I’m all set to attempt the WHW in a day this week, planning South to North, 2am start and on a 29er HT. the wife is going to follow me in the van throughout the day resupplying me with food/spares as required…

Anybody completed this before, any tips or things to look out for? I am aware of the carry section at the North end of Loch Lomond, and have done the Devils staircase to kinlochleven a couple of times by bike. I am aiming to complete in less than 20 hours!

Good luck! My wife half walked half cycled the WHW earlier this year, and she reckoned the first bit would be a right ball ache with a bike to carry. I rode Bridge of Orchy to KLL with her and it was great fun.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/local-sport/walkers-cycle-club-members-take-1008369

This lot did it in 16.

Keith forsyth did it one way in 10:27

and phil simcock did it both ways in 29hrs.

Nothing specific that you’re not already aware of by the sounds of it, but a general outdoorsy tip that I learnt the hard way on my 1 day attempt – if you do end up getting wet, don’t stop for too long in wet clothes, I tried to refuel and warm up at the Kingshouse after a good few hours in the rain and it was enough to finish me off, should either have refueled on the fly or carried a spare warm/dry top in a dry bag to change into…

Have you ridden much of the route before Loch Lomond? If not, pay a lot of attention to following those wee signs in the dark… Easy to miss directions on leaving Mugdock, a sharp wee turn off onto singletrack into Dumgoyne etc, even in daylight from my memory!
Loads of gates from the distillery on the old railtrack section. The road section towards Drymen suddenly stops on a fast downhill to cut through a grassy field, again easy to miss in the dark (going to be 3-4am at this point). The descent off conic hill also has some interesting steps and rocks to navigate over in the half-light of dawn too.
Don’t underestimate how draining the section from Rowardennan to Inversnaid (where the proper carrying section begins) will be – although lots more rideable there are staircases to carry up, big step downs, lots of pinch flat stream crossings to make, and very technical in places. From Inveroran North it’s plain sailing apart from the 2 big climbs (Devil’s staircase and out of KLL after).

Good luck, this is something I’d like to do after riding a section just north of Loch lomond. I was worried about the volume of walkers though? I was there on an august evening though.

As others have said, good luck!

I did it in something around 13 hrs last summer, unsupported. I would have liked some support, as you can waste a lot of time popping in to shops/cafes to grab more food, refill pockets etc. It may only be 5-10 minutes here and there, but it adds up.

Try to make sure you have a good gpx route, as there are dozens of options out there, and the route finding can be a little unobvious in the dark (I know my way around Mugdock, as I grew up about 2 miles away), but still managed to get a few turns wrong!

I would make sure you wear shoes you are comfortable walking in, and carrying your bike with over difficult terrain. The section from north of Inversnaid to opposite Ardlui is hard terrain – really hard, but if you push on will only take 2 hrs.

Don’t underestimate the amount of climbing in the southern half of the ride. From Crianlarich to the foot of the Devils Staircase is the easy/fast bit, but there is a lot of tough terrain to get there, and then kicks up between the Kingshouse and Fort William.

A bell would be useful, as you can get lots of walkers (maybe not so many at this time of year), but many will be drifting along, spread all over the track, hoods up, headphones in etc.

Keep going. The section after the big climb after KLL seems to go on forever before you finally head down into Fort William.

I have attempted it twice, once successfully, and even then stopped for too long at King’s House as it was sooo easy to chill out with everyone else that had finished their activities for the day (pint of coke and a wee took about an hour…).

Remember you like mountain biking, and even walking up the north bit of LL you’re in a lovely part of the world. 20 hours is pretty realistic if you can keep on plodding away.

Cheers for the quick feedback!!

Trail rat: I thought 16 hours would be a good target for me, but don’t want to overcook it and get lost/tired/fall so I’ll aim for 20 And see how I’m doing after I pass Loch Lomond.

13thfloormonk/retro mud:
did u manage to complete it and if so how long did it take you? its the bit I’m a little unsure how easy it is to follow, I have the GPS on my garmin, an OS map plotted on my phone and have the WHW map to carry with me in case I get lost. I am planning about 8 hours (hoping to take it nice and easy due to darkness/difficulty) to get to beinglas campsite just at the drovers inn. Does this seem a reasonable, aiming to meet the wife their so would be good to get an accurate time!

Retro mud: as above, I have walked parts of it at balmaha near conic hill but not much! I’m hoping to budget plenty time for this section and check the map plenty of times. My parents walked it a few months back and said it is all clearly signposted, but I would imagine it’s a bit more difficult in the dark and on the bike!

GavinB
13 hours!! Well done!! I take it you have done a fair bit of long distance biking?

I have teva links flats and salamon walking shoes for on the bike, both have been through hours of hike a bike before, so will have a spare dry pair and hopefully keep the Texas for just before the Devils stair case!

Just purchased a bell, but was hoping for a quieter whw at this time of year.

Philjunior
How long did it take you to complete? Good advice on enjoying it and not stopping to long, I’m hoping meeting the wife at certain points will shorten my stoppages as she will be getting fed up of waiting on me!

