ROLLING S TONE
Trevor Ward tackles what would have been the toughest climb of this year’s Tour of Britain – Cairn o’ Mount
The Cairn O’ Mount is a climb that gets inside your mind and gives you sleepless nights
That’s better. I’ve just showered and eaten after being beaten up by a big, ugly lump of a climb that towers over an otherwise benign landscape of Aberdeenshire’s east coast.
The Cairn O’ Mount is notorious among local riders for the savagery of its first section. From the Clatterin Brig tearoom and the snow barriers that are lowered for frequent periods during the winter, the road dramatically pitches up, continuing this ruthless trajectory for several hundred metres before dropping down to a gentler gradient – a mere 14 per cent.
For some, however, it’s the climb’s final section that’s the real killer. This comes after a kilometre-long stretch of around six per cent and delivers one final blow to the solar plexus as it coils around a hairpin at 15 per cent.
I’ve ridden the Cairn a handful of times each year over the last decade, and familiarity has bred fear and contempt. The only time I’ve properly enjoyed it was the very first time, when ignorance of its topography was bliss.
It’s a climb that gets inside your head and gives you sleepless nights. Since that first ascent 10 years ago, I’ve been lucky enough to ride some of the most famous and fearsome climbs in Europe and beyond. The nearest I’ve experienced to the Cairn’s brutality is the Green Mountain in Oman, which has a similar average gradient – 10.3 per cent - but, at 14km, is almost five times longer.
Best laid plans
I’ve put myself through this torture so that I can compare notes with Andy Hawes who, as route director for the Tour of Britain, included the Cairn in the final stage of the race, which was due to take place this month before the coronavirus pandemic forced an abrupt change of plans. I’m looking forward to hearing which part of the climb left him bruised and battered the most.
“Er, I haven’t actually ridden it,” is the first thing he says when I contact him via Skype. “What?”
“I was about to ride it when lockdown happened. We were up to version nine of the route. We’d even had meetings with the Royal Household because it went past Balmoral. I’d looked at all the key points on Google Street View and our lead contact at the local council had driven it and sent me pics. But I hadn’t ridden it. But I do know we were going up it the easier side.”
“What?! But I’ve just ridden up it from the difficult side.”
Andy’s smile fades when he sees the look of despair on my face. “Hang on a minute. Let me get my map and double check,” he says.
While we wait for his laptop to boot up, Andy offers this by way of mitigation. “One of the biggest misconceptions about my job is that anyone could do it. I sometimes feel like a professional football manager – everyone seems to think they can do my job better, telling me my route is useless and that if I’d gone 200 metres that way, I could have done the hill used in their local hill climb.
“But it doesn’t work like that. There’ll probably only be a few dozen riders doing their hill climb, but I have to get the peloton and 200 vehicles up that hill. We just can’t do that on some roads.”
His laptop is now up and running and I’ve found my Ordnance Survey Landranger map 45. I’m hoping the route he describes from the stage start in Stonehaven will mirror my guesswork from this morning’s ride. It doesn’t.
My route is definitely more circuitous and scenic than the one he is now describing. I feel like telling him his route is useless and that if he’d gone 200 metres that way. But I bite my tongue.
I leave Stonehaven by taking the bike path up the hill from its pretty harbour and skirting past its war memorial and the cliff-top ruins of Dunnottar Castle. Despite being a fishing port, the town lays claim to an important part of cycling heritage – it was the birthplace, in 1822, of Robert Thomson who invented the pneumatic rubber tyre. Though his design was primarily for horse-drawn carriages, his patent was used by the Michelin brothers 60 years later to produce their bicycle tyres. I assume this bit of history is justification for the Tour of Britain’s visit, but in fact the reasons are more prosaic.
“It’s only 30 kilometres from the stage finish in Aberdeen with excellent road and rail links,” says Andy, “so it gives spectators the opportunity to see the start and then go up the coast to watch the finishing circuit.”
Wind power
From Dunnottar Castle, I follow the NCN Route 1 on narrow, undulating lanes past fields of rippling crops that shimmer against the gunmetal canvas of the North Sea. At Inverbervie, I head inland up a gradual drag. Cresting the hill offers an otherworldly panorama - a dozen wind turbines and their silent blades towering over fields of miniscule cattle and tiny tractors.
Unlike other Big Rides, I’m doing this one solo because of lockdown restrictions. There’ll be no leisurely lunch stop, either – just a packed lunch of a cold Cornish pasty and a piece of carrot cake currently squashed into a rear jersey pocket.
