Day 8 - The Devil's Porridge

When Fran from Travis posed the question "Why does it always rain on me" in his maudlin way, I didn't feel properly qualified to offer an opinion. However, things have changed, and I'm ready to give it a shot. It wasn't because he "lied when he was 17" - no, no, no. The much more obvious answer is simply that he was Scottish and living in Scotland.

I appreciate we're prattling on about the weather in this blog, but 1) We are British, and 2) When you're on a pedal bike, it really matters - a lot. Throughout the trip, we've been paying particular attention to the weather forecast each evening, and to some degree, it has served us well. However, once you get into Scotland, you just may as well not bother. It's better to simply accept that each day will bring you "some of each kind" of weather and not try to plan where or when it will be.

In our Gretna B&B there were a number of adverts and flyers for a theatre company called "The Devil's Porridge". We chortled (as blokes do), wondering just how Roger's Profanisaurus might define said satanic breakfast.

As we hit our first headwind of the day, Patrick remarked that it was like "cycling through the Devil's porridge", a phrase that sayed with us for the rest of the day.


We had a long ascent from Yetts o' Muckhart (these are not made-up place names) followed by 4 miles at 30mph+ back down into Dunning - possibly the most high-speed fun of the day. Bananas and fluids were consumed in the warming sun in the centre of Dunning, before heading out into a brief rainstorm. After yesterday's near hypothermic conditions, we made a pact to seek shelter as soon as the roads looked more like rivers. It wasn't long before we were huddled under a tree chatting to a female cyclists who'd popped out for a quick ride in the glorious sunny weather.

We skirted around Perth into more up hill stuff then down into Pitlochry at around 60 miles, for massive spuds, cheese, beans and tea. With the easy (ahem) bit of the day behind us, we set off once more straight into a hail shower and decided to shelter for a second time.


Five miles later, we found a nice "bikes only" road sandwiched between the A9 and the River Garry. We found a very pleasant rocky / rapids / waterfall spot to slip a banana in and take on some water. This was the first bit of the entire journey that felt faintly recreational - almost like being on holiday - this was a feeling that would soon be engulfed by the Devil's porridge.

We re-joined the A9 into the full force of the howling wind. Our speed dropped to single digits and the hill seemed to go on for ever. The higher we got, the more fierce the wind, and even Patrick failed to use his "big ring".

Once over the summit, we could tell we were heading down because we sometimes hit 12 mph, and a signpost to Dalwhinnie (our destination for the evening) was a more then welcome sight. Patrick was still "in the zone" and sailed straight past the hotel, but Jules and I made no such school boy error, slamming on the brakes and refusing to pedal aonther foot.

A serving of meat, whiskey & Tiramisu made the events of the day seem like a distant bad dream ...


Julian's statoids - Day Eight
Daily Distance: 93 miles
Cumulative Distance: 704.5 miles
Ride time: 6 hours 50 mins
Top Speed: 34.7 mph
Average speed: 13.7 mph
Calories Burned - 4300
Terrain - All sorts, but mainly up due to starting at sea level
Key Events: Lots of satanic breakfast matter, completely empty cycle track, a superb descent, our second exposure to hail.