Category: West Highland Way

It’s hard to know how to look back on the year so far. I’ve managed to get pretty fit, met some great people, and been to some incredible places. But… and it’s a big “but”, I’ve ended up being the plucky loser. Which is certainly better than being a diffident loser, but it’s still inescapably disappointing.

My second effort on the West Highland Way Double continued the tradition. Last time I attempted this trail, it was winter and I was ill-prepared. Scotland kicked my ass and that was pretty much what I needed it to do. This time, I had residual fitness from the Tour Divide and a free weekend so I thought I would just give it a punt.

To keep it low key, I only told one person (for safety). I packed a cut down version of my Divide kit: sleeping bag and bivvy, tools, arm/leg warmers + waterproof, food. My normal rear wheel had a cracked rim, so I was on a Mavic Crossmax that I had borrowed from Sam Singular with (for reasons unknown) a Bontrager mud tyre. In my rush, I just left it there and that turned out to be a mistake. Most everything else was normal, except that I was going to try taking caffeine pills to burn through the night.

I headed off to Bristol to go see some new Chris King road wheels on behalf of Singletrack Magazine. In the back of the car I had my Singular Pegasus, the old prototype Singular road frame, a pile of food, and my synthetic sleeping bag for the night before the WHW.

The King stuff was shiny and nice – not going to sway me from Hope but I’m sure fans will love it. We got the chance for a test ride with some pretty decent roadies who admitted that, upon seeing my lugged steel frame with mudguards, they expected me to end up in the broom wagon. Needless to say, that didn’t happen but we did average 20mph for a couple of hours and I tried hard to keep a lid on things. You can read the article on Singletrack’s website here, but I was back in the car at 4pm to reach Glasgow before sleeping.

When I got to Milngavie, I had already eaten so all I had to do was find somewhere quiet to park. I pulled up in a secluded lane and put my bivvy down between my car and the verge. Perfectly dirtbag! In the morning I made espresso with my camping stove, repacked the boot of the car, and was excited to hit the trail around 7am.

The first few miles are easy. Their flat, easy-going nature could easily be mistaken for gentle English countryside rides. Things changed a little as Conich Hill took me over to Loch Lomond. It was a lot easier this time than when it had been coated in ice, and I could chuck the lighter bike over boulders on the way up.

I had built up the shore of Lomond in my mind to be one gigantic swearing hike-a-bike. That’s what I remembered of it, so I was pleasantly surprised to see how much of it was rideable. Again, less weight meant that I could hike the bike more easily and was less often required to. Short rises and pokey roots were not a problem. Except that the stupid Crossmax wheel had come unseated from the tyre. I put a tube in and carried on past Rowardennan. Now I was frequently putting my bike onto my back and walking briskly between clambering efforts.

By the end of the Loch, I felt a whole world better than I had in the winter. I had collected water as I went, so I had eaten enough and was ready to go all day. The weather was so bright that I was beginning to wish I had suncream.

Steep ups and downs took me to Tyndrum and, despite the volume of walkers, they were fun and pretty rideable. I was absolutely flying! Before I knew it, I was at Glencoe ski area. This is where I had bailed before and it felt great to ride through. But things soon started to come unstuck.

On the way to the Devils Staircase, I took a drink on a flat trail. With my bottle still in my hand, I spotted a drainage channel. Its square edges were going to require a hop and I had no time to put the bottle away. I stuck the bottle in my mouth and totally failed the hop. My rear wheel smashed into the square edge, pitching me over the bars and face first (bottle still there) into the ground. It was no great surprise to find that I had pinched the tube. I had no more spare tubes, so I put a couple of patches onto it and got ready to continue.

I was taking it easy now. Couldn’t afford more mistakes, and my lips hurt from the landing. The trail heads up and over to Kinlochleven via some mighty rockiness that is pushy on the way up and picky on the way down (if you have 4 patches to last > 100 miles). Still, I messed up another drainage and hit full frontal onto a square edge. My Stans/Maxxis Ikon front wheel was still tubeless and shrugged it off. Phew! But damn, why couldn’t I have two good wheels?

I took a couple of the caffeine pills (about equivalent to a decent cup of coffee) and rode on. The run-in to Fort William was long, but joyful. Sweet trails snaked towards the dropping sun. Another pinch flat irritated me and took another couple of patches, but couldn’t stop me for long. I weaved between abandoned farm buildings, whizzed past walkers’ campsites, rumbled over rocks, and eventually shot down into Fort William itself.

The petrol station I had hoped to shop at was closed but I replenished my water and ate some of the food I had. Light was fading, but I was feeling good. On a bad out-and-back, the turn-around point can often be a real source of self doubt. Can I do all that again? Not so this time, I was itching to get back on the trail. I figured that I would spend a lot of the darkness pushing over the Devil’s Staircase. Perfect: By dawn I would be riding faster trails just as I needed my vision back.

