Ullapool to Alness - 4th September 2010

Having planned the final summer seasons trek over 6 weeks ago, we waited at the Post Office in Alness high street at 8am, some of us, tired and some hungover! Tim Dearman pulled up with the Bus and Bike Trailer and we loaded the steeds on! All set and ready to go!

Having arrived in Inverness, (the Bus route technically didn't start till there) we quickly grabbed a bacon roll and a coffee then began the drive to Ullapool. Tim kindly showed us another possible route from Black Bridge just past Garve, where he has dropped some other bikers off and suggested to us that we give that a go some time!
Arriving at Ullapool with Numb ears from 30 miles of constant chin wagging from the two fish wifies sitting behind us, we get off and Phone Barry who is on the Boat from Ullapool to Lewis to see his sister. After making him feel rather gutted that he isn't here with us, we headed off on the trail! Some 50 miles till home....

10 Miles into the ride and we were enjoying every minute. Nice easy track with the ability to get a good pace on, even with the chunky MTB tyres! After pausing to take in the scenery and top up on the Sun Tan lotion we continued on down the road until the trail roughened up a little and we were presented with some more challenging terrain.

There was some sections on the track where the road peaked and troughed, and in the trough of the track, there was some rocky sections which we negotiated, all with the exception of Anthony. He decided to take the dodgiest line through the rocks and snagged his front wheel then proceeded to go completely arse over tit and smack down on the rocks. Much to the amusement of Lewis and Scott, who were behind him when he did it. Poor Anthony got up and winced in pain as he realised that his injuries were in EXACTLY the same spot as they were from Thursday, the last time he crashed. I'm beginning to think Anthony is a little accident prone! :)


After Anthony picked himself up, we carried on a another 1 or 2 miles down the road until we reached a Bothy where we stopped and had a spot of lunch and left our note in the visitor book.





Refueled and ready and with still another 30 odd miles to go we pressed on. Some more rocky terrain and muddy puddles. Malcolm took great delight in Bunny hopping into these whilst I was next to him. Cheers Talc!
After crossing the river which was about 2 feet deep, another 5 miles of travelling through fields and across more bridges, we eventually reached Croick. Anyone interested should go here and check it out. http://www.croickchurch.com/ It's well worth a look!

We took another break here and fed a chicken which was roaming the land stealing Scott's sarnies!!
Lewis decided enough was enough at this point and with the choices of 20 miles cross country to Alness, or 10 miles to Ardgay and a train home, he chose that option and we parted ways. Just at this point I heard a metallic "twang." It was one of my spokes snapping on the rear wheel. Hmmm, nice! Fortunately, cable ties solve all problems and I zip tied it to the other spoke to prevent any fowling in the rotation of the wheel. We carried on down into Glencalvie Lodge, and through onto the estate where we stopped for a good 15 minutes break a further 10 miles down from Croick. The legs were starting to burn now and the mental edge was slowly beginning to fade.

Scott and Anthony caught up with us and we rested up for a bit, preparing for the next section. a 2 mile constant climb over towards Strathrusdale! This would be the final killer climb..

Off we went, Malcolm and I leading with Scott and Ant behind. Onwards and upwards we climbed until reaching the summit. a couple of minutes later Scott and Ant arrived and again, we stopped. Completely drained we continued on the road down home.

Again Malcolm and I took point and hooked in to a decent pace all things considered. A mile down the road we look back and Scott and Ant are nowhere to be seen. Wondering where they were and if it worth while we go back, we decided to hold up for 10 minutes. Scott and Ant arrived, with chain in hand! Scott's chain had snapped and not having a chain link tool (I had the only one) he had to scooter his bike to catch up! Whoops. Ok so we popped the broken rivet out, put the replacement snaplink in and headed on down to Ardross then on home to Alness.

Parting company at Bridgend primary junction with Anthony as his car was on the high street, Scott, Malc and I headed through the quarry and home!
We made it - We left Ullapool at 11:45. Arrived in Alness at 18:30. 51 miles covered.

An Epic journey indeed!

Novar & Fyrish

Wednesday night came and after having Cajun chicken pasta dish the missus had cooked up, I headed off out on the bike for a run up to the Novar Wind Farm.
Cutting up through the Alness Woods, up along the Averon River and then up into the forest behind Darroch Brae and Coulhill I went. Found some really nice fast flowing singletrack up there which was a great warm up, somewhere definitely worth going if you don't have much time.
Coming out at the top of Alness at the "Corkscrew" road I headed on up towards Boath, past the Fyrish car park and on out into the middle of nowhere.

