Gravelfoyle

Gravelfoyle Aqueduct Trail 

Loch Ard Rob Roy loop

I was in the Ribble Bike Store in Clitheroe last October, eager to purchase a Gravel Bike after being urged to do so by a friend during rides up gravel trails to some of the remotest Munros. She had one of these lean machines that was only half the weight of my 20-year-old Mountain Bike. The carbon fibre bikes were the lightest and looked the best, but they were not set up for panniers, and I had a notion to cycle the Western Isles as a reprise of a trip I did almost fifty years ago. I couldn't decide between steel and titanium and the delivery time for a Ribble bike would be 3 months and there was a £300 charge for choosing a colour.

A fellow customer from Derbyshire was encouraging me to get the carbon fibre frame which had the best colour range. He told me that he visited Gravelfoyle in Scotland every year to enjoy the amazing bike trails there. "Where's that," I asked thinking it was a name for somewhere in Dumfries and Galloway. "It's in Aberfoyle, near Stirling, that's where I go for my cycling holidays on my Gravel bike, it has miles of trails". I had lived in Aberfoyle for thirty years and usually would run on the 200 miles of "Gravelfoyle" trails in the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park at least four times a week. There were few other runners and when our children were young the only cyclists were local families out for rides on bikes that were meant for surfing the asphalt. 

I bought a Saracen Mountain Bike in 1990, mainly to access distant hills when climbing the Munros but I used it on thelocal trails on days that I did not have the inclination to run. When the back stays broke I bought a heavier Trek Mountain Bike with front suspension and it is still serving me well, although it has worn out lots of tyres and was a real heave to get on the roof of the car. I was keen to purchase but time passed and I gave up on buying a bike in March after a viral illness that left me listless and legless. I have even stopped my morning run/walk up the local hills and the six weeks of sun blessed spring weather, perfect for hillwalking, were spent in the garden repairing patios, chopping trees and planting hedges.

My daughter and family came up for half term and on the only decent day, we decided to visit Aberfoyle and hire some bikes for a ride on the trails where I had run over 20,000 miles on the forestry trails that were now referred to as Gravelfoyle. The Queen Elizabeth Forest Park had been my playground, gymnasium and escape from the daily grind of work. I knew all the routes but they now have names and are visited by legions of trail bikers. My daughter and grandson had to hire bikes and I decided to hire a Gravel Bike rather than take my faithful but heavy Mountain bike. The son of Cindy, a friendly and excellent physiotherapist and potter was working in Aberfoyle Bike Hire shop and he kitted us out, providing me with a featherweight GT Gravel Bike. 

We had three hours and I decided that we should use the route I used to run when preparing for marathons or mountain marathons. An easy cycle through the village and Manse Road and on to Lochan Spling and Duchray Castle. It was hilly at first and then segued into a series of gently undulating sections towards the aqueducts over the Duchy Water that carried the water supply from Loch Katrine to Glasgow. The cycling was perfect as I shuffled through the gears and enjoyed watching the others as they revelled cycling somewhere totally different than their normal rides on the London bike lanes. We stopped for a snack by Duchray cottage and another cyclist zoomed past on his descent to the aqueduct. The only other cyclist we saw all day. There was a route sign for the Aqueduct trail, the very same route I had used when training for the Snowdonia Marathon in 1988.

We began the return journey by dropping down to a bridge at Blairvaich over the Duchray Water where locals bathed  in the Black Linn waterfalls on summer days. The sun had emerged as we headed back on the Statute Labour Road Road towards Loch Ghleannain. Kit had got his second wind fuelled by an apple and some water and was charging up the inclines. We took a turn down to Loch Ard before returning on the trail alongside the shore. There is a spectacular loop down to Rob Roy's Cave which was the highlight of my regular 8-mile run for many years. Arriving at Milton, it is a a mile back to Aberfoyle on a path initially and then along the road. I used to take the children running on this route when they were at primary school, Gregor ran the mile in 7 minutes 40 seconds as a 7-year-old, I wish I could still do that. We passed our old house and arrived back at the Bike Shop with half an hour to spare. Perhaps I should have a rethink about buying a Gravel Bike. 

It was the end of half term for the family and with some sadness I dropped the family at the station early on a wet and windy Sunday morning for their return to London.

