Kinross Sportive
words by Peter Ellen
Photo: © Caron Stoker
Smaller club-run sportives provide a great day out, particularly for riders keen to avoid the crunch of carbon coleslaw being prepared when middle-aged fellas find themselves in large bunches for the first time.
The Kinross Sportive is perhaps the best example – a brilliant route, very well run, and relatively low on the chopper scale. Me, Gav Mooney and Niall MacDonald took on the black route: 158km with 1,829m of climbing. There are also easier options which still provide a good day out.
This was the 15th year of the event, and it’s impressively well run by a team of volunteers for CHAS (Children’s Hospices Across Scotland) – details are here if you fancy it in 2027.
The black route kicks off with an eastbound loop from Kinross High, round the top of Loch Leven, then hangs a left up to Glen Farg. We bumped into ERC legend and adopted Fifer Rae Captieux, and a good group got going with a big guy we’ll call “the Gladiator.”
We then caught up with a couple of young lads, one with a sizeable hole in his shorts and some grazes – turns out they were brothers who’d managed to capsize each other in the first couple of kilometres. Calmed by this experience, and once we’d persuaded them not to fire off the front of the group, they made a solid contribution as we headed for Falkland, Freuchie, Newburgh and Abernethy.
After the well-stocked feed stop at Dunning, you head over the Dragon Climb (a fiery beast). Despite carrying auxiliary muscles designed for other sports, the Gladiator dispatched us and headed into the distance with another victim under his arm.
Once in Glen Farg for a second time, the route swings back over the hills, up and down like a fiddler’s elbow, before returning to Forteviot (home of the Youth Tour of Scotland). Then it’s back to Dunning (more bananas).
In previous years the route has headed past the Simon Howie deluxe black pudding factory, up the Dunning climb to Yetts o’ Muchart, but due to a non-meat-based road blockage, we re-routed via posh Gleneagles and Glen Devon. It was a bit busier, but very easy on the eye, and the sun was out.
With 500m to the top, a team of young fellas caught up with me, and for a moment I considered jumping on, but not wanting to cramp their style (or my old legs), I let them go, remembering the time my dad turned up inside the school disco when I’d told him to wait in the car outside.
From there it’s about 30km, mainly flat and downhill, back to Kinross.
If you fancy a club sportive, Tour of the Kingdom is on 31st May. The hills aren’t as nippy as Kinross, and there are 58 and 92 mile options. That’s 93 and 148km in new money.