Late Season Borderland Audax 600
The Scottish Southern Uplands is an area I’m used to whizzing through along the M74 on trips to the Highlands, after crossing the Border at Gretna. It always seems like a prelude to better things ahead, which is unfair as I discovered on the Late Season Borderlands Audax 600.
Of these five words Late Season Borderlands Audax 600 the easiest to explain is the word Borderlands. It suggests some sort of half-English, half Scottish area. But in this case the term is strangely asymmetrical as I wouldn’t call Northumberland or Cumbria a Borderland – so to use the term in Scotland feels a bit unfair to Scots! The term makes one feel it is only half Scotland which isn’t really true. The centre for this ride was Galashiels, 30 miles south of Edinburgh – but the route reached in three spidery tentacles across the Southern Uplands.
Late Season feels like an odd descriptor for an event that takes place in mid-August. Scottish schools may go back earlier than English after the summer break, but August is the time when the sun still shines and the days are long and balmy. Uh, well the weather on this weekend was mostly foul. The only saving grace was that the wind and drizzle on Saturday morning, and the heavy rain that fell throughout that night, was warm. The waterproof leggings that God gave me served me very well.
Audax needs some explaining to those who have not worshipped in this particular cycling chapel (Audax UK). It is an ancient form of worship that has been practiced for over one hundred years. The word is derived from audacious, which the dictionary defines as bold or daring, but daft would be more apt. There are many positives about audaxing: it is friendly, non-commercial, and has an ethos of self-reliance. A downside is that it attracts a few nutcases, although there is usually at least one person on each event who gives one the self-confidence to feel that one really is normal after all. I didn’t find that person on this ride – perhaps I am that person!
Progress is typically validated by collecting receipts along the way. As this route necessitated starting and finishing and Galashiels, as well as passing through it two more times, our specified checkpoint there was a MacDonald’s that was open a full 19 hours. My interest in their menu had diminished by my fourth visit. Other exciting receipts included the Spar in Alston, Cumbria, and the M74 services at Johnstonebridge. Once all the receipts have been dutifully collected they are sent off to the high priests of the audax world, the Audax Club Parisienne, who homologate them (a Euroword we might be better off without), and officially stamp my “brevet” (a small card).
Now the last words I have to explain are “600”. The aim is to cover 600km in no more than 40 hours. There was also a minimum time of 24 hours two minutes, which gives some comfort that the event isn’t a race. The 40 hours includes sleeping. The route comprised of three legs radiating from Galashiels: to Alston (England), Johnstonebridge (M74), and Wooler (England). I had committed myself to getting a good night’s rest at Lockerbie Lorry Park, near Johnstonebridge.
Leg 1: Alston – Saturday afternoon. At 7am thirty of us left, snaking at speed out through the streets of Gala, and over a little hillock towards Selkirk. The group slowly stretched out along the course of Ettrick Water, so that by the time I reached Eskdalemuir three hours later I was pretty much alone. I was gently chided by a Derby group for not donning rain gear early – the rain and wind had unambiguously set in well before Eskdalemuir. The weather was reminiscent of cycling on the same stretch of road on the LEL in 2017 – one day I’ll come here in bright sunshine (see blog on this site). Its strange cycling over a route one has done just once before, as one’s memory brings back otherwise hidden feelings of recognition of a stand of trees, a short ramp, or the opening out of a view.
The checkpoint at Eskdalemuir, as for the LEL, was the friendly community Hub. I ate a cold pre-packaged waffle and moved on, overtaking those who had opted for toasted breakfast bagels. In this way I played leapfrog with the Derby group, a pattern which seemed to be repeated for most of the day. I only wished that when they did overtake I could manage the extra speed necessary to cling onto their tail, alas they always drew on ahead of me. The route to Alston passed through Langholm, detoured to Gretna, and then passed through Brampton (an LEL resting place for me), and finally up the South Tyne Valley to Alston. The Spar there was selling something called a “breakfast pasty”, which must have been made of the orangey-brown mush you get if you put a Full English through a blender. Ah well, its all fuel.