My hired Gravel Bike

Lochan Spling

Towards Beinn Bhreac

Ben Lomond

Rob Roy Loop

Alongside Loch Ard 

Kitchen Iris

Leaving for London

 

British Grand Prix 1955

Stirling Moss wins in Mercedes Benz

Before the Monaco Grand Prix, Max Verstappen described it as the most boring race in the calendar. He was right although there is fierce competition from other race tracks in the Formula One multi-million-pound climate change extravaganza. As a small boy, I had been obsessed with racing cars when Grand Prix racing was rooted in mechanical speculation and fearless men with moustaches. Dinky Toys provided my generation with models of garage-built cars from the 1950s, including Ferraris, Alfa Romeos, Maseratis, Coopers, Talbots, and Vanwalls. I had them all, mainly birthday gifts or as recompense from my parents following hospital visits from several childhood accidents when I was stitched up after jumping out of trees or bike crashes. 

As a treat, my father took me to the 1955 British Grand Prix at Aintree in Liverpool it was the first time that Aintree had hosted the event. He worked on Saturday mornings so we cycled 8 miles to his work at the Lostock Hall gasworks. I was on my new bicycle received a few months earlier on my seventh birthday. I had fitted a cyclometer and was cycling up to 200 miles a week mainly around the housing estate but occasionally taking longer rides that were supposedly out of bounds. Dad arranged a lift with Alf Brierly, a burley lorry driver, who was delivering coke from the gas works to Ormskirk, where he dropped us at the station. 

My dad arranged with the station master to leave our bikes in the station waiting room. They had been carried to the station on top of the coke in the lorry. A steam locomotive pulled us to the Aintree Station. The Grand Prix circuit was at the same location as the Grand National horse racing circuit owned by the formidable Mirabel Topping, who wanted to capitalise on the large crowd capacity at Aintree to generate more income. Entry was cheap to sit on the grass banks and we found a spot on a sunny afternoon within 20 metres of the race track. We were in time to watch the warm-up laps when the cars seemed to cough and splutter around the 3-mile circuit and mechanics were fiddling under the bonnets of the cars to tune the carburetters and pouring in petrol from large jerry cans, safety was a concept yet to be acknowledged in motor racing.

Fangio, the five-time world champion, and Stirling Moss were driving the works Mercedes Benz cars and taking on the Maseratis and Ferraris that had dominated events in recent years. The silver Mercedes looked sleeker and bigger, it was German technology versus Italian flair as the remarkable video Aintree British Grand Prix that I discovered on YouTube shows. 

It was the first time that a British driver, Stirling Moss, had won a British Grand Prix, although Fangio was within a couple of cars' length for the whole race. It was alleged that he allowed Moss to win, they were on good terms, unlike today's drivers. The next two cars were also Mercedes. Mercedes gave up Grand Prix racing at the end of the season following fatal crashes at Le Mans. Given the number of breakdowns and pit stops for repairs of the other cars, there was plenty to watch and Dad had brought along his ex-army haversack with a water canteen and aluminium sandwich box with some meat paste sandwiches to keep us fed. The whole day out must have cost less than 10/-(50p) for both of us and that included the entrance, the train fare from Ormskirk and back as well as the meat paste sandwiches. The ordinary public was there in their thousands and could walk over and see the cars at the finish of the event. A far cry from the cheapest tickets in Monaco that cost €2350 on the Monaco Ticket website and that would not get you within shouting distance of Lewis Hamilton and the other drivers.

There were no parking charges required, and the stationmaster had kept our bikes in the waiting room, so just a 21-mile cycle home on main roads. It was more excitement of being passed by speeding vehicles for a 7-year-old. The next day my dinky toys were lapping around the patterned carpet before breakfast. I didn't have a Mercedes, dimk toys had not yet made a die-cast so I let the Aston Martin (22) sports car win, beating the Maserati, the Ferrari and the Cooper. The Grand Prix had been a grand day out but the ride in the lorry, the steam train and the long cycle home were a part of that. And I am sure that I got nearer the cars and drivers than anyone paying for the cheapest ticket in Monaco would manage.

