Decided to do the Fort William to Montrose Coast to Coast route out of the Scotland Mountain Biking Trails book.

There were 3 of us. I was on a Salsa Horsethief, another guy on a YT Capra and the other one had a Trek Fuel EX.

Here’s my bike loaded up:

Had cooking stuff plus bag/tarp/bivvy (in case the bothies were full) along with clothes, spares, tools, whisky etc

We were spending the first two nights in bothies and the last in a youth hostel. Planned on doing it in 4 days.

Day 1 – train to Fort William then we cycled along the Caledonian Canal to Fort Augustus in the pissing rain, before climbing some of the Corrieariack Pass to the Blackburn Bothy where someone had left a fire already built up.
This was handy as we were soaked – the rain had been torrential.

Fort William

A herd of stags at the bottom of the Corrieairiack Pass

The bothy about a third of the way up the pass

The bothy book. Which we spilled coffee on. Oops.

Gotta stay warm

Day 2 started off by putting on wet clothes and boots and climbing the rest of the pass (750m height) before zooming down to the River Spey and along to Laggan Wolftrax where we had lunch. Again, we were soaked through. We then cycled along to Kincraig before heading down Glen Feshie to our first river crossing and the Ruigh Aiteachain bothy for a snooze.

The climb

The top of the pass

Classy stop off at the COOP to top off the hip flasks. No picture of me rubbing sudocream on my saddle sores in the car park though

The first of many river fordings

Ruigh Aiteachain bothy. Nice bothy, met some yorkshire lasses who had good chat

Even blasting this woodburner all night didn’t get our shoes and clothes dry. Thank good for waterproof socks – make putting on wet shoes bearable

Day 3 found us going further up Glen Feshie (more river crossings) and pushing/carrying the bikes through a horrible bog for hours. When we finally got off the hill we chainganged along the road to our hostel in Ballater. Showers! Washing machine and tumble dryer! Beer and pizza!

Trying to keep your feet dry was pretty futile

Still, we were so wet we might as well have a wee dip

Noticed this as we pulled in to the hostel. A couple of minutes before I’d been doing 30mph down the big hill in Ballater….

Our last day started off gently with a nice sunny (finally!) cruise along some cycle paths and quiet back roads before heading off road again and climbing Mount Keen ~925m up in about 1.5 miles. Getting to the top was worth it though and the descent was amazing, although I did get a few punctures…. It was downhill all the way from there so we rolled our way down Glen Esk, through Angus and into Montrose where we got rained on. Couple of pints and then the last train home.

Before the climb up Mt Keen

Here we go

Too steep to ride

Pies and bridies at the top

Finally, some decent riding! Though was starting to regret not bring a helmet

Good descent off of Mt Keen but the water bars at the top were hard work – I popped a couple of tubes and dinged my rims

The rest of the descent was beautiful

This was the best bit of mountain biking in the whole trip

Cheeky cider and chippy in Edzell before blasting it in to Montrose. My ass was so **** sore by now

Last rays of sun in Angus

We **** did it

Overall it was quite an experience. The three days of rain didn’t help and the route is a bit funny. Lots of canal paths and roads, not actually a lot of good mountain biking. Hard work with the bikepacking gear too.
Don’t really think it’s something I’d do again.

Here it is on Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/639357163

We also did this to raise money for my friend Victoria to help her with her diabetes.
If you’re interested there is information here: https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/victoria

That was good, not the route I’d have chosen necessarily (because of all the bog you discovered!) but the photos are cracking.

Stag’s Breath though. Jesus…

Maybe not the best in terms of mountain biking, but it looks like a fun trip. Well done with the photos.

well done!

Have done something similar — agreed on the bogs!
TBH it’s not so much mountain biking as getting out there to me..

I think our route was pretty similar, Fungle instead of Mt Keen but apart from that all very familiar..

Thanks for the write-up, I enjoyed that! If you want a re-run sometime there’s a lot of us here who can give route ideas for something with a higher proportion of good mountain biking I’m sure. Well done for persevering through the bad weather too!

I can’t even look at my bike right now.

I’ve lost a bit of weight recently and consequently the saddle I use on my MTB and CX isn’t as comfy – I’ve lost some padding.

So I have huge bruises with cuts on them across my sitbones right now, so will need to wait a week or so before I even think about cycling again!

Was tough on the bike too – gears need adjusted, brake pads replaced, rear tyre replaced and the mysterious squeaks to be found etc before I can go out on it again.

I lost a pair of Sealskinz socks on the descent from Corrieairiack too – had them tied on to my dry bag at the front to try and air them.

The rear rack doesn’t work well either – too hard to fix the dry bag to it properly and it wore through it. I’d get a underseat thing instead

I found on two previous multi day trips, the same – had a seat post rack, dry bags of two different varieties, and grit worked between rack and bag, cue several mice holes..

Hehe, it takes a while, but in a couple of weeks you’ll all start thinking about doing it again once the pain has faded. It’s amazing how much more stuff wears out when the weather is crap! You’re making me feel even more lucky for the weather we got in June for our C2C from Glenelg to Stonehaven.

loved the whole story, made a change to read a whole thread and look at the photos. Having started and failed a coast to coast before because of the people with me, respect!

That’s a bummer Golf chick. One of the guys is someone i grew up with, the other guy is a neighbour but we do charity work together getting a bike park built. We’d all been on long multi day rides before, just not camping so knew we’d get on.

My ass bruises are spectacular! Have a nice leathery feeling to them, like the callouses on my fingers from playing guitar.

Donations are going great – got almost £2k now and set to finish tomorrow. Only ever expected a couple of hundred!

i reckon those stairs are some of the most photographed beach stairs – every good trip should end there 😀

Good write up, thanks 🙂
I fancy doing something like this with a few mates but it never seems to get past the drunken idea stage.

Excellent 🙂