the talla circuit

 

On Friday 8th Sept the weather was set fair and Mary was interested in doing a cycling circuit round Talla reservoir. She has been doing more cycling than usual lately, as she is unable to run and replacing that with cycling and swimming. Her cycling has been improving hugely and she has done a few bigger days out, well into the 60 milers. I have not been doing as much and it showed on this longer day out.

The day was even sunnier than the forecast suggested. In fact it turned out to be the hottest day of the Summer; based on my opinion rather than official stats, but I am reliable in that I have been out and about on every decent weather day we have had this Summer. 

We were a bit late setting off due to getting the bikes in the Berlingo, and faffing about. The start (and finish) point was Peebles which possibly took most of an hour to get to including a really slow three way road works on the main street in Peebles, and it was nearly midday when we at last set off from the same car park we used to use at the (Borders Series) cross country.

Neither of us had done this route before. Mary had spotted it on Stewart W's strava. He too has been doing cycling during running injury. The route looked good. Having a start outwith Edinburgh (no dreary town cycling till you get out into the countryside) and a couple of decent climbs on a circuit rather than an out-and-back, looked fun. And it seemed to be on smaller less trafficky roads.

We set off about 11.50 and just as we were warming up - I noticed 12.12 on my watch - Mary shouted that she had a puncture. It was an unfortunate start but got the only mechanical of the day out the way early on. We found a thorn through her tyre but rather than mess about with puncture repairs we swapped the tube. (I have never regretted paying nearly double the price for kevlar tyres that boast puncture protection. They are heavier but resist thorns and small glass shard punctures.) I am ashamed to say it took a full 30mins to get back on the road. A fair bit of this was getting the tyre off which seemed almost glued on (they boasted they were tubeless ready and I wonder was some sort of adhesive used to put them in place when new.) Anyway it was not my swiftest puncture repair (about 10 mins in my hayday to patch a tube) and the sun beating down threatened to flare up already frayed tempers. (Bad words directed at the situation, rather than each other!)

bad words in the heat of the day

Onwards and upwards. Back on the bikes and in another couple of miles we passed a place familiar from the Two Breweries hill race. Where you cross the road near Stobo Castle. Anyone who has done this will tell you it is a particularly unpleasant business and one of the worst ways to get a free beer. I can confidently say no matter how much I get back into hill racing I will never be doing this race again.

The first 18 miles or so were okay, travelling down the A701 past Drumelzier, but neither spectacular nor dreadful. I wondered if I had just lost my joy of cycling, as there was nothing wrong with the route, it was just a bit meh. I think a bit of headwind maybe was one aspect, although we were going along at a decent clip. There was a fair bit of traffic on the roads although it wasn't awful. We then turned off the A701 at Tweedsmuir and onto a smaller almost single track tarmacked road with passing places, more like you get in the highlands. Things improved massively as soon as we crossed the Tweed (below).

This was now delightful countryside on a superb day and we relaxed into the ride, chatting and shouting about how nice it was, even though the gradient was more uphill. Mary recently bought a phone-sized Garmin navigation device she clips to her handlebars. She can upload gpx files into it and it shows her the route on a map and works like a sat-nav. I had also put the route into my aging wrist-borne Suunto. The route was fairly uncomplicated but it was good we both had sat-navs.

There was then a long flat section beside Talla Water - a long thin stretch of reservoir formed by a dam at the Western end. There was little to no traffic and it felt remote and wonderful. We messed about taking photos. We were carrying compact cameras in bumbags round our waists rather than the bigger cameras today. It makes it easier to take pics on the go rather than stopping for every photo.

There was only one incident that annoyed me - we saw a buzzard up ahead on a fence post next to the road. They are the most common bird of prey you are likely to see so it wasn't super-important, but I asked Mary to stop to see if we could approach it quietly and get the best possible photos. She initially did and then got bored and started chatting and cycling again, scaring the thing off. Despite impressive weaponry; razor sharp talons and beak, they are big cowards and will fly off before you get anywhere close. AND to make it worse Mary got better photos of it. However we were both having too much fun to fall out about it.

buzzed off

fab place!

far end of Talla Water

Now we had heard there was an impressive climb coming up. We could see a steep road at the end of Talla Water and wondered if that was it. It was. Known as the Talla Wall it is a thin road that climbs out the valley up a hellish gradient for a half mile, levels off momentarily and then climbs again, but less steeply for another half mile. Looking at the gps output I see my uphill speed went from 6mph to under 4mph. Although I cycled the whole climb, I stopped a couple of times to take photos as it was worth recording; the views back along the valley under blue skies were spectacular and I didn't want to get to the top and find they were no longer visible.