Stirling Moss in Mercedes Benz

My Maserati Dinky Toy

199 and Out

It was another gorgeous morning, cool but still, blue skies patterned by nature's artistry of the cirrostratus clouds; creating patterns that blow your mind. It was a significant day, I had finally come to terms with my age and condition. I have always been an optimist, believing that I should be able to continue to do things I had always done.  Running all the way up my regular hill, Lime Craig, was proving tricky. I had last done it in 2020. After the lockdown, it was difficult to build up the fitness to run up the steeper sections of the 300-metre hill. I continued to go up three or four times a week once they removed the tapes preventing people from going up hills. Unlike golf, sailing and other high-end outdoor sports that had convinced Boris Johnson to allow them the freedom to roam with impunity, hillwalkers and runners were still deemed to be a danger to social isolation.

The result is that I have been stuck on 199 runs up Lime Craig since my first ascent in 1988. I had intended to donate a bench for the summit on reaching 200 so that I could have rest there during my dotage. I had even spoken to the Forestry Commission to see if they would allow me to transport it up the narrow private track. As it happened, they decided to provide a bench in 2021 and by serendipity I was there on the morning they were installing it. At the time I was going up the hill four or five times a week for my morning exercise. I helped the two forestry workers find the best position so that visitors could enjoy the views westwards along Strathard, Loch Ard and towards Ben Lomond. 

I had started to run up the hill from Aberfoyle in 1988 when we moved there from Glasgow. I was a road runner but training for the Snowdonia (Eyri) Marathon which involved 3061 feet of ascent in three major climbs. Two laps of Lime Craig gave me 1800 feet of ascent and 13 miles and became one of my training runs. A year or so later I started hill running and began to run it on Sunday mornings with Matt Ogston, the secretary of the Scottish Hill Runners, who lived nearby. He would sometimes invite his club friends from Hunter's Bogtrotters or Westerlands to join us. They would return to have tea, toast and showers at our house afterwards. 

The ascent of Lime Craig became quite competitive and I managed to set the record from the house, a distance of 5.54 kilometres to the summit via Dounans Camp and Braeval. I brought the record down to 23 minutes 42 seconds in 1990 when I was running it 20 times a year. The first section from the house, through the village and Dounans Camp and along the rising trail above the golf course was 3.56 kilometres and a 95-metre climb at a pace of 3 minutes 42 seconds per kilometre. The final steep 2-kilometre section from K corner above Braeval was achieved in 10 minutes 29 seconds at a pace of 5 minutes 15 seconds per kilometre for the 190-metre climb.  

Had Strava existed then, it would have been a crown. My time of the final climb from K corner remains only a few seconds short of the present Strava crown held by Gregor. The descent was a different matter. Matt and some of the hill runners were fearless on the initial steep stony path towards the David Marshall Lodge and I lagged behind until the long gentler descent trails when my road running pace pulled them back.

After I gave up racing in 1994, Lime Craig became more of a run for a good day or when I was feeling frisky. The frequency dropped to 5 or 6 runs a year, and the 200 mark became elusive. I ran it occasionally when John visited for the weekend, and my old hill running partner, Keith.  On Tuesday evenings after retirement, I sometimes ran it with Angela Mudge's hill running group, and we even went up on Boxing Day morning with hot mulled wine at the summit. Just as important Lime Craig was always a place to walk the children, take visitors or go for an evening walk if I was not feeling like a run after work. Over 300 excursions were made during the 30 years living in Aberfoyle.

Post-COVID and after the move to the new house it became my regular exercise but from the Braeval car park, a 7-mile journey from home and only  2.5 kilometres to the summit but the same final section from K corner. I have made another 400 walks/runs up the hill in the last five years to add to the previous ascents. They have still been timed and with four or five sections of running, I was breaking 30 minutes until the end of last year and managed a best time of 25 minutes. I usually run down taking around 15 minutes for an extended route. 

Today was different, I had decided to forget about the time and just enjoy the remarkable Spring scenery. Bluebells, gorse and broom were in flower, the birds provided the chorus and the skies were a kaleidoscope of images. I took photos of the route as a perpetual memory of the backcloth of my life's journey. Lime Craig was where I went to exercise, to reflect, to write talks, to release my endorphins and where I went to find solace on the day that Aileen died. 