It took a while for the light to fade completely from the sky but, as soon as it did, I hitched up the arm-warmers. I was working hard in places but, without the warmth of the sun, I wanted to keep what I was generating. My mind divided the remainder of the ride into manageable chunks. Pushing back over towards Kings House was perfectly fine and I could see some light returning as I reached Glencoe.

Riding through the night does make the sun seem mythical. On the whole, I was warm, but small chills now and again made me long to feel that radiance against my skin. The slow sunset was balanced by a slow sunrise and pedalled harder as if I could hasten the day. Climbing hard, though, the rear of the bike became squishy. Another puncture. Not a pinch this time, so I only used up the 1 patch in the pre-dawn cold. One of the existing patches had come loose as it was trying to repair a cut on the seam of the tube.

This delay was eating into my quota of wakefulness and making me cold when I could have just pedalled into the light. I was frustrated and worried. With one patch left and the existing repairs looking suspect, I was beginning to face the possibility of failure. Failure for stupid equipment reasons. Surely not.

Sure enough, mere minutes later and still on the Drove Road between Glencoe and Inveroran, the tyre was down again. One patch left and certain that I wouldn’t be able to ride the whole way back, I pulled out my bivvy kit. It was a bad area to bivvy – no tree cover and damp ground but I didn’t care. As I unrolled my bag, the midges started to come in. Not so bad, but I was glad to get my body zipped up and away from them.

I grabbed a couple of hours sleep, but the midges were coming in through my air-hole in the bivvy. I blocked it up with my silk liner, but with the warmth of the day beginning to come on, it was time to get up anyway. Poking my head out, everything was covered in midges. A thick layer of them on my bag, my shoes, and my helmet. A cloud of them above my bivvy.

Moving as fast as I could, I packed up. I paced as I stuffed dry-bags, trying not to inhale too many insects. Flicking them from my head. Swearing and sighing. I used my last patch on the the rear tube and, shoved remaining kit away and tried to ride from the little blighters.

Again, it was only minutes before my tyre was down again. I wasn’t surprised, angry, or anything really. I was just trying to figure out options to get home. The journey back to the car was long (about 8 hours – longer than riding without incident would have been) and pretty much sucked.

Trying to drive home after this, I napped frequently in service stops and tried to eat away my tiredness. That reached stupid proportions when I vomited a load of sugary junk onto the M42, but the naps got me home in the end.

The WHW double is completely do-able and actually quite enjoyable in the summer. It’s pretty rough on a fully rigid bike, but not impossibly so. I’d like to go back, but the reality is that I almost certainly won’t have the time or money to do it this year. I was certainly encouraged by my overnight performance (felt fine when I bivvyed after 21 hours of riding) so maybe one day I’ll be able to challenge the likes of Kurt and Jefe 🙂

Well that didn’t go quite the way I expected. This will be a tale in two parts: the story; then the geeky bike stuff.

The Story

The epic began with a mammoth drive from London to Glasgow. Start time: after work. Objective: get there before midnight! We had booked into the cheapest hotel I could find (£28 for the pair of us) on the basis that it would be nothing more than a sleep-stop. We arrived around midnight and I still had the fog of the road still swirling in my head. Ice was dropping off the front of the car and I read this as a good sign: frozen trails would be much easier riding than wet ones.

In the morning, we discovered that Glasgow motorways are probably very efficient if you know where you’re going, but very confusing if you don’t. We didn’t know them, and duly arrived late at Milngavie. We had a quick breakfast and I was on my way by 10.30, leaving Emily to attempt to shadow the trail by car.

Riding through a town park, I encountered the usual reaction to pushing/riding a fat bike. Pushing up steps: “Aren’t you supposed to ride those things?”. Riding past another cyclist “THOSE are the tyres you want! Ha-ha!”. Soon it was all behind me, and I was spinning down flat avenues of white. Crystals of frost grew on every branch, the sun shone in a blue sky and it seemed like an entirely pleasant day for a ride. However, the slight stress of the late start and the general anticipation had me pushing on a bit, trying to keep a decent pace when I could.

Gate-gate. Gate-gate. Gate-gate. Gate-gate. Gate-gate. Gate-gate. Gate-gate. Gate-gate.

There were a lot of double gates.

The first of the real mountain riding was Conic Hill and it wasn’t long before I was pushing. The steep gradient and large rocks wouldn’t have been ride-able on an unloaded bike. I had expected this, but what I hadn’t expected was glassy ice flowing down over the rocks. I had to pick my way up the trail, switching from one side to the other to get any kind of grip. As pushing goes, it wasn’t bad pushing but did raise doubts about riding downhill on this stuff later. At the top, I was rewarded by a beautiful view down to the mist covering Loch Lomond.

