Redford to Arbroath Circular Route

Route out – Redford to Woodville to Arbroath. For route map click here.

Route back – Arbroath to Guynd to Carmyllie Church to Redford. For route map click here.

• Weather – cool, hazy and windy at first. Brighter with sunshine and warm from Arbroath onwards.
• Distance travelled – 13.74 miles
• Riding time – 1 hour 22 minutes
• Maximum speed – 24.9 mph
• Average speed – 10.0 mph

My Granny and Granda live in a tiny village called Redford which is about 15 miles north of Dundee in the Angus countryside. I had noticed a while ago that there are lots of nice quiet roads near their house which looked like they would be perfect for cycling on, and when we went to visit them this weekend, I got the chance to try some of them out. Luckily for me, Dad used to cycle around this area when he was at school so he knows lots of good routes that we could try out. This time we decided to do a circular route from Redford to Arbroath and back.

We headed slightly uphill out of the village on the B961 past Carmyllie Primary School, where Dad used to go when he was younger and Granda was also the headteacher. We soon reached a crossroads and turned right at the signpost for Arbroath. Then we headed up a short but steep hill where, at the top, we could even see Arbroath 5 miles away in the distance. After that we zoomed the rest of the way downhill towards the town in only 20 minutes or so. On the way, just after Woodville, Dad spotted a deer in a field of wheat but I was going so fast that I didn’t even see it.

In the outskirts of Arbroath we stopped at a bus stop to have a snack of oatcakes before heading back out of the town along the B9127 towards Guynd, where we discovered a solar energy farm. There seemed to be hundreds of solar panels in the field and Dad explained to me that these solar panels turned sunlight into electricity.

The Guynd road eventually took us back to the B961 but instead of turning right to head back to Redford, we took a detour along a tiny road so that we could see Carmyllie Church. This was a steep uphill section – Dad said he used to have to push his bike up it until he was at least 14 years old – but I thought it was really quite an easy hill, nowhere near as steep as some of the roads we cycle on in Midlothian. Anyway, the church was quite nice I thought. After that we took another back road, mostly downhill this time, speeded passed by some tractors planting potatoes in a field, before arriving back at Granny and Granda’s house just in time for a big drink of juice and a sneaky biscuit or two…