Despite the perfect morning, there was no one else on the hill today. I reached the top in 39 minutes, it was a breeze and time no longer mattered. This was the day I accepted that 199 was just another number and there was no need to add any more.

The photos below are in order of the ascent and descent.

Start of the steep path from Braeval

K corner

Recent tree felling has opened the views

Craigmore ahead

Keep going, the halfway mark

Broom and Gorse Glade

Pine skyline

Looking south to the Campsiesand Whangie

Patterned Skies

Final section

Path to summit

Summit 

Summit Bench

View of Ben Venue

Ben Ledi

Ben Lomond and Craigmore on descent

A Really Useful Idiot

"Give me your tired, your poor and huddled masses, and find a haven, banishing all fear.

"

Trumpism, it started with the Tea Party.

American hegemony had gone too far. They had been the de facto winners of the Second World War. Roosevelt had provided the supplies and equipment, the Doughboys came to the rescue of a fractious Europe and Marshall Aid was supplied for its rebuilding. The USA halted the spread of communism beyond East Germany and in Asia and the Americas, with some notable exceptions. They became the home base of global institutions, including the United Nations, NATO, the World Bank, and the IMF. They consolidated and celebrated their influence with nuclear weapons, movies, advertisements, fins on their automobiles, skyscrapers, junk food and damaging chemicals. They were doused in dollars, oil and bumper crops. The wealthy became wealthier and ambitious migrants from Europe, Asia and the Americas boosted their talent pool. 

The rest of the world lapped up the fairy story. It allowed the USA to exploit the natural resources of other nations and take over their companies. American products from planes and weapons to fast food, fizzy drinks and domestic appliances were foisted on the world along with a glamorous narrative of a nation too good to be true. The United States were not colonialists in pursuit of an empire, that was old hat, they were buying their way into exploiting the resources and the economic growth of what they regarded as their domain, the free world.

They had their comeuppance in Korea, Vietnam, and parts of Central and South America, and this created a scintilla of doubt amongst the radicalised young in the 1960s and 1970s. But the USA was high on self-belief and had charismatic political and business leaders who assumed global leadership, never more so than when Gorbachov ceded the freedom of the Soviet republics and the creation of democracies in new nations that were former republics.

Things turned sticky in the Middle East as oil-rich autocratic nations began to exercise their wealth and George Bush, father and son, took military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. It didn't end well and they had harangued other Western countries to reluctantly support the invasions. The patina of American power began to lose its sheen but the USA still retained its reputation as the alpha country in the free world. Trump 1.0 muddled through with the Maga base kept in check by the grown-ups in the administration. However, the rehearsal had convinced Trump that he did not need advisers or seasoned politicians; what he needed was amateurs and fellow travellers to parody a government while he played out his fantasies and took corruption to the next level. The fact that 75 million voters had endorsed his second term gave him the power to follow his fundamental instincts.

His second coming started with a momentum that was meant to shock and awe the rest of the world. Previous policies and agreements were shredded, diplomacy was derided, felons were released from jail and tariffs were hiked to levels that left the rest of the world wincing and pleading for clemency. He acted as if he was all-powerful and world leaders responded accordingly. But some leaders baulked at the idiocy of Trump's gameplay which had gone too far. Canada and Mexico challenged him and they were supported by angry citizens and businesses who boycotted American goods. This mood was echoed and copied around the world as Trump threatened to take over Greenland and Panama, make Canada the 51st state, rename the Gulf of Mexico, suggest the USA should take over Gaza for real estate development, humiliate President Zelensky, give license to Vice President Vance to insult Europe and the Pope on his death bed, withdraw from the Climate Change agreement and no longer provide refuge for immigrants who now fear being banished to distant lands. The United States has forsaken the Statute of Liberty's Call as "a place of hope, beyond compare."  

The worm had turned. Canada's Prime Ministers Trudeau and then Mark Carney both called him out. China did not flinch and retaliated with equally severe tariffs on American goods. The American Finance sector was faithful to Mammon and the Bond market collapsed. Harvard University sued Trump over his withdrawal of research funding. Elon Musk, Trump's Tonto, had had enough; his businesses were in freefall, and he had become a derided figure of fun as he closed down government departments and agencies with the deftness of a SpaceX rocket exploding on takeoff. Trump had taken the red pill and was still in Wonderland."All persons more than a mile high to leave the court" seemed a suitable epitaph for Musk's time in government.