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It turned out to be ride-able on the way down, but with tight constraints: I was heavy on the brakes, switching across the track or occasionally off-piste to keep the rubber-side down. It worked, though, and soon I was down by the Loch.

For a while, the trail was fiddly but not too bad. Up and down along the water’s edge. One bit of riding along a beach caused open-mouthed amazement from a walker. In places, the trail shadowed the road closely, being within a few metres of the black stuff. Just as I was thinking how easy it would be to cheat, I had to really muscle the bike around a rocky step. Heavy on the front brake, I tried to swing the back around and was rewarded with a loud crack: a broken spoke. If any rim can handle being a spoke down, it’s a Large Marge so I didn’t worry too much.

Before the ride, I hadn’t realised quite how little this trail is aimed at bikers. It is what it is, but that meant you had to ride very much within what you could see. Sometimes what you can’t see would be a huge drop or a set of steep steps into a 90 deg corner. For a moment, I let the brakes relax and the bike flow underneath me. I could see a bridge, but the transition onto it was smooth. As I hit the wood, I realised that the other end of the bridge fell away sharply to ground level. I braked, but both wheels slipped on the untreated wet surface. In a moment, I knew I had to get off the brakes and just get ready for the drop: I think it was 2 or 3 feet to flat. Not ideal on a loaded bike, but I got away with it.

Things got worse around the edge of the Loch and soon I was carrying most of it. Hauling the bike over large steps. Dangling the bike over the water as I walked along a narrow section. There was no ice here, but progress was slow and it was using muscles that I hadn’t trained well.

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I forget where Inversnaid came in this mess, but I was half-expecting to see Emily there to top up water. We hadn’t really looked at the roads, so I didn’t know that she couldn’t get there without having to make a massive detour to get to the far end of the Loch. I was getting a bit hungry and running out of water. I made the wrong call, not taking water from the Loch and deciding to eat little until I could get water from her.

Lots of time and pushing passed before I left Loch Lomond. But even when I did, the singletrack was frequently iced over. Steady on the brakes, checking that I could stop in time to avoid a slippery accident, my progress was still slow. The signs said that there was a campsite in 2 miles. Surely there would be water there and I could eat plenty with it!

It was getting dark now and I had had 2L of water in 6 hours, accompanied by little food. Still making bad decisions, I didn’t take surface water, pushing on to the campsite. When I finally arrived, Emily wasn’t there and the campsite said their taps were frozen. Damnit! I was definitely on energy reserves now, but I could do the needed 5 miles to meet Emily.

The distance was OK, and eventually I saw the car! I topped up water and ate from my on-bike supplies. I was feeling pretty down by this point, but at least heading in the right direction food-wise. It was good to finally catch up with Emily, but too soon I had to press on into the darkness.

The food began to cheer me up, and I felt more like I was riding instead of dragging my bike around. The trail was still challenging with plenty of ice to catch the unwary, but I was enjoying myself. I’d see Emily again in Tyndrum, and this period flew by with the frost twinkling in my LED light.

I met Emily and topped up on water again. I had been drinking plenty to compensate for the earlier dehydration so it was time to keep plenty with me. I was warm but not feeling very positive about the trail. I could move along it but enjoyment seemed out of the question. I headed on up into the mist on the trail.

The trail ran along the contour of a grass bank with solid ice along the track itself. Frozen flows came down the hill, crossing the trail and this was the first time I fell. Nothing too serious but, again, progress was slow. I appreciated every moment of rideable trail.

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The fog was getting crazy, now. For extended periods, visibility was down to around 2m. The moisture was freezing onto the trail and I was struggling to find enough traction to climb up what would have been a reasonable gradient. I had to chuckle a bit on the switchbacks, but I was getting impatient. Then, when the trail turned downwards, I really started to worry: It was a good-looking surface but I had to stay on the brakes because of the short visibility. All of a sudden, I was sideways. I tried to stand, but even my massive Neos overshoes wouldn’t grip. Every single part of the trail was devilish, so I was reduced to clomping through the heather. The trail was clearly a fast descent and I could only walk along the edge of it.

I ride in a very calculated way. On “adventure” rides, there may be risks, but ones that I feel confident to manage. On jumps and drops, I’ll only do them when I know I can and I’m ready to accept the consequences of failure. Out there, on that trail, the risk was beyond where I wanted to be. Worse than a 7ft drop. Worse than 45 mph on the South Downs Way at night. Worse than shouting bears away on the Tour Divide. If I hurt myself now, then I might have to pull out of the Iditarod. If I knocked myself out, the consequences could be severe. I could not honestly say that continuing was an acceptable risk.

