Reivers raid ride: road passes

Meet place on the A701 below the Devil’s Beef Tub

There are three roads through the Lowther Hills, each with its own personality. These aren’t passes in the sense of an Alpine pass though they are routes over a crest at the head of one valley leading to another. Riding all of them is like taking a personality test of your biking style.

I warmed up with a few runs up and down Moffat’s own local pass, the A701 road which crests at 412 m. above the Devil’s Beef Tub. Then Dalveen Pass (A702, 337 m.) and back via Mennock Pass (B797) which tops out at the mining village of Wanlockhead (429 m.), Scotland’s highest village. Through the Lowther Hills again passing the village of Crawfordjohn, much of the B740 road through this high valley leading to the Crawick Pass is around 285 m. altitude.
For my sportsbikes, I’d rate them in the order I ran then on this day, for a cruise, the opposite; for a picnic and tourist visits, the Mennock would be the favourite.
The topography of the Southern Uplands is big and bleak where it hasn’t been turned over to livestock agriculture. There’s a lot of commercial forestry and now a multitude of wind turbines peppering the skylines. But unlike England, and I really mean all of England, there is space between the towns and villages. In that respect it reminds me of Wyoming or the Alpes-de-Haut-Provence.

Overall, the best (most satisfying) ride as a sportsbike rider I found in the area was the well-known triangle round the A708 from Moffat to Selkirk, the A72 to Peebles then the A701 back down to Moffat; which was the route I chose for my first ride.
The fine weather lasted one day more so I got back to Keswick happy and dry.

High point (407 m.) on the A701 above the Devil’s Beef Tub