The shackles that had bound Western nations to the USA in its pomp were broken. Elections in Canada and Australia returned anti-Trump candidates, who months earlier had been facing defeat. China took a long-term view and began trade negotiations with other countries that had been hammered by Trump's Tariff proposals. The European Union was united in its opposition to Trump who, never one to admit mistakes, was beginning to row back on his proposals claiming they were part of his deal-making strategy. 

The disruption that Trump had inflicted on the world had backfired, the umbilical cord to the USA had been severed. We are moving to a New World Order. Trump has been a Really Useful Idiot.

Chevrolet Impala with Fins - functionally useless

Musk and Tesla - yesterday’s stars

Blue Origin

Blue Origin's Magnificent Seven Up

As if 2025 hadn't caused enough damage to the global commonweal, we have witnessed another utterly bizarre world event. Seven starry-eyed celebrities popped up into the higher layers of the atmosphere in a Jeff Bezos Blue Origin capsule fired from his Texas launchpad to claim that they were astronauts. It was like watching a social media revamp of Monsieur Hulot's Holiday. Unfortuanately, the dialogue of the hapless seven lacked either the intelligence or self awareness to make it a parody. M. Hulot created chaos by opening the hotel door to let in a stiff breeze, it was pity that the Jeff''s Angels didn't open the capsule door to get a better view of the moon and become the first space asylum seekers.

Blue Origin is an Amazon funded space tourism project that costs at least £150,000 for the ten-minute ride to 100km above the Earth and back. About the same time as you get on the Star Wars Hyperspace ride at Eurodisney, but without the queue. The impact of Blue Origin flights on the ozone layer by the creation of Nitrous Oxide in the atmosphere and the release of water vapour in the upper atmosphere is hugely damaging to mother Earth. But Bezos is a rocket billionaire, a philistine philanthropist who is fulfilling the destructive powers of Amazon.

The Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band sent up the space race so much better and cheaper in 1968 with their only hit single, "I'm the Urban Spaceman," on the Liberty label. They saw it as a Dadaist prank, a reference to the Apollo rocket launches. They even claimed the hit record was produced by Apollo C. Vermouth although it was produced by Paul McCartney. It was a spoof on the vacuous consumerism and space obsession in the summer of love. Even the lyrics say that the urban spaceman doesn't exist in real life. Unlike the urban spaceman, these celebrity wannabees exist, and with an elevated sense of entitlement. Letting them spaff their wealth and accelerate climate change on a glorified fairground ride is an Amazon Crime, yet another reason I am glad to have junked Amazon Prime.

Bye bye Mr Blue Sky

Morning is breaking 7 a.m.

After us two weeks of perpetual blue skies and excellent visibility, I awoke this morning to the same. I headed for an early walk on a local hill for only the third time in the last two months. It is only a 5-mile drive away, but the clouds were grumbling in from the northwest. The warm morning rays of the sun had been replaced by a nippy wind, and I was in shorts and a T-shirt. My normal 30-minute ascent took 12 minutes longer but that was 6 minutes faster than earlier in the week. On the descent, a brief hail shower passed through and prompted me to start running again.

I had not stopped on either the ascent or descent and I was feeling slightly better than I had for 7 weeks. Maybe the antibiotics prescribed by the GP for a viral infection and the steroids prescribed by the respiratory consultant after a CT scan, and various blood tests are beginning to work. Pity I have missed the good weather, including a much cherished trip to Fisherfield with John last week. 

Weather is breaking 8:30 a.m.

The National Portrait Gallery

Processional frieze in the Great Hall

After a long morning at Edinburgh University providing background material for a book on local government, and a Tapas lunch with Bill, I had the afternoon free. I took myself to the National Portrait Gallery, somewhere I had not visited since retirement and was keen to see the new exhibits. It was a revelation, defying its Victorian origins housed in its sombre Corsehill red sandstone neo-gothic building on Queen Street. The Gallery had been wonderfully renovated in 2011. The ambience on arrival, the welcome from the curators and the magical Great Hall were totally embracing. There were many visitors from around the world, it was not even Easter but Edinburgh was already buzzing as the Athens of the North.

