Whist three or four million people in the Scottish Central Belt sat under a thick blanket of water vapour, Tom and I took to the hills on what was probably the best mountain biking conditions you could possibly hope for.

As we climbed out of Dollar and past the castle we entered another world from that of the sea level dwellers just a couple of hundred metres further below. From 100yrd visibility we suddenly had clear blue skies. The photos say enough.

The ride was just over 20 miles with 4000ft of climbing. With many a photo stop (as above) and a lunch break on the summit of Cleuch, we were out for over three and a half hours. I’ve run variants of this loop many times before (in much shorter times!) and I’ve often thought it would make a good ride and today, with the still air and firm ground it was perfect. We hardly even got muddy. And with the ground being hard and dry it was relatively easy to get up most of the slopes, just one short push out of Burnfoot at 10 miles.

Well, it certainly beat hands down my alternative (normal winter option) of a 15 mile road run, or Christmas shopping in the fog which is what the rest of the world seemed to be doing.

the route map