exo : rides

It’s about the point that I start thinking that it would be good to have a lighter bike because it would be easier to carry that I decide this last section of coastal path was probably a mistake. I could have stayed on the road to get home but instead I cut down to do the final section to home because I was sure I’d managed to miss the worst sections.

I know that the Boarhills to St Andrews bit of the coastal path isn’t great but I always forget which bits aren’t. Having earlier used the Elie to Crail section to lull myself into believing the bad bits can’t be as bad as I thought, and skipping most of it by taking an inland route, it seemed only fair to do the final run from Boarhills. Helpfully the first section really isn’t that bad, nice tracks down the side of fields followed by some reasonable singletrack. The odd section of hike a bike seems ok so surely the steady increase in ratio of hike to bike can’t carry on too long? By the time it’s clear that it can it seems like it’s going to be as easy to carry on as not, plus I’m nearly at the golf course and the golf course is nearly St Andrews.

The other golf course is nearly at St Andrews. This one is a whole extra golf course, a chunk of hike a bike and an impassable at high tide section further away. It probably would have been passable with a bit of effort without a bike but clambering up a ten plus foot high rock face encumbered with a bike just was not happening.

So, back the way I came to take the roundabout route via the golf course. Again I could have cut directly up to the road but why not try and use the golf course to get round the bad section and then head back down to the path? Because of the other golf course in the way that I had forgotten about. It is more or less impossible to go further than a few miles along this bit of coast in Fife without hitting a golf course, and I didn’t really fancy trying to work my way round the edges of another one, so another retracing and this time back to the road for good.

Next time I’m going to try the Kingsbarns to Boarhills section as it can’t be that bad?