This is the first time I'd been here and I was surprised to find such a gem existed relatively close to home. Mary was ahead of me and didn't feel inclined to stop for photos. She had taken her foot out a toeclip as a car squeezed by and didn't manage to get it back in for the climb and felt slightly defeated when she stopped at the green roadside bin at the top of the first climb to regroup. I think she felt she should have done it in one go without putting a foot down. I felt both of us were capable of that although I was down to my second lowest gear and puffing hard, something that rarely happens on tarmac as I have very low ratioed mountain bike gears. 

A woman went by us on a road bike and said well done for managing that on a mountain bike. Being heavier with fatter (2.2") tyres, it takes more puff to get it up a steep hill than a road bike. But it wasn't impossible - I suppose we are used to hills from running and walking over the Pentlands and Arthur's Seat. Not that it was easy, but it didn't go on forever, either. I stopped to take a photo of the woman's accomplice who looked like he was dying at the green bin and had stopped to rest his head on his handlebars. I'm guessing he wasn't as competent a cyclist as his female friend.

cycle killer (fa fa fa fahfa)

things levelled off for a bit

then a marvellous downhill section

I think Stewart had said anti-clockwise was the better direction to do this circuit. This became clear comparing the hills at Talla. The ascent we did was brutal but gave a long flowing descent over eleven miles, the finest section of the whole circuit. Done in a clockwise direction this would have been a long slowish grind up through the best coutrside followed by an abrupt descent down the Talla Wall which is too steep a gradient to enjoy or ride at anywhere near top speed. 

So it was 23miles to the top of the Talla Wall, then 11 lovely miles downhill past a further two bodies of water, Megget Reservoir and St Mary's Loch. There we climbed North on the B709 for 3 miles. I think I was beginning to lose the plot around here. Mary was going well and I was either overheating or getting too dehydrated. I had only brought a bottle of water and it was pretty much all gone. I was feeling a bit faint and could not work out what I needed, but knew I needed it soon. We had stopped for our sandwiches just before St Mary's Loch but I was feeling kind of wobbly.

We had been cycling beside a small burn next to the road for sometime when I shouted to Mary I needed to stop. I walked to the stream to a section that had a miniature beach where I could kneel down beside the water, and put my head into it. This helped considerably. I splashed water on my neck and face and then reluctantly filled my bottle from it and drank a good bit. I am disinclined to drink from streams outdoors unless they are high in the hills and not likely to have dead sheep upstream. Or run-off from farmer's fertilized fields. Or liver flukes. I have a filter bottle I can fill from streams and it is supposed to filter out the worst pollutants and beasties but didn't have it with me. For once I just drank out this stream, watching the water to see if there were any bugs or dirt going into my bottle. It seemed clean-ish! What the hell! I drank deep and in 15 minutes felt MUCH better. 

I noted that Mary was not wobbly and felt fine. Her previous cycle runs had given her great strength and resilience, which I was clearly lacking today. Oh well, suck it up Buchanan! I think I was beginning to feel better by the time we passed a dead adder at the roadside. They are sufficiently rare on our travels that even a dead one merits a photo. Three miles after the junction of the B709 you have done the second climb of the day and are rewarded with a lovely swooshy descent down to Traquair. 

swooshy descent!

We were 41.5miles in at Traquair. In the past (running not cycling) this has led East up onto Minch Moor during the Tweed Ultra, which has also featured in Feel the Burns hillrace. All those race courses get mixed up in my foggy brain and I struggle to remember specifics of Manor Water vs the 2 Brews. There was little in the last 8 miles back into Peebles via Cardrona memorable enough to pull out the camera for, and I was relieved when the outskirts of Peebles at last hove into sight.

We were held up at the lights before the 3-way control on the main street again. Whatever infirmities I had enjoyed earlier were now dispelled. I had drunk a full bottle of filthy riverwater and felt much better, even though the sun was still scorchio. We got safely back to the car park and wedged the bikes into the Berlingo for the drive home. It was a fantstic circuit in places - mainly from the turn off at Tweedsmuir all along the A708 until the B709 although bits of that were pretty good too. And the weather couldn't have been better, although the hottest day of the year took its toll on the less fit in our party! 

Back to the car! Then we loaded up the bikes and sat waiting in a queue to get past the 3way control on the main street for the 3rd and final time! However it didn't spoil the day out and thanks to Stewart for flagging up a top route.

49.4 miles over 5hrs
4hrs cycling, (puncture, river-bathing and lunch, 1 hr!)