Originally Posted by
opie-gone-road
Hello! I'm a very avid cyclist from the U.S. who's moving to Glasgow this coming Autumn to pursue a postgraduate degree in Scottish History. I studied in Glasgow my 3rd year at University, but I didn't have a bike for the entire 4 months (these days, I really have no idea how I managed the lack of velo back then). Right now I live in the glorious bicycling Mecca of Portland, OR. I was hoping that I could get some advice for my cycling arrival, as it were, to the land of the Rampant Lion. I'm most likely going to do a bit of inner-city riding and hoping to get out to the countryside (Perthshire, Galloway, Ayrshire) and up to the high-country on the weekends. And just because I am curious, are there any sort of Spring Classics commemoration rides held in country? Reason I ask is that in Portland (which often times gets the title 'Belgium on the Willamette') we just had the Ronde van Oeste Portlandia in honor of the REAL Ronde.
If your interested, check it out:
http://bikeportland.org/2009/04/04/m...t-at-de-ronde/
Anyways, please let me know what's what in my soon-to-be adopted home. Looking forward to getting to know the cycling community, not just in Scotland, but the borderlands and UK in general.
~opie
Not sure about "spring classics", but there are a growing number of sportif events. Some very good. Two major ones are the Etape Caledonia (a very sociable day out in Pitlochry ~ 83 miles, closed roads but lots of cyclists) and Southern Upland Sportif (long and some great/brutal climbs, especially the 5 km climb to get to the finish summit). You can Google these and you'll probably find the website which details all such events in the UK. There are numerous within a relatively short distance of Glasgow. Good luck.
PS. You can get a very useful map from Glasgow City Council (free) on bicycle routes within Glasgow. I got one when I started working there recently ... v.good.