Faragon a fantastic day out with an off-road adventure

Faragon Hill, with its Tolkienesque name, sits proudly overlooking Strathtummel to the north and Strathtay to the south. For cyclists looking for a bit of offroad adventure it offers a fantastic day in the saddle with amazing views, climbs and, best of all, descents.

Some friends had invited me to join them on the classic 26-mile loop of Faragon Hill. It was one of those routes I had always meant to do, but had never really got around to.

Perhaps the reason was I had walked to the summit once and had seen how steep the tracks upwards were. But with the chance of meeting friends, some I hadn’t seen for several years and a magnificent forecast, I couldn’t say no.

We all caught up first at the Escape Route cafe in Pitlochry for a quick dose of caffeine and a croissant before heading up into the forest by Middleton of Fonab.

The last time I had ridden up here was several years ago with some of the same friends, but that time it was a dark winter’s night, a full moon with snow on the ground and sub-zero temperatures.

As we pedalled upwards we reminisced about that evening – turning our lights off for the descent as the moon reflected brightly off the snow and the wind-formed sastrugi that we rode over like rutted concrete.

Today the sun was out and we were thankful for the shade of the trees as we sweated our way upwards. At the top we crossed over the new road, put in to access the new baryte mine near Beinn Eagagach, and followed the twisting and fast single track path that took us down to Strathtay.

There had been a few tumbles on the way and most of us had lacerations on our shins and arms from speeding through the overgrown gorse on either side of the path, but at the bottom we were all grinning from the adrenaline rush. A short road section took us to Edradynate and the base of the big climb.

As we climbed, we grasped on to any notion of horizontal we could find to get respite from the unrelenting upwards. I tried to ride within myself as I knew the worst was to come and when it did our tightly formed group was blasted across the hillside.

At times it felt like the gradient was reaching 30% as we fought for traction by keeping our weight over our back wheel, but not so much that we started to wheelie.

The views around us were amazing and kept revealing more and more distant hills, but I could only just see them as sweat dripped and nipped my eyes.

We made it to the top and we all collapsed in a heap, opened our sandwiches and revelled in the beauty of Scotland laid out before us.

The next descent down to Loch Tummel I knew would be very fast, but very sketchy. It was on a dirt road with a lot of ruts and loose gravel, so I reminded myself to take it easy.

We all made it down safely and all that was left to do was head through the woodlands around Killiecrankie and Faskally before returning to Pitlochry.

It had been a great day with friends and, not that I needed it, reminded me of why I love cycling so much.

Where to ride: Faragon Hill Details: Faragon Hill can be accessed via Edradynate in Strathtay, or Netherton in Strath Tummel. Both ascents are hard, but the Strathtay side is perhaps the less difficult. The route can be linked in with Ballechin Wood above Logierait. Steep climbs and fast descents all make a great day of riding on Faragon Hill.

At points the gradient was around 30%.