The return journey to Gala seemed quicker. I was struck by the emptiness of the section from Eskdalemuir back up to Selkirk, no more than four cars passed me during two hours before the light faded. This is a very empty part of the UK. I found myself back at the MacDonald’s in Gala just before 10pm having covered 300km. Another 90km separated me from my bed for the night at the Lockerbie Lorry Park. I tried hard to put this thought to the back of my mind.
Leg 2: Johnstonebridge – Sunday small hours. It was raining when I set off into the night. I took the A7 for the short distance to Selkirk, passing a handful of lights returning back from Eskdalemuir to Gala. The rain then strengthened, although strangely I was fretting about not having topped up my water bottle, as I had now committed myself to three hours of remote cycling.
A combination of the deluge, the blanket of darkness, and remoteness of the 50km of road between Selkirk and Moffat brought out a jungle-density profusion of wildlife. I saw countless frogs, large and small, moths, badgers, and stoats, and heard several owls. In just one spot, near St Mary’s Loch, a swarm of midges materialised as I stopped at midnight to change batteries on my front light– strangely the only midges I encountered over the whole weekend. Despite the rain and dark this was my favourite section of the weekend. As soon as I’d crested the watershed between the North Sea and the Irish Sea the air turned to thick fog, and I had to descend at a snail’s pace following the painted centre-line of the road carefully around tight curves whilst avoiding clumps of road hugging dozy sheep. The remainder of the descent was in an indigo blackness which gave little clue as to topography, habitation, or destination. Moffat prides itself as being a “Dark Sky Town” (Stargazing in Moffat), although somewhat in contradiction its appearance was foreshadowed by a scarlet glow as I got close. The bed at the lorry park beckoned.
However, on the back road around Moffat I hit two enormous pot holes, slowed down, and was then taken out by a third. Luckily, the bike was unharmed, and I suffered no more than some deep cuts and scrapes. After subsequent correspondence Dumfries and Galloway Council have conceded they needed to repave a large section of the road. I hope next time I’m in the area it has been done! (Postscript – Dumfries and Galloway, fixed the road in February 2019 which is brilliant – they’d also been helpful and diligent in correspondence as well – chapeau to them!)
I arrived at the Lockerbie Lorry Park at 2.30am, after 396km of riding, to claim my room for the night. I entered through the long-closed shop with its refrigerated cabinets and yesterday’s newspapers, into the hidden heart of the building. This was the warm, bright restaurant with what I’m sure is an ever-present smell of breakfasts and lino floors. My bloodied and drenched appearance caught the night-shift slightly off-guard, but I was warmly welcomed, and very soon my bike and I were installed in my room for the night. The promise of a soak in a large bath before sleep in a real bed was exactly what was needed to rest and begin to heal my scratched limbs. I fell asleep with the comforting thought of clean dry clothes in the morning.
I woke at 6am to peer out over broad sheets of water swept by heavy drizzle across the flat tarmac of the lorry park. By the time I was climbing out of Moffat two hours later, with two fellow audaxers, the landscape I’d traversed the previous evening was reflected in the stillness of St Mary’s Loch. I felt bad leaving the pair after one had a puncture, but I was becoming slightly nervous about catching my train at the end of the day. I arrived at the MacDonald’s for the third time at 11am.
Leg 3: Wooler – Sunday lunchtime. The final leg out to Wooler involved a long stretch of corrugated countryside. By the time I’d passed 500km of cycling I become unamused of scenic routes! I took a break at Kirk Yetholm, the Scottish border town where the Pennine Way ends. The control at Wooler was non-specific so I turned into the first Caravan Park, bought a Twix bar, and demanded the production of a handwritten receipt. On the return I avoided the rippled countryside by routing past the twelfth century abbey in Kelso (Wikipedia page), enjoyed sweeping down the long hill into Selkirk, and landed at McDonald’s in Gala at about 7pm, and for the last time, after another 233km. I was back in London on the Sleeper another 12 hours later. I hope to be back – thanks to Lucy McTaggart for organising. It’s a fantastic area for these sorts of capers.
Yorkbadger 