St Andrews gravel century. Sun, sea, sand and singletrack.

This was an away day with our local group (now charity) CycleCrieff. Clearly this route isn't in Crieff but a short enough drive and living near Crieff (Auchterarder) I do find myself gravitating east rather than west quite often, Perth, Dundee, Tayport etc. Check out the routes on the website cyclecrieff.scot where we share a lot of the good stuff around Crieff.

I'd been sitting on this one for literally years. Every time I've visited the general St Andrews/East Neuk/Tayside area I've been struck by the amazing riding potential. More generally, I just love this region of Scotland for, well, feeling so different from the rest of Scotland! Rolling fields of barley, dusty and sandy tracks, lots of red terracotta tiled buildings and historic old churches and cemetries and wee hamlets which were clearly the epicentre of isolated little farming communities back in the day. Problem is, the variety and the potential led to me just plotting longer and longer routes which until recently I wasn't sure I was up to!

In truth, this route deliberately AVOIDED some excellent singletrack and generally rootier or rougher sections just to make it more enjoyable as a longer day out. Having ridden it, I might need to go back and try and hack the distance back but incorporate more of the good stuff. As it happened, due to ongoing wheel and tubeless issues, I took my gravelised 29er anyway, Mezcals, inner bar ends, 2x drivetrain, etc. etc. but I really had intended this route for the gravel bike and the drop bars, especially for the Laurens Sweeck impressions in the sandy singletrack at the end!

Rob and Lawrence were both on gravel bikes and clearly coped fine, despite Lawrence having a tour of Arran in his legs from the previous day (another CycleCrieff away day). Rob was showing off some very fancy kit including wireless tire pressure monitoring on his Zipp wheels, interesting to see how much difference there is between rolling out of the car park at 7am and the midday heat (well OK, 2-3psi, but that's enough to change ride feel for sure).

We rode this at the end of the recent dry-spell, late August. Still a couple of wee overgrown bits and a couple of sections of bumpy/rough field edge track where I expected double track, but virtually all rideable. I'd recommend for mid-Spring (if dry) or early Autumn. If it was wet or muddy this one could get a bit tiresome or harsh on the bikes! Take care with food and drink, there's a long spell between Cupar and Kingsbarnes with not many facilities, although we stumbled upon Kellie Castle almost exactly at the midway point which did an excellent lunch.

Too many photos, had to whittle 367 down to 12...

Morning climb out of Tayport

Field edge descent above Wormit. I had previously climbed up this in the opposite direction on nice singletrack which is presumably in the brambles and bracken on the left hand side somewhere. Dog walkers had trodden a perfectly rideable line through the stubble though.

I actually can't remember which of the many lsections of gravel this was, I think after the beautiful singletrack into Balmerino but before the tarmac descent into Luthrie.

Climbing up from Cupar, towards Cults. Nice shady bit after a hot dusty climb to this point.

Pilgrims Way heading to Ceres.

Pilgrims Way descent.

The start of the good stuff, sandy, firm double track on the Fife Coastal Path from Cambo Estate towards Kingsbarnes.

The good stuff! Sandy technical singletrack after the short unrideable beachy section between Kingsbarnes and Boarhills (technical bits not pictured, I'd just taken a faceplant trying to ride one-handed while taking photos over a bumpy bit).

Climbing up from the coast towards Boarhills, beautiful wee 'den' beside the Kenly Water.

Cobbles! We rode this section twice trying to find an ice cream shop without an enormous queue.

Another den, this time climbing up out of St Andrews on the Lade Braes path towards Craigtoun Country Park.

Tentsmuir! This place is a goldmine, shame my cack-handed GoPro photography couldn't cope with the light conditions, most of the shots of the heavenly singletrack in amongst the trees just came out gloomy. Needless to say despite the preceding 99 hot dusty miles we absolutely rinsed our legs here trying to outsprint one-another through the sandy bits and generally just looning about.