Hanging on to the bigman's lycra....

Met up with the bigman for an hour and a half sortie in the late afternoon spring sun. It was a stunning day and Fife was at its best.

The bigman picked me up at the house and we went over to his. I'd selected my 1970's 531 steel bike - the bigman pulled the Trek Madone 5.5 out of the garage. I was in the presence of greatness (that was the bike!). No rain forecast, sunny conditions it was without doubt a day for the Madone. At this point I regretted not taking my Trek out as well. The bigman on the Trek is awesome - accelerates effortless whilst climbing. I was going to well to hang on to his lycra....

We left the bigmans house and headed through Townhill and up to Cleish. The first hill was tough. The bigman has just recovered from a chest infection and I seemed to have picked one up - I think this was purely physcosematic once I saw the Madone coming out of the garage! I was left in the turbulence (dirty air to coin a formula 1 expression) as the biman shot off towards the top of the hill with me gasping for air and quietly praying for a puncture! Sometimes prayers are not answered the way we hope and I had no excuses....

The hill starts in Dunfy, through Townhill and then heads up Cleish - I suppose the bottom of Cleish is really in Dunfermline. The views from the top as we crested and looked out over Fife and up to Stirling were magnificent. You could see for miles and miles and miles. The bigman flew down Cleish with his brakes screaming at each turn. I took a more leisurely path to the bottom of the hill being a big fearty.

We truned towards Powmill and the bigman suggested a wee blast. He was off quicker than an MP asked about his expenses and soon opened up a 5m gap. I then had the moment of choice whether to grit my teeth and catch him or just let him go and meet up in Powmill. I decided to go for it, closed the gap and hung on as best I could. It was fantastic. The road was quiet and we were melting the tarmac. Well the bigman was and hung on at the back. We reached Powmill throughly knackered but really happy at the sprint we'd just completed.

We turned up the Knockhill road. It's a quiet road except on race days. We were riding 2 abreast and the road was quiet when this camper van went past blaring his horn. Twit. It's legal to ride 2 abreast (except when the police in Perth don't know the Highway Code!) and the fright you get when some donkey blares his horn is more likely to knock you off. For a brief second I considered trying to race the bigman up the final climb next to Knockhill race track. A foolish idea as he just put the power on and disappeared ahead.

We turned down to Saline in single file to avoid the commuters heading home and then it was back to Carnock.

No chain breaks, punctures or drama to report but a fab way to spend an hour in great company.