Monday, June 1, 2015

Highland Trail 2015 Day 7.

Up for 8am. Breakfast at the food van at the campsite, Then time to pack, wrap up warm before heading back to Tyndrum.


Sunshine sooned turned to rain and then back again with regularity. Some of the rainstorms were the heaviest we had encountered. We were both the closest we'd been all week to getting cold.

Thoughts of how we'd managed to avoid injury, or mechanical troubles quickly yielded a pinch puncture each.

It was too cold to do other than swap the tubes for new ones, pump the tyres up rock hard, then hope that neither of us got another one.

Some nice bits of riding were had on this section.


Once again we stopped at the climbing wall cafe in Kinlochleven for food, narrowly avoiding a massive hailstorm as we arrived there.


The weather was wearing us both down. Less than 30 miles to go though to take us back to a warm bed in Tyndrum.

Within 5 minutes of leaving the cafe, we were once again climbing the Devil's Staircase. The weather was deteriorating, and as we climbed we encounterd several heavy rain and hail showers.It felt for the first time in the trip that a slip or mechanical could quite quickly become a serious situation.

As we made the top it was trying to snow. Th temptation was to go full gas for the bottom, but we descended slowly, and with care.

I was relieved when we made it down to the road.

The rest of the ride back to Tyndrum was wet, but otherwise without event.


 I'd phoned ahead earlier in the day to secure the last camping cabin available, and it was great knowing as we headed out for a bowl of pasta and meatballs at the Tyndrum Inn that we would have somewhere with a heater to spend the night.

Luxury.


So there we are sat in the pub after 7 days and 60 hours of riding time on our bikes during which we covered 405 miles.

Two happy boys!

9 comments:

  1. Excellent article and well done young man for pushing harder than most adults and showing that kids should not be underestimated

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  2. Well done lads, a terrific adventure!

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  3. Great effort and read. Gave this a go last week, made it over to Poolewe before heading for the train line. Can see why you wanted to avoid that section with the weather!

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