G is for Gravel: Burncrooks Reservoir and back

Gravel tracks well within Glasgow postcodes.

On the evening of Monday the 26th of March, 2020, the UK was placed on lockdown to try and stem the spread of the Coronavirus. Thankfully, the conditions of the lockdown allowed people to go outside for one period of daily exercise, within the locale of their home. This meant an end to driving up the road to places like Loch Ard or Inveruglas to start a ride, and would mean that for a city-dweller like myself, any gravel riding opportunities would be pretty severely restricted.

Not to be disheartened, I decided it was time to set myself a wee challenge, to see what I could find on my doorstep and try to get onto whatever dirt was available. My initial thought was to try and limit rides to round about 50km, so as not to push myself too far, and to make sure that if things went wrong, I would be able to walk home without too much difficulty. Thankfully, also being a trail runner meant that I already had a bit of a familiarity with some good wee off-road routes not too far from home and a few ideas up my sleeve about where to start. I started poring over the OS maps and throwing a couple of routes into Strava, and soon had a first candidate in mind.

Starting in Partick, there's nothing especially off-road flavoured nearby, so my first step involved covering some road to get me to Milngavie, the starting point of the West Highland Way. I've run the first section of the WHW many times (albeit from the railway station) so I knew the terrain pretty well. Some sections of the path nearer the centre of the town were a wee bit busier than I'd have liked, but with a wee bit of courteous riding and liberal dinging of the bell, I was able to make good progress. The fitting of a bell to a "serious" bike divides opinion among many, but when riding on shared paths I see it as an essential bit of equipment, and a good way to maintain pleasant relations between cyclists and other users. Bell aside, the track was pretty straightforward, if a bit damp from recent rainfalls and the hardpacked gravel didn't seem to be draining especially well.

Once across the road at Craigallian, the track goes a wee bit more bumpy - from Milngavie to Craigallian, the West Highland Way would be easy enough for a slick-tyred hybrid most of the way, but beyond Craigallian, you're into borderline mountain bike territory. There's a wee section of wooden boardwalk that requires deft hopping on and off of, especially in the rain, and one particularly tyre-threatening rock garden. Once the banks of Craigallian Loch are reached, a particularly lumpy stretch of land rover track will have you wishing you'd gone a tyre size up, or even wanting to swap your gravel bike for a nice plush full-suspension mountain bike.

Having survived with my sitbones just about intact, my next challenge was to navigate the maze of tracks and paths around the Carbeth huts, and transfer from the West Highland Way to the John Muir Way, another well-marked but significantly less well-known long-distance walking route. Several of the pathways would've been no problem on foot, but in their slippery state made for some interesting, even bordering on technical riding at times. Once Carbeth had been circumnavigated, the next step involved crossing the Drymen Road at the site of the former Carbeth Inn (R.I.P.) and ascending towards Burncrooks Reservoir.

Atmospheric conditions on the climb towards Burncrooks.

There are two main approaches towards Burncrooks, and somehow in following the John Muir Way, I'd managed to take neither of them. I'd started on the big forestry road as if heading towards Kilmannan Reservoir (conveniently not marked on OS maps, in case you're looking for it), then turned up a daft wee muddy scrape of a path towards the Eden Mill farm shop, crossed the car park, and then carried on up the partially tarmacked road towards the waterworks. I understand why the John Muir Way would have been routed past the farm shop (money talks), but beyond the immediate facilities on offer, the path down towards Carbeth seems like a horrible afterthought and is a long way from being of the standard one might expect as part of a high profile national long distance route.

Thankfully, the climb up beyond Eden Mill is one that never seems to get too painfully steep, climbing on good tarmac towards a gate at the waterworks, and then carrying on along relatively good forestry track beyond and up to the reservoir itself. On the day of this ride, I was particularly enjoying the rich colours of the bracken and heather slowly coming back to life under atmospheric low grey clouds. At the top of the climb, I had the option of turning left to follow the John Muir Way along the southern side of the Reservoir, or carrying on up the track to trace the northern side.

Burncrooks reservoir under leaden skies.

The reservoir itself was similarly atmospheric, sitting just below the cloudbase and almost millpond flat. The track along the northern bank was still good forestry hardpack, and eventually led to a dam and a bizarre corrugated fishing club hut. From this point, the way forward seemed to follow a track below the dam and rejoin the John Muir Way as it carried on towards Balloch, but I opted for a dash along the grassy top of the dam, enjoying the lumps and bumps in contrast to the relative ease of the track I'd been travelling on until then. Once at the end of the dam, I did have to engage in a wee bit of hike-a-bike to cross a muddy bog and a ladder stile over a deer fence to rejoin the John Muir Way again and loop my way back around the south side of the water. Crossing a wet ladder stile in SPD shoes with a 10kg bike is an interesting experience, and I was glad to get the bike and I over in one piece, if not entirely elegantly.

The bike propped after being flung over a ladder stile.

This track seemed good fun - well surfaced but far from sterile, and seemingly fairly recent in construction given the way the top layer of whinstone hadn't entirely bedded into the hardpack base. A good bit of undulation and sweeping turns with a somewhat unpredictable surface put a big smile on my face, which endured right up til the point where I looked up from the immediate trail ahead and saw the land start to rise quite abruptly.

I was glad of the big 11-42 cassette as I hauled myself up some sharp rises and forced myself round hairpin switchback corners. The loose aggregate under the tyres made traction a bit of a difficulty at times, but with carefully applied weight distribution and a bit of swearing, I'd managed to reach the top of the first rise. Looking back along the trail, I was wishing I'd been riding down rather than up, but I was also trying to keep myself well away from A&E departments with the ongoing health emergency, so it was probably best I didn't.

Although the top of a rise had been reached, there was still plenty of descent reward to enjoy, although mostly a lot more sedate and safe to ride than the side I'd come up. The short and sharp climbs followed by similar descents were the theme of the rest of the traverse along the southern edge of the reservoir, and made for a good technical-but-not-too-technical bit of challenging riding. Again, maybe for those who expect their gravel riding to be road riding but a little bumpier, this section could be deemed more of a mountain bike job.

Delicately balanced bike. Note low gear after climbing.

Atop one of the rises there was a well-placed boulder/bench, so I thought it would be rude not to stop for a wee snack break and photo opportunity. All was going well and I was plenty happy munching away at my mini banana Soreen bar, til I felt a wee breeze blow up and heard my carefully-poised steed clatter over and hit the deck. At first, my thoughts were of relief that it had landed on the drive side and not the brakes - truing out dinged rotors can be a pain even in the most perfect of conditions with all the right tools to hand. Unfortunately, what I hadn't accounted for was that with being in a low gear from the sharp climbing, the usual give from the spring in the rear mech wasn't to be relied on, and I'd gone and ended up with a bent hanger.

Thankfully, the bend wasn't too far out of whack, and I was able to get things back to a rideable state by using the low limit screw to keep the mech from going beyond the second lowest cog and well away from the spokes, and adjusting the cable tension to compensate for the newly "repositioned" indexing. I was glad in the knowledge that I'd done most of my climbing for the day, and was able to ride home with nothing more than a slightly clunky shift to slow my progress. I descended via the Kilmannan Reservoir track, crossed the road to Carbeth, and retraced my steps along the West Highland Way and eventually home from Milngavie.

Your idiot author posing smugly before the bike fell over.

Notes:

• Ross: Ribble CGR 725
• Nav: Garmin Edge 530, Strava Routes, OS Maps
• 47km with 559m elevation
• Strava Activity
• Photos: iPhone 8 and edited in VSCO Cam