Benny Beg

Sun out, guns out flip flops out.
After a late start on my part after fixing up the bike, Kevin and I met up with Stevie for a late afternoon session at Benny Beg. Despite having done nearly all the routes here and not being amazingly psyched by the place, this time round I enjoyed the climbing and getting a few miles in. There is nothing too hard at the venue and it is only between 10-15m long but its still worth the occasional visit.

This was Kevin's first sport climbing introduction and he put in a sterling performance and got most of the routes done... albeit some in a far more stylish manner than others. Stevie and I got a few routes done after Kevin left and then decided to do the long traverse out. Nothing too special or pumpy but better than walking the path!

Bute..iful Cycle

This week I've been doing a fair whack of cycling to work on the bikes, accumulating some pretty good miles as it's 11 miles each way. One of the days I slogged the mtb in for a cheeky after work cycle to play on the new commonwealth cross country track at Cathkin Braes, with Adam, Andy and Graham. We took the first last steady and I tried to roll most of it. The track is really well thought out with no mundane sections, all being pretty technical with some points where you've got to drop a few of the jumps which came as a bit of a surprise! We went a bit faster on the second lap round, with Graham and I trailing miles behind the speed daemons! Thankfully though they waited in points. Graham then left to go climbing we went back to Glasgow through some sneaky trails Adam through the south side. In all honesty when they left me to get to their flats I was pretty glad as I could slow down! All in all this made for a cracking afternoon, which hopefully will soon be a regular work outing. The slog into work is well worth it for this though!

Adam checking out the black jump

If you ever get the chance the track is well worth a ride.


Today Mark and I got the 7.50 train to Wemyss Bay, going through a place called IBM along the way, to get the ferry to the Isle of Bute for a sneaky road bike ride round the island. The weather today was a bit of a gamble with heavy showers forecast, however by getting there at 9ish we were fortunate to miss them. Bute itself is pretty flat, with some amazing and massive Victorian houses (all for sale!), hardly any cars at all and some cracking views to Arran. We went at a good pace round stopping to take in the sights. Mark managed to fall off twice though along the way for reasons I still can't fathom, one by riding into me, despite the constant speed we were doing! Thankfully he was OK. By the time we were pulling back into Rothesay, after going to the northern ferry terminal, the clouds looked ominous.

Arran from Bute

Rothesay Gardens

After a good lunch when the heavens finally did open, we went to check out Bute's number one (and two!) tourist attraction... the Victorian toilets. Well worth the twenty pennies I spent getting in! The rain got stronger on the ferry back to the mainland too! Good timing on our part by sheer luck.
Again Bute is well worth a visit too.