Loch Skerrow, Halt.
From:
Simon Brooke <[email hidden]>Â Â (gradually deteriorating)
Date:
Sunday 25 March 2007 20:09:11
Groups:
rec.bicycles.racing
Well the plan for today's ride was very simple:
 "Mar 25, 2007 Â
  Raider's Road   Naeb'dy gets drappit   10:00:00 AM
  Up Raiders Road to Clatteringshaws for tea and cake, return via NCN7 and
  old railway line. Meet at Stroan Loch carpark. Mountain bikes, crossers
  or strong tourers.
A of minor flaw in this plan manifested itself before we even started: the
Clatteringshaws tea-room doesn't open until Easter...
However, at 10:05 am Alison, Richard and I decided to wait no longer for
stragglers and head off up the Raider's Road.
Brief digression. In the 1880s the then Minister of this very parish, one
Samuel Crocket, wrote a novel called The Raiders. It was a big hit at the
time and remains locally popular; it's in the mould of Robert Louis
Stevenson's _Kidnapped_, although perhaps not as good. In the book, the
raiders of the title set out from near here, and head up country via Old
Brig O' Dee and thence via Mossdale and the Black Water. The Forestry
Commission some ten years ago decided to make their track up the Black
Water into a 'forest drive', and some keen marketing mind hit on the
name 'The Raiders Road'. It passes through some very remote country, and
is wildly scenic in parts.
So we set off up the Raiders Road, as I said. And it was glorious. Stroan
Loch was near still and luminous in the light. The larches were just at
that stage where they're about to flush with fresh needles, and had a
glorious flame orange colour just faintly infused with vivid green. The
big trees - a lot of this countryside is under conifer plantation that the
forestry commission call 'over mature', which is to say wonderfully big
trees - made cool shade, but when we were out in the sunlight it was, for
the first time this year, actually warm. Patches of native daffodils
glowed yellow along the side of the track.
This part of Galloway is all granite country, the soil spread
parsimoniously over the rock like a ragged blanket over a skeleton. The
Black Water cuts through this thin covering to flow for much of its length
over a bed of washed-clean, water-carven granite.
At Clatteringshaws, under the shadow of the dam, we turned to head back
down the other side of the glen, and, very soon, to climb over the
watershed into the parallel glen of Loch Grannoch and the Big Water of
Fleet. It's a long, tough climb. I'd been climbing slower than the others
all morning - I'm really unfit just now - and on this one they soon
vanished ahead, to leave me climbing at my own pace in the spring
sunshine.
I was aware that there were things wrong with the bike - nothing major, but
the rear suspension unit was a bit soft, and the front not as buttery
smooth as it should be, and making slight complaining noises as it coped
with the irregularities of the track. And the rear mech was ghost-shifting
a bit, partly a slight misalignment which I corrected as I rode, and
partly, I thought, stiction in the cables.
I found the others waiting for me near the top, where there's a wonderful
view over Loch Grannoch; and from there there's a three or four mile
descent which amply repays the the gruelling climb. Just before the Big
Water of Fleet viaduct we turned east onto the old railway line, which,
from there as far as the Little Water of Fleet, has been used as the
foundation for a forestry road. And then just beyond the Little Water of
Fleet the forestry road turns south down, and the railway carries on in a
state or resurgent nature. It never looks as if you can ride through...
but you can.
On this section, between the Little Water of Fleet and Loch Skerrow, the
railway blasts through two ridges of granite, each as high and as thick
through as a terrace house, in sheer sided cuttings not much wider than a
railway carriage - testimony to the economy of the victorian railway
engineers. The second of these is flooded for about 150 metres. It's been
flooded for years, it's a hazard we knew about and expected. You ride
through about a foot deep of foul-smelling stagnant ooze, not quite fluid
enough to be called water, not quite solid enough to be called mud. And
half way through the oozey section, a large and very twiggy tree branch
had fallen into the cutting and had to be ridden over. Something snagged
at the back of my bike, and I tried to pedal through it... mistake.
I climbed gingerly off the bike into the ooze, and inspected the problem.
My chain had overshifted into the spokes. People write about various
equipment failures, and I always think rather sanctimoniously 'well, it
wouldn't happen if they maintained their bike...' It's possible that the
twiggy branches had something to do with it, but I think I just
overshifted the chain - which, if my bike had been properly maintained,
wouldn't have been possible.
I was more or less in the middle of the flooded section. I think, probably,
if I had sorted it out then and there, I would have managed to free it...
but I instead tried to wheel the bike to dry land. And by the time I had,
the chain was thoroughly jammed. And one tool I don't carry with me on
rides is a cassette lockring remover. It quickly became clear that I
wasn't going to get the chain out, so I cut it each side of the jamb. I
suppose I could have rigged a single speed chain with what was left and
ridden on, but with the freehub jammed I didn't want to do further damage.
So I said to the others to go on...
I've said often enough that one of the great benefits of bikes in wild
country is that they can save an awfully long walk in. The corollary, as I
found this afternoon, is that they can lead to an awfully long walk out.
But actually, it wasn't in the least bit unpleasant. It was, as I say,
warm, with a gentle wind, and bright sunlight. On Loch Skerrow, ducks and
geese were gathering to migrate, and I heard the calling of a bird which I
thought might be a diver (but I didn't see one).
And so to literary interlude #2. Loch Skerrow Halt, once the most isolated
railwar station in Britain, where Richard Hannay got off the train in _The
Thirty-nine Steps_. Now a ruined building and an abandoned platform
overlooking its wild, glacier-scraped loch.
It's weird, of course, to have a loch at the top of a hill. And, to be
fair, Loch Skerrow isn't literally at the top of the hill - but it is the
highest point on the railway. From Loch Skerrow, the railway makes a long,
gradual descent - a very steady grade - over about five kilometers back
down to the Stroan Loch viaduct; and as the grade was too gentle to coast,
I walked it.
--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
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