Barry Godin does it again.

[video]http://vimeo.com/235253936[/video]

I like his style and sense of humour.

Bloody brilliant not enough footage of the pushing 🙂

Haha. Loved that. Shame he didn’t do the whole thing as it would be a great reminder of the route. Makes me want to do it again!

The scenery looks awesome. I’ve added it to my must do list.
Just not sure how much of it I’ll manage in one go.
How long do people reckon it would take for mere mortals to complete ?

Enjoyed that. Anyone have the HT550 book and recommend it? I’ve been meaning to buy a copy for a while now.

@splash-man: there are bothies at reasonable intervals. One of the American bikepacking sites has the Ht550 as a touring route over 11 days so roughly 50 miles per day but some days, like Fisherfield, would be a hard 50 miles.

Marked

I enjoyed that.

Cheers Whitestone.
Time for me to up the mileage then

I think if I were to do it, I’d take 2 weeks off work and have a more leisurely 15-16 days.

Very good ,thank you.

Check out some of his other videos too. He has a rather infectious enthusiasm.

Found the link I referred to above. It gives 14 days for touring the route not 11.

I wouldn’t approach the HT550 in an X miles per day manner as some sections are easy and there’s little to stop for so you’d spin along no problem whereas other sections will take time: even “racing” it took me 12hrs from Ullapool to Kinlochewe for example. Look at accommodation – campsites, bothies, B&Bs, hotels and plan from there.

@cferg – I’ve got the “Joining the Dots” book. It’s Lee Craigie’s account of the 2016 edition with various contributions from others. It’s neither a coffee table nor a “how to” book.

Well I’m definitely a mere mortal and managed the whole loop in 7 1/2 days as an itt. I could comfortably be able to knock a day off that with the experience gained, such as better tyres,brake pads and a fully working pump. I also had a very leisurely last day as I caught my wife who was in the group start, and we rode together from Fort William. Any riders who look at it and say “one day..” should set a date and have a go. The scenery really is amazing and the feeling if being out in the wilderness is a fantastic experience. However you need to be prepared for a lot of hike a bike. A lot more than is shown on the videos of the route.
I definitely want to do it again either next year or more likely 2019.

Great video – thanks for sharing!

As Colin knows I did an 180km ‘loop’ from Garve to Ullapool and back a couple weeks back taking in part of the route (I definitely recognised some of the scenery in the video)

I must be a complete fanny coz I was pretty wiped after it (albeit I did the Hebridean Way the preceding week). I wouldn’t manage whole route under similar conditions. It was my intention to ‘tour’ the HT550 this summer but, well, life got in the way.

When are you organising the Second string mass start Colin? Presumably after Orkney? 😉

Must watch later

Great video this

And bloody good effort filming it. The extra space/weight, faff and time required to do it must be immense

Filmed all on a iPhone apparently !

His static camera shots must have massively extended his overall ride time. Instead of simply riding along each section once, he would have to stop, yomp up to place the camera, walk back, ride towards camera, stop, walk back and turn camera, ride away from camera, stop, go back and collect camera. It’s an impressive degree of dedication to produce such great footage but he’s probably done an HT950. Small wonder he had to cut out the top loop.

Agreed, even the bit at 1:00 to 1:07 is a pain to push even a lightly loaded bike back up . Then again he only did one take of getting the bike onto the bridge just before Ben Alder bothy 😆 The bit at 5:20 is a long fast descent so quite a way to head back up to get the camera/phone.

I don’t think I’d have stopped for a bivy/camp at his camp at 10:00 – the worst weather of the route hit at that point! An exposed plateau at 500m.

Ian Barrington did a video of his 2014 attempt and maurizio Doro did one of this year’s group start, don’t have the link to hand but the commentary is in Italian (obviously)

There’s some background writing here – a 50Kg loaded bike 😯

carrying eleven days of breakfast and dinner

It’s remote. But not that remote 🙂

I know – I had six, yes six, sit down meals plus several Spar/store stops. Even at touring speed the longest between reprovisioning is two days.