You start out on a fairly flat road, with maybe a slight incline, all the way until you get to the juction signposted for 'loop'. This brings you onto a hill, a good climb for slightly over a mile, taking you past 'speddochill' farm and around 'Bishop Forest Hill'. Watch out for stupid sheep on the road. Once you get to Glenkiln resovior the road levels then descends for a while, almost all the way to Shawhead. It then undulates a little, but it's all pretty much downhill from here to Dumfries. You'll be surprised what speed you can average here. Throughout this route watch out for the big ol' potholes hidden in the shade of the trees, there's a couple of real nasty ones. Overall this is a thoroughly enjoyable and scenic route. The only downpoint being that you can't safely race around the Glenkiln / Speddoch area as the roads are pretty narrow in places and you can't see round the corners for on-coming vehicles.