a tea towel - I had imagined she'd just have bought them out of the supermarket freezer section when she'd asked if there were any specific dietery requirements for lunch!

Somewhere up Deeside!

Alas, all too soon, we had to get back on the road, as we had to get to Grantown on Spey by nightfall. Everything continued to go well until we rounded a corner and saw a vertical wall of road ahead of us - the start of the Lecht climb!

It was hideous! It felt almost vertical and I was quickly reduced to making zigzags across the road to make any upward headway! Inch by inch I somehow managed to get up that first wall (the Strava segment is encouragingly called Corgarf Killer Climb, and is apparently 13.5% on average). For the record, I currently hold the 2,173rd fastest time up it, out of 2,921 attempts. Somehow I got to the top and thought I'd better take some photographs to record the historic achievement. Up ahead, I could see Graeme in the distance working his way up the next incline. When I was finally able to breathe again, I gave it a go too! Mercifully, the second phase wasn't as bad, and eventually I found Graeme waiting for me at the top (pleasingly, still just inside the strava segment finish point, so we've similar times!) The decent was marvellous, although over rather too quickly.

Photo stop after the wall - Graeme is just visible racing up the second part of the climb

Me cresting the Lecht summit

I was hoping that was it for the serious stuff for Day One, but sadly there was another lungbuster to take in before we were done. The Bridge of Brown was another double figure percentage hill  mountain requiring maximum effort to haul myself over it, although I think Graeme found it not too bad!

The Scenery

After that, we didn't have too much further until we reached Grantown and our first nights accomodation in a seemingly rather strict b&b. We didn't care though - we'd conquered the Lecht, travelled some 141 km and 1,869 m of ascent from Aberdeen and, best of all, we managed to find The Wee Puffin restaurant selling excellent recovery craft beers plus large quantities of delicious burgers and chips to refuel us in Grantown. Day One was over and we were well on our way across Scotland!!

Monster burgers at the Wee Puffin, Grantown

Recovery beers!