I ride past fields of rippling crops that shimmer against the gunmetal canvas of the North Sea
“It was a unanimous decision. The race wouldn’t have been the ‘big bang’ that these places deserved. No one wanted a half-hearted Tour”
Yet my prandial considerations are nothing compared to the logistical complications faced by Andy when the lockdown was announced in March. Even though the Tour wasn’t scheduled for another six months, big decisions were called for. “The biggest thing for us was that what we would be supplying to our new partners – Cornwall for the first stage or Aberdeenshire for the last – wouldn’t have been the true Tour of Britain experience. We didn’t think restrictions would have relaxed enough in time for it to have been the ‘big bang’ that these places deserved.
“In some areas, they have just one person responsible for managing the roads, and some of these were being told to stop what they were doing and help with delivering supplies to the elderly and vulnerable. That happened in Cornwall and Cumbria. Coronavirus meant they suddenly didn’t know if they could commit to us.
“We had 26 people on a Zoom call – British Cycling, all the council authorities, sponsors, such as Skoda and our clothing suppliers, and it was a unanimous decision. No one wanted a halfhearted Tour.”
The real thing
After the wind turbines, the road continues its relentless drag to the summit of Garvock Hill before plunging down into the town of Laurencekirk. A few miles from the foot of the climb is the handsome village of Fettercairn, complete with ornate arch commemorating the frequent visits of Queen Victoria and a shop selling cold drinks. I neck a can of Coke with the intensity of Popeye consuming a tin of spinach and climb back on the bike. I know there’s a world of hurt to come.
“Fettercairn?” asks Andy. “That name rings a bell.” He presses his nose closer to his laptop screen. “We turn right just before there. Then it’s the Cairn.”
“Hang on. I thought you said you were going up the easy side.”
From Fettercairn, it’s a twisty couple of miles to the foot of the climb. By the time you’ve clocked the sign announcing a 16 per cent gradient, you’ve already run out of gears, so violently does the road lurch upwards. There will be shipped chains and tears at the back of the peloton when the Tour finally arrives here next September.
Peak demand
I’m filled to the brim with sadistic glee as I realise I hadn’t just put myself through all of that suffering for nothing, after all. And, more importantly, the thought of seeing all those professionals having the nonchalant expressions wiped from their perfectly sculpted faces as they encounter one of my training hills is tremendously exciting.
While my own best time for climbing the Cairn won’t be giving any of them sleepless nights – a wind-assisted 19:47 from 2014 that flickers more faintly with each passing year – the current record of 11:44 may be under threat.
“Not necessarily,” counters Andy. “The Cairn comes only 20 kilometres into the 190 kilometre stage, so the peloton may not be racing flat out.”
From a logistical point of view, Andy would prefer the peloton to remain intact over the Cairn. It’s in the organisers’ interests to keep the race convoy as compact as possible during the first part of a stage.
“A six-to-eight-minute split will make the race five to six kilometres long. Once it gets to that length, you have to close roads again that have only just been reopened. Experience over the last few years has shown that, no matter how hard you make it, a breakaway normally manages to get away.”
As I lean over my handlebars at the top of the Cairn fighting for breath, it’s hard to believe the professionals will probably glide up here as one while having a natter about what they watched on Netflix last night. I can barely remember what day it is.
Food of the gods
At 454 metres above sea level, the Cairn will be the highest point of the stage, as well as one of the highest of the week-long Tour. I tuck into my pasty and carrot cake, and savour the endless views of the Grampian mountains where the terrain varies from wild and unkempt to forested and farmed.
From here, it’s a fast descent with few technical demands until you hit the first in a succession of short, sharp rises. At Strachan, the Tour will bear left and head along the south side
There will be shipped chains and tears when the Tour finally arrives here next September
of the River Dee to Balmoral before turning back and heading towards a 12km finishing circuit in Aberdeen via the B9119 and Tarland, making it the furthest north of the modern-day Tour of Britain. I, however, turn right to commence the final significant climb of the day. This is a 5km drag that winds past a man-made ‘sports loch’, which hosts triathlons and cyclo-cross races, before giving extensive views over the forests and rolling pastures that make up this part of Aberdeenshire.
The final stretch back to Stonehaven is along the A957 – known locally as the Slug Road for various etymological reasons rooted in the ancient Scots language of Gaelic – and is mainly downhill. By the time I arrive back at the harbour, its little sandy beach is rammed with sunbathers and there is a queue for ice creams at the nearby café.
The lockdown may have caused the Tour of Britain organisers severe disruption, but nothing gets in the way of Scots celebrating the first taste of summer.
Three days before we went to press, near our base in Stonehaven, a train derailed and several people on board were killed. The thoughts of everyone at Cycling Plus are with those families affected.