About half an hour later I arrived at the entry to the wind farm:

Looking up at the sky and seeing the sun starting to fall behind the hills up towards the Meall Mor, I decided to quickly begin the ascent to the top of the farm. Climing up to the top of Meall an Tuirc was not going to be easy, as it measures 625m above sea level. I got about 3/4 of the way and could see the Turbines spinning away, however I decided to turn around and head back down the hill, given the fading light conditions and the distance I still had to travel to get home.
Cutting back across the small section of forestry track inbetween Meall an Tuirc and Cnoc Céislein I eventually got to the bottom of the Cnoc. Although I wasn't at sea level, the ascent to 525m to the top of the Cnoc was still quite a slow grind and it took some time. Eventually I got to the top where there was some fast down hill to the bottom of Fyrish. To which I had to begin the climb to the top all over again!

Hitting the climb to the top of Cnoc Fyrish was a hell of a struggle. The road up the back is littered with loose stones and gravel which makes for very difficult traction, especially if it's been raining, the mud up the sides is just like a bog and you're going nowhere fast! After 3 stops for breath, and traction, I eventually seen the sight of the monument. It was a cracking view as the sun was just setting and the monument was being bathed in late evening sunshine:

Dropping the saddle down and heading off home didn't take long at all! Fortunately, it was all downhill from here and given the fact it was getting late for hillwalkers on the trail, there was still sufficient light to have some fun on the way down!

Trailside Triage!

So, my first attempt at a Blog post and it involves Crashes, Blood and Air Ambulances! Good times indeed!
Barry and I headed off up to Golspie Wildcat trail centre, located in Golspie, Sutherland, around 50 miles North of Inverness, http://www.highlandwildcat.com for a Sunday morning run. Our friend Scott was too rough from the previous nights drinking to make it so he had cancelled on us leaving just the two of us to head on up and hit the trail!

We arrived at the car park in Golspie around 11am and as soon as I had switched the engine off, Barry put his head in his hands as he realisised he had forgotten his SPD shoes! D'oh!!!
Fortunately, he uses pedals which have a cage around them so you can kind of use them without the clipless shoes, however, they are not ideal when you are wearing running trainers!!
Anyway - we weren't going to push it too much today, given that Barry took his rather expensive D-SLR camera with him.
We decided to just mess around with the camera, Barry would take the pictures and I would be the subject matter, sessioning some technical sections and looking for some impressive angles to capture.

All was good and we were heading on up the hill to the most challenging section called the, "Lactic Ladder", which is a short, steep section of the course graded black (extreme difficulty) where you are challenged to negotiate some large rocks of different shapes and sizes, all positioned in a climbing format so you are moving around on the bike in all different positions to keep body weight in the right place!

After we reached the top, we swapped bikes and I had a brief shot on Barrys' Santa-Cruz Blur. I must admit, the feeling of the full sus bouncy bouncy took some getting used to, however I was impressed with the lack of pedal bob even with theRP-23 Fox Float shock on lock out! For being an all mountain bike it climbed nicely and accelerated up the hill to the top of Ben Bhraggie without much effort. Going back to the Spesh with the hard tail rear was certainly noticable on the descent, for all we managed to get done!

After a brief stop up the top of the hill, we had caught our breath and took in the scenery, it was time to drop the saddles on the bikes and head off down the hill for the bit we had been looking forward to!

Off we went hitting the first couple of berms at good pace we began the drop to sea level. The Wildcat trails boast the UK's longest singletrack descent, 1300ft of sheer DH pleasure!

We made it about 3/4 of a mile down the hill when I noticed a fellow biker in standing in the middle of the trail waving his arms around.
Slowing up we noticed that there was another guy lying on the ground holding his leg just below his knee.

Being first to arrive on scene, I asked if everything was ok are they needing help to which I got the reply, "My friend has cut his leg open." Asking if it was broken or if they had a 1st aid kit, I recieved the response no they didn't have a kit and it wasn't broken. It was however, burst open 4" long, by 2" wide by about 2" deep. You could see all the muscle and fatty tissues of his leg. It was practically down to the bone and looked pretty nasty! Suffice to say, this boy wasn't getting off the hill under his own steam!

Hi friend, Mark had already phoned 999 and the Air Ambulance was on its way, ETA was 10 minutes from Inverness.
The boy had no bandage over his gaping wound and was only covering it lightly with his hand to prevent flies and midges getting into it. Barry got the 1st aid kit out and we proceeded to bandage it up and apply some pressure to prevent further bleeding. You could tell this lad was in pain but he was looking on the bright side, at least he's getting a helicopter ride!

Once the chopper had landed he quickly got taken away to Raigmore Hospital, back in Inverness to get patched up. We were then left with 3 bikers and 4 bikes. Barry volunteered to take Mark's friends bike down the hill as he didn't have the SPD's he wasn't keen on the rest of the trail. I took the other guy down the track, hitting every jump and drop off as I could find. Poor Mark struggled to keep up, but I don't blame him! No doubt his confidence was knocked considering his mate had just had a hole torn in his leg! We eventually made it down to the bottom of the course and got the bikes packed up and headed off home. Good deed done for the day and feeling quite chuffed with ourselves!