The Old Kilpatrick Hills microadventure

The hill is steeper than it looks, I thought, as another set of walkers crunched past me on the dirt track. With no gears left on the bike, breathless and thirsty, I stopped casually to take a photo. Looking back the way I’d come, up the Clyde to Glasgow — only moments away but already feeling far more distant.

I had a rough idea of where I was going — a sort of plan to take my mountain bike for its first spin in the hills. A cyclist on my commute had recommended these hills for the trails — and the views. I’ve been on a mountain bike a couple of times on holiday, and decided that being in Scotland and not owning a mountain bike was a travesty. So there I was, breathless, wondering why I was the only biker out on such a beautiful Tuesday evening.

The mountain bike bit

My first mountain bike trip, and my first proper 5-to-9 microadventure. I snuck the two together — no one at the office had any idea I was going to sleep on a hill that night, and with only my slightly overfilled rucksack to show for it, no one would suspect a thing. At 9:30am I was ready to leave — dreaming of the little / big adventure I had planned. By 4pm I was positively conspiratorial, filling my water bottles, checking my watch. At 5:25 I was inconsolably excited — and at 5:30 I was on the bike, rocketing west for the hills and the fresh air.

I followed the dirt track up to the end, to Loch Humphrey. It’s strange up there — the ruggedness of the hills covered in a skin of overly human, cropped features. The dead evergreen of homogenous pine forest, the square edge of a semi-artificial loch, the fresh rubble of the road, the pylons and the scars of caterpillar tracks on the hillside. It felt more like a re-wilded construction site than a wild bit of Scotland only moments from the Erskine Bridge.

I headed further inland, pedaling straight into a bog. My first mistake: putting a foot down. My second? Getting off the bike completely. Should have just roared through it in a splash of muddy cool. Instead I was squelching around, grappling with the bike. Legs sliding one way, bike going the other. I checked no one was looking, and turned back.

The map showed me the trig point — and I’d planned to sleep somewhere near there. I pushed the bike up a ridge, and then cycled along a sheep track, the long grass stroking softly at my calves. This was better — and my feet felt almost dry. I could see where I needed to get to — and I could see some people sitting on a ridge in the distance. Then they got up and one by one they slid off the hillside — bikers, probably doing something much cooler than I was just then. Which was standing in front of a barbed wire fence, a bit lost and a bit hungry.

A guy with a hi-vis jacket and a litterpicker pointed me in the direction of the trig point. I thanked him and gave him a percy pig, which he refused at first and then took. Percy is excellent mood-lifter at moments like these.

Through another bog, up a steep hill, and the trig point was just there — above a meadow of cotton-flowers. I sat down and ate leftover curry, watching the people in the distance who seemed to be sitting at a picnic table. A picnic table, in the wilderness? Maybe my microadventure wasn’t quite as wild as I thought it would be. I went to investigate.

Being on a mountain bike gave me a false sense of capability. I’ll cycle over the heather and be there in a moment, I thought. Wrong. Heather is a bitch to cycle over. Stick to the paths. When I did eventually get to the picnic table, a group of lads was just arriving. Taps aff, tunes oan, beers oot. ‘Hullo!’ I said, as gruffly as I could manage. They looked at me — a roadie on a mountain bike, in lycra, scrabbling up out of the heather. ‘Y’alright,’ one of them said. I asked him which route they’d taken — up the trail, obviously. And where were they going? Back down the trail, obviously — for the jumps and stuff. Right, I said. I’ll catch you later. I spun round, and pedaled heroically back over the heather.

I found a bigger group of mountain bikers. Friendlier — and an even split of men and women. This is better, I thought. The leader assumed I was lost, took pity on me and pointed out all the trails I could take. ‘Or you could just come with us,’ he said, as another one of them flew over a rock into the air, and landed smoothly in a spray of mud. ‘Nah, I think I’ll stick around here for a bit,’ I said, and waited for them to leave before I set up camp.

The microadventure bit

I waited for the last of the bikers to disappear over the hill, for the silence of being alone to set in. I listened out for the birds: I’m learning, slowly. Meadow pipit, wren, blackbird. There were others but those are the three I can name. I can do a cuckoo, too — in case you ever need a bird guide. My dad is the ornithologist — but if he taught me anything, it was to read the bird book the night before, and then just make it up on the day. Unless you’re among real pros, no one’s going to call you out. Kinda works.

I had a slug of whisky, another square of chocolate, and big smile at the view. I could see all of Glasgow beneath me, the Clyde running to a sharp point like beaten silver through the amber glow.

I flipped the bike, strung a bungie up on it, and hung out my clothes to dry. Which involved getting naked on the hill. I’m no nudist, but it did give me the giggles to be bum-out in the breeze. This carefreedom would come back to bite me: I got two midges trapped in my pants, biting.

Wriggling down to sleep, I was just thinking how blissfully peaceful it was — how exposed and scary too — but mostly just how wonderfully free you feel when you look up and there’s nothing there but sky. Ceilings are so limiting.

Then I heard a soft tap-tap on the bivvy bag. I refocused to the foreground, to a fuzzy cloud of gathering midges. I jumped, and then leapt further down the bivvy bag, clamping it shut over my face, trying to be still to assess the damage. I was slathered in Avon Skin So Soft — so they shouldn’t actually bite. But still, they were landing everywhere, and there was one in my left ear that was having an all-out party in the wax and hair and delicious soft un-Avoned skin. Then there were the two that had got early seats on my bum, having a full twelve-course banquet back there, by the feel of it. Not so blissful. Not so smug.

After an hour of cowering in my bivvy bag, hands gripping it shut over me, I managed to sleep. And I woke up to a full moon, a hint of dawn, and a deep glow from the city. Everything had an edge of drama, silhouetted in the half light. The midges had cleared, and it hadn’t rained — so the happiness balance of the microadventure was restored.

Then the fucking skylarks. And they really are fuckers — whirring up out of the grass, straight up in the sky like a kids toy, making so much tweety-tweety noise. I checked my phone. 3am. And when one has got up, they all get up — all the larks, getting up, being all cheery and happy about it. They don’t have to go to work, though. Bastards.

Despite the larks, I slept again till 5am, and then I was too excited to sleep anymore. I packed up, did some star jumps to warm up for the downhill trail, then pointed the bike at the edge. It was a beautiful morning, and deeply satisfying to spend the first two hours of it on a mountain bike, squealing down some surprisingly technical singletrack.

When I did get back to the road, I couldn’t stop smiling — and I just carried on cycling. Pedal pedal along the canal, through Clydebank, past a guy looking shifty as he lit up a spliff, and on towards the office. No commute can match that: the sun shining, even the coots on the canal looking brighter than usual.

I was a bit early for work: about 90 minutes early. But I was the great adventurer, returned from the wilderness. I had a shower, a champion’s breakfast, and a large coffee. I cleaned the last of the mud from my glasses, and I was ready to look at my emails again.

‘Morning, how are you?’ I said, when my colleague rolled in at 9am.

‘Morning, yes fine. D’you have a good evening?’

‘Yeah fine. Not up to much. You?’ I said.

‘Well, I mowed the lawn…’

No. Idea.