Unfortunately, there was no option to bail yet. Eventually, I slipped and trudged my way out of the fog.

The climb up the Glencoe Drove Road was a beautifully easy section. It rose above the fog and I could enjoy the moonlight as I spun away. A line of faint lights danced up and down the ridgeline ahead of me and I thought to myself that those riders had some pretty dim lights. A few minutes later, I realised that they must have been deer with their eyes reflecting in my lights. Hmm… not hallucination, but not the sign of a full-speed brain.

I could see the far-off headlights below me on the A82 and fog over the loch. The riding was good and I was debating how bad the previous section had been. Should I bail or not?

It was a fun ride down to the ski centre and I was comfortable when I arrived there. With the Devil’s Staircase to come, though, I decided to end the ride. If the worst of the foggy conditions returned, I could be walking most of the way to Fort William and that was a long walk. I had ridden for around 13 hours, 7 of which were in the dark. I wasn’t prepared to risk going further on that night so, when I met Emily, we packed everything back into the car and bailed out. The mud had frozen the frame bag’s velcro and as I stopped my activity, the cold came in. We got it done, though, and managed to bag a last minute room in a hotel.

Geeky Bike Stuff/Introspection

It’s easy to look back now and think that I should have done more. Going into the ride, my minimum expected effort was to spend 24 hours on the trail. I didn’t make it that far and the reasons came down to Scottish weather and commitment.

I normally enter an event with complete certainty that I won’t give up unless there is grave danger. Which means, one way or another, I’ll finish. I didn’t go into the WHW with this certainty. Partly because training had become too much based on constant power on the turbo. That kind of riding is useful but doesn’t provide the grit to ride all day or the brute force to ride singlespeed in real hills all day. I think the ideal for me is to mix both turbo training and full days in the hills. The two can complement each other.

The other major factor was keeping the eyes on the prize: the main goal for the moment is Alaska – WHW was just a stepping stone and not a place to risk failure on the main project.

To anyone planning to attempt a WHW double, I would say this: Go light, and go in summer. Singlespeed is OK, but gears would be easier. A fat bike isn’t really much help, a light good bike would be better. I’m pretty sure I didn’t need a stove for the conditions I had, maybe if there was going to be lying snow, it would have been useful. I would have preferred bottles as they’re easier for collecting surface water (but more prone to freezing than a camelbak). If you’re going to have support, figure out your strategy beforehand!

My West Highland Way attempt got delayed, but it’s now all systems go! It took an extra week to get over being ill at the start of January, but that may have worked out for the best.

Last weekend was the Strathpuffer 24 hour solo race close to the northern end of the WHW. My friend Mike Hall won (go, Mike!) and the conditions were pretty wet. I was supposed to be on the WHW that weekend and it would have been a brake-pad destroying mess. Thankfully, though, the forecast this weekend is good: cold and dry, maybe some fog and light rain. By Scotland-in-January standards, that’s pretty awesome.

So, the bike is finally built up as I want it:

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It looks nearly the same but has had many time-consuming changes:

• New pawls + springs in the front wheels to replace ones borrowed for another bike
• New bars/stem to get a decent width (685mm)
• Bar ends (with risers, hah!)
• New BB. These DH 100mm bottom brackets don’t like going distance in mud!
• New chainring/cog. Switched to 28:22 for Iditarod. I think it will be a bit under-geared for WHW, but it’ll keep things steady
• Mechanical disc brakes with 160mm rotors instead of 180mm hydraulics. Hydraulics don’t do well with severe cold and I don’t need whopping big rotors

All in all, it feels pretty good. The fat tyres should be good for the really rocky bits in the northern section (the only bit of the WHW I know) and for any snow/ice that might be around.

Kit-wise, I’ve gone for emergency bivvy kit on top of normal distance riding equipment. I’ve got about 12000 calories of food, plus usual spares and stuff, and then a big synthetic sleeping bag + bivvy bag. If I have to sleep the night up there, it probably won’t be a good night’s sleep, but it will be survivable. I’ve managed to cram everything into the frame bag (borrowed from Shaggy – I’m not sponsored by Alpkit, Bonty, or Snow + Rock – thanks, Shaggy!).

So, the plan is to drive up tonight. Stay in Glasgow overnight, and I’ll set off at 9.00am on Friday morning. Updates on my Satellite Tracking page and on Twitter. Emily will be around in the car, but not to provide assistance unless in an emergency.

I’m pretty excited about this. I’ve had to put a lot of planning into the trip, and things are coming together nicely.