MTB Coast to Coast

As promised earlier a non-climbing post!

Monday morning text from Nikki, "fancy doing the Fort William - Montrose MTB coast to coast, leaving early Sat and back on Monday?"
I was game, despite not knowing what this entailed other than the obvious, and had no time to find out due to a busy week on Flood Forecasting Duty.

I packed a light bag for the trip consisting of: - 1 change of clothes; 1 jumper; 1 waterproof jacket; repair kit, pump and map; 1 malt loaf; 8 chocolate bars; 1.5l of water; 2 mobiles (my smartphone acting as a replacement camera for the trip); and after catching the last train from Glasgow I turned up in Fort William at 10pm. Here I caught up with Nikki, Neil, Alex and Neil's friends 16 year old son (whom I forget the name of) in the curry house. After a bit of planning (the plan being the route in the MTB Scotland book which usually takes 4-7 days though we were doing it in 3 via nights in Newton Bridge and Ballater - full route here) and chat they all piled into the car to Glen Nevis Youth Hostel, and I raced them through the pitch black on the bike... ultimately loosing after they overtook me with much hollering and light flashing just after the Nevis car park! I also did nearly cycle into two people, but having no lights on them I can't be blamed for this!

Nikki and Alex somewhere near
the start of the Corriearick Pass

We set off at quickly at 7am, after a good breakfast and some pilfered coffee, and ended up in Fort Augustus by 11:30am, just in time for a pub lunch! To get here the route is ~40 miles of fast and flat riding, following much of the canal path the whole way. It was then onto the harder section of the day, the Corriearick Pass. This follows the old (1730's) General Wade’s military road (he did seem to like to build lots of roads!!!) with a big slog up to the top off the pass at 780m. This took us about 3 hours from lunch, and one mis-direction by me to this point and involved some pushing along the way as the ground is soft and sandy for much of it making the going hard, probably even with packs on.

Start of the decent - note the drainage ditch size!

We were all feeling a bit knackered after this (especially the young one) and were running low on water, but thankfully the hardest part of the day was done, with a massive rewarding 20km descent down into Laggan. Don't go too quick down this as the drainage ditches are massive, with quite a few being too big to pull or jump over! One puncture later we had passed over the pass and were into Laggan. The young lads parents picked him up where the road meets the pass and offered to take our bags to the pub in Laggan, where we could meet them and pick them up.

Puncture stop - the young one's first ever puncture
& lesson in bike maintenance

Midge Proof Nikki!

                                                   Tired, but happy


One thing we did learn, was despite however knackered you are don't give away your packs!!! As a result we were all running on empty energy wise only being pulled along by the sadistically pleasurable noise of knobbly tyres on tarmac. We were also caught out in a heavy downpour without our jackets, and had no phones which again proved costly once we finally reached Laggan as we didn't know what pub we were to meet at. Eventually after some inter-pub phone calls and a bit of luck they arrived around 1 hour having gone looking for us thinking we had an accident (we were in the other pub at this point!). A bit of leisurely nosh later and copious amounts of tea we then cycled to Newtonmore to get around 22:30.

Unfortunately by the time we arrived, having cycled the 70miles of the day, my knees were hurting as they had done around 6 months before. This wasn't good though I have now realised it is the angle set up of the SPDs which has caused this! Despite trying to sleep it off by the time we set off on the Saturday to Ballater I only made it as far as Kingussie (not far at all) where I jumped on the train back to Glasgow after pleading my way on by looking miserable. I knew there was a chance he wasn't going to let me on since I hadn't booked a bike on so when the train pulled up I overplayed my injury. Even then he took some convincing!
Some old guy gave me a pork pie though so its not all bad :-) (I must have looked miserable/gutted!)

I'm pretty gutted I didn't manage to get the whole 3 days done, especially given the route through Cairngorm via the lovely Lin of Dee, so I will have to go back and finish it off. I am however happy to report the other 3 did make it despite the washed out bridges on the descent from Mt Keen!


The decision to stop was the right one though given that its one of those injuries which can be exacerbated easily and take even long to heal up. It took a few months last time and sadly probably will do this time too. Plus if I would have carried on it would have slowed them down quite a bit and there is little chance of rescue at points, even without trying to get generously kind friends to come get you! (It would have been one of you Dundee guys though!)