Day 3 scotland trip

After a few to many beers the night before i woke up with a slight headache. I managed to eat a load of food for breakfast and then get into my cycling gear, it was already getting on and theres only 7 hours of daylight in the day. I managed to get out the cabin for 10.30am. I had deceided on doing the glengarry forest circuit starting from laggan a hard 20 mile loop, although i had made my mind up to ride to laggan 20 miles away to get a decent mileage in. The ride there was excellent it used the new great glen cycle route which started in fort william and followed the caledonian canal for the first 10 miles to gairlochy

                            boats on the caledonian canal above neptunes staircase


At gairlochy the route jumps onto the road for a short while and then cuts off road onto great singletrack crossing over the road and running along side loch  lochys small beaches

                                         Singletrack running besides loch lochy

After the singletrack you jump back on the road for 5 km to clunes where i took a right onto a fire road that carried on running along the length of loch lochy, the fire road climbs and dives over and over until you finally reach Laggan. I kept following the great glen way up a climb and down a decent to easter mandally,

                                                  fire road climb after laggan

here i left the great glen way and took a left up a small country lane which led into a fire road climb that went up and up for a while, when i finally arrived at a cabin that dates back to the 1800's i took a left up a rocky track.

The rocky path led up for 2km through frozen puddles to a gate, through the gate i left the path and took a smaller path to the right. This is where the fun started. I could tell from the start of this path it was going to be hard, i found myself in 1st gear riding on wet clumpy boggy grass through a forest fire break. At one point i put my foot down into a 2 foot deep bog it was hard to get it out but i carried on,

                                                   The faint but boggy path

i finally emerged from the forest after 3km and contoured round the mountain sron a choire ghairbh on a path that would disapear and the reappear all the time for another 5km it was really hard going with a bit of pushing involved. I climbed steeply (or should i say pushed) up the the side of allt cam bhealaich to the col inbetween 2 mountains. I was tired and the sun was setting, i had a drink and watched some walkers come down the mountain. I was over 2000 feet above sea level and had a decent in front of me that would take me down to the orignal fire road on the great glen way i came in on that was pretty much sea level.

                                               The start of the decent

All the pushing i had done to the summit where i stood was hard and i was thining this decent had better be worth it. Well it was i think this decent was one of the best technical descents ive ever done, none of it  was high speed all big boulders on tight singletrack with drops, sharp turns, steep loose off camber parts and the odd sheep to dodge, all of it was ridable and i cant really compare it to anything ive ridden before due to its 2000 foot drop in height, maybe some of the rocky decents in the lake district would be close but they dont have the remote feel to them. I made it to the bottom just as it was getting dark i followed the fire road back along the great glen way in darkness with my new off road light on. i arrived back at the cabin after 6hrs 30 mins of riding id been out for over 7 hours including stops. The ride was 60 miles long , 4500 feet of climbing with a max height gained of 2040 feet above sea level.

                                                   Gpx of the route

Was a excellent ride apart from the pushing but i guess you have to expect that when riding in remote parts of scotland i think the path on the os map i used isnt used alot at all. would do the ride again but would choose to do it in summer after a long dry spell.