BBC forecast had rain / heavy rain for most of the morning so didn't bother getting up early. Opened the curtains to discover it hadn't been raining, and we only had one shower around 11am. Decided to ignore the fact there was a 22 WSW wind blowing and went out for this loop. Coming back was interesting - head a ding...ding...ding behind me when I was going through Arbiliot and thought it was a fellow cyclist and looked back to see a sheep dog in full sprint mode behind me. It wasn't barking, but I don't like dogs (after getting bitten as a kid) so I put the hammer down and dropped the fucker :-) Then eased back a little ... and about 1 minute later, here's the bloody dog again - it must have just slowed down for a breather. Had to get up to about 20mph, uphill, into the wind to get rid of it for good. I suspect it was just playing, but you never know sometimes.