On May 13, 5,000 cyclists will descend on Highland Perthshire for the UK’s biggest closed road race. Courier features writer Jack McKeown who hasn’t been on a bike since high school will be among the competitors in the 81-mile Etape Caledonia and here documents his less than trouble-free preparations.
I’m pedalling up Schiehallion. My heart’s pounding with exertion. The lactic acid’s been building up in my legs for a while and now they’re screaming blue murder.
A hailstorm has just started: I can hear the icy pellets as they rattle off my helmet and watch them melt on my bare legs.
And yet somehow, absurdly, I’m happy. The scenery is breathtaking. My body’s heated up with the exertion and the hail actually feels quite refreshing.
Fresh mountain air fills my lungs. I’m aching, but it’s that good pain that comes with exertion, and I know that soon I’ll reach the summit and can stop to enjoy the views.
It’s starting to become apparent why so many people are into cycling: it’s addictive.
Finally, panting, I reach the top to find my guide, Courier cycling columnist Scot Tares, leaning calmly against his own bike and offering me a slice of his wife’s homemade cake. Despite having nearly 10 years on me in age, the former racer shot up the hill like the rest of us weren’t moving.
”It’s funny,” he tells me as we fuel up. ”People always say you drive a car and you ride a bike, but really it’s the other way round. You drive a bike and you ride a car.”
Scot runs bike touring company Skinny Tyres. He’s promised to help me get in shape for the 81 miles of scenic hilly hell that is the Marie Curie Cancer Care Etape Caledonia.Find out more at www.etapecaledonia.co.ukI got roped into it when the race’s PR supremo Tricia Fox suggested that, being a relatively sporty type, I might be up for a challenge.
Sitting at my desk with months to go before the event it seemed easy to overlook the fact I’d barely been on a bike since my teenage years. I said yes.
The 81-mile course starts and finishes in Pitlochry, going past Aberfeldy, over Schiehallion, round Loch Rannoch and Loch Tummel, and finishing where it started. Its total ascent is 1949 metres, or almost 6,400 feet.
One of the Etape’s main sponsors, bike manufacturer Scott, has loaned me a steed for the race. The CR1 is set up for my height and build. It weighs a feather duster over eight kilograms and can be easily lifted with two fingers.
I pick it up from Perth City Cycles, where owner Alasdair McKendrick shows me how to remove and reattach the wheels, operate the gears, adjust the seat and sells me a helmet, cycling shoes, cleats and pedals.
I’m feeling pretty good. Unfortunately, the exhilaration is short lived: on our maiden run together the front wheel locks up and I go hurtling over the handlebars. I’m okay but the wheel’s a goner.
As has so often been the case, Scot rides to the rescue, lending me a bike to keep my training going while the repair’s carried out.
I join Skinny Tyres for two of their Etape training days. The first sees us cover 40 miles; the second, 50. Prior to this, I calculate the farthest distance I’ve cycled in one go is about 12 miles. Work to be done.
Day one takes us out from Pitlochry past the Festival Theatre and along the south shore of Loch Tummel before joining the climb up Schiehallion on the Tummel Bridge route.
The dozen or so Etape trainees are accompanied by Scot and his colleagues and fellow cycling fanatics Erni Hamilton and Toby Green.
After lunch I’m at the back of the pack because I had some trouble getting my helmet on again the straps seem tighter than before. Toby discreetly pulls me aside and informs me I’ve put it on back to front…
I do better than anticipated. Regular weights, squash, volleyball and running mean I’m in decent shape: it’s bike skills I lack. Consequently, while I keep up with many more seasoned bikers on the climbs, the downhill sections see them shoot past me.
My intrinsically cowardly nature keeps me feathering the brakes while they display nerves of steel and an apparent disregard for the effect the road might have on them should they fall off.
My mentor, coach and guru Scot supplies a steady stream of tips, the best of which is telling me about the slipstream effect. Tucking up tight behind another rider or a group of riders can save 30% of your energy. I’ve a feeling that might be the strategy that gets me through the Etape.
The second, 50-mile day, takes in the whole of the Etape course minus the 20-mile Loch Rannoch and 10-mile Fortingall sections.
We split into two groups, medium and fast. Never having done the distance before and not wanting to be undone by hubris, I spend the morning in the medium group. Bolstered by lunch at Kinloch Rannoch and one of Scot’s energy drinks, I push on and catch up with the fast group.
I can’t keep up with the leaders but toil along at the rear of the bunch. When we stop I’m chagrined to see one of the fastest is a lady who looks to be in her early 60s. I eye her with a mixture of admiration and annoyance.
Getting on my bike has not been without fear, mishap or hazard. As well as taking a tumble there’s been several occasions when cars have passed by uncomfortably close. And our rotten roads have enough potholes to make some routes an obstacle course.
But overall, it’s been a wonderful voyage of discovery.
Scotland has a network of virtually traffic-free minor roads that are a cyclist’s paradise.
My journeys with Scot Tares have opened my eyes to a new world. Setting out less than an hour’s drive from where I’ve spent most of my life, we’ve pedalled for hours on roads whose existence I was unaware of that cut through some of Scotland’s finest scenery.Will Jack complete the Etape without falling off his bike again? Find out in The Courier on May 15.