My quest to see the new exhibits was delayed by the time required to admire the processional frieze and the colourful murals painted on the upper balcony of the Great Hall by William Hole. Such was the influence of the Scotsman Newspaper at the time the building was completed in 1889 that its proprietor, John Ritchie Findlay, was able to commission this work as well as the purpose designed Gallery to display Scottish heroes. I also spent even more time exploring the old portraits of Scottish Kings in the Reformation and Revolution Gallery and figures from the Scottish Enlightenment in the Globalisation galleries. 

Finally, I made it to the modern collection. Familiar figures came to life in paintings and photographs. A friend is writing a book on 100 Radical Scots and I had made a dozen or so suggestions to him for inclusion in the book including Sir Patrick Geddes and Tilda Swinton. They were both in the Gallery, a bust of Geddes and a frolicking painting of Swinton. I sent photos of them both to my friend and he confirmed that he had completed his biography of the radical Geddes. 

Other post-war legends, poets, musicians, sportspeople and artists were splayed across a gallery as diverse as its portraits. Amongst them, a photograph of Wai-Yin Hatton who had been the Chief Executive of Ayrshire Health Board stared out at me. She had asked to work shadow me about twenty years ago and this was reciprocated as we spent several days in each other's domains. It gave me an insight into the management culture in the Health Boards. The hospital consultants were ferocious in their bids for money and they treated primary care with a studied disdain. Wai-Yin was a formidable character and was greatly frustrated by this but the silos in the NHS were well entrenched and not easily controlled.

Mural of the Battle of Bannockburn

Poets' Pub

Sir Patrick Geddes

Tilda Swinton

Wai-Yin Hatton

The Devil's Apprentice

Cockwomble

Well, not content with providing the protection and weapons to allow Netanyahu to continue the killings in Gaza to exceed 50,000 and allowing Putin to continue the ruthless bombardment of Ukraine, Trump has now unilaterally inflicted the most crass (but beautiful) tariff policies on the world. In any edition of The Apprentice, he would have been evicted for any of these three monumental failures. It would be far better to fire him. Ideally into a perpetual orbit of the earth in one of Musk's SpaceX tin cans. 

What is particularly irksome is Trump's persistent claim that America has been "raped and pillaged" by the EU and other countries. The converse is nearer the truth. It was an American journalist, Ludwell Denny, who spoke the truth in 1930 when he said that the USA is "Too wise to govern the world, we shall merely own it." That is what they have done; American companies have built factories and employed cheap labour across the world. There are 280 American companies with factories in China alone and substantial numbers in Vietnam, Taiwan, Cambodia and the other countries that have been landed with the highest tariffs by Trump's government.  

The UK has become a Vassal State whereby America has bought out Britain.  Private equity companies have plundered the UK to take ownership of companies. In 2020, they took a revenue of $707bn from the UK, an average profit of £2500 from every UK household. HMRC have estimated that American companies underpaid tax by £5.6bn. It is time for the UK government to take back control, to weaponise our tax system and to regulate takeovers. The US government has seen the special relationship with the UK as a game of dancing with donkeys. America has become the dominant owner of almost half the FTSE shares, not to mention the ownership of the majority of premier league football clubs and many health and care providers. Trump has targeted the UK's very modest 2% Digital Services Tax on the big American tech companies to be eliminated as part of his game plan to reduce the 'rape and pillaging’ of the USA.

What Trump has done is give the UK and Europe a legitimate excuse to put an end to the plundering of their businesses. It means working more closely with Europe, which has been far more savvy in developing regulatory control of big tech and AI. It is essential to stop America from ‘merely owning the world.’ Hopefully, as the Trump game is played out, the rest of the world will be too wise to let this continue. Untrammelled private equity ownership and unregulated big tech, aided and abetted by successive American governments, have had the upper hand for too long. Trump has unwittingly paved the way to consigning his tariff policies to the dustbin of economic illiteracy. But that requires collaboration between Europe, the UK and other partners who are willing to confront the Devil's Apprentice.

Space X Control to Major Trump
Sitting in a tin can
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Planet Earth is Blue
And there's nothing you can do