13thfloormonk/retro mud:
did u manage to complete it and if so how long did it take you? its the bit I’m a little unsure how easy it is to follow, I have the GPS on my garmin, an OS map plotted on my phone and have the WHW map to carry with me in case I get lost. I am planning about 8 hours (hoping to take it nice and easy due to darkness/difficulty) to get to beinglas campsite just at the drovers inn. Does this seem a reasonable, aiming to meet the wife their so would be good to get an accurate time!

No, I didn’t complete, made a good early start but ended up taking 12 hours in the rain to get to Kingshouse, let myself get cold whilst trying to dry out and just didn’t have the willpower to head back out into the rain, ended up just rolling down Glen Coe to meet my driver a bit ahead of schedule! 8)

8 hours to Beinn Glas sounds reasonable, I seem to remember managing it in almost exactly that amount of time (started 5am, got there about 1pm) but this was a few years ago so I could easily be wrong.

Retromud speaks a lot of sense. The only thing I would add is the section between Drymen & Conic Hill can get quite churned up due to forestry trucks. Not sure if it’s been fixed but the whw signs were missing there last time I did it, and can be easy to take the wrong fork, especially as it’ll be proper dark by then. I’d also be v careful descending Conic Hill-it’ll be cold this week so may get icy at the top. Fwiw there’s a decent meeting place in the car park at Balmaha or Rowardennan, then yer missus has got a long wait till you reappear at the north end-Beinglass Farm (I think).

When I did it was leading a group fundraising ride of very differing fitness/ability over 3 days – with the accompanying faffing at every stop, multiple punctures, photo stops for the blog, and one totally trashed bike on day one (good job i’d arranged a spare bike in the support vehicle). Also done as far as Inversnaid as part of an aborted bikepacking trip (riding buddy injury meant taking the ferry out at that point).
Both times have had to stop and have a think coming out of Mugdock on where the route went! The signs are there, but they are designed for walkers pootling along, so you have to remember to be looking in the verges for them. Does get easier as you go North.
8 hours to Beinglas does seem doable, but you might want to make sure you can call her from Balmaha or Rowardennan as that will give you a much better idea of when you are going to get there.

Inversnaid would work as a meeting point too.

Any chance you could ride the Mugdock section in daylight beforehand just to familiarise youself with the route?

Just checked, and my memory must be getting hazier, as it was more like 15 hrs for me. Moving time was just over 13 hrs, so that reinforces what I said earlier, about the time wasted in stops.

Unless you normally ride in flats, I wouldn’t switch to them just for this personally. There is more of an advantage to being able to ride the smooth bits quickly, rather than being able to walk the rough bits comfortably, if that makes sense?

Also, just looked at my timings, and it took me 4h 15mins to get to Inversnaid (around 55km), then two hours to cover the next 8km. After that though, things get much easier (until the final climbs).

I took me about 18.30 including stops.

About 15 hours or maybe a bit under were in the saddle, plodding aiming to finish rather than aiming to set any speed records. I can’t really conceive how people can aim for a fast time on it to be honest!

8 hours is almost spot on for how long it took me to get to Beinglas campsite.

Gav’s a machine.

He also made ABSOLUTELY no sense when he phoned me at the end while waiting in the Queue in the chip shop. I wish I had recorded that call 🙂

triple post

yes triple

My first meeting point will have to be beinglas campsite, as we are staying in milngavie the night before, my wife is 7 months pregnant so getting her to meet me at beinglas for 10am is a good compromise!
Thanks for the suggestions about a trial run to mugdock, will have a look the day before to get an idea where I’m ment to be going.
I imagine I will be doing a bit of walking at conic hill in the dark and possible ice, don’t want to be getting injured their in the middle of the night!

Glad to hear my timings are realistic, then if I’m feeling good I can push on for the Devils staircase as a second meeting point!
Phill junior that is my aim plod through it and complete, but if I’m coping well I would like to finish before complete darkness.
Moon boy/gavb recommendation for a chip shop in fort bill??

Don’t underestimate how draining the section from Rowardennan to Inversnaid (where the proper carrying section begins) will be – although lots more rideable there are staircases to carry up, big step downs, lots of pinch flat stream crossings to make, and very technical in places.

Last time I was at the section 3 miles north of Rowerdennan in late April the path was closed. Work being done on the path and a bridge. So if it’s still closed you would need to stay on the forestry track until the end a couple of miles short of Inversnaid. It’s well signed and taped off on the main track. So if it is still closed you won’t miss it.

Unless anyone has been up more recently and can confirm it’s open now.

I did this last year (20 hours, 17 moving) unsupported after attempting it supported the year before. The first attempt was halted after an off that skinned my knee quite badly.

The lesson I learned was that I need to really concentrate on things when I’m feeling tired. Last year I also came off at the first little obstacle on the Devil’s Staircase descent. No damage but it woke me up and I reined it in a bit for the rest of the descent.

I also learned that there’s a proper way to swipe a door entry card and that youth hostel staff don’t like being woken up at 2am.

Eight hours to Beinn Glas sounds about right but oh boy, it’s a tough ride getting there. I ate a heck of a lot of food that day. A proper sit down meal at Real Food Cafe at Tyndrum was rejuvenating and the progress you make in the section of the ride after that is very satisfying.

I had four days booked off work to choose the one with the best weather conditions. I got really lucky with that although it was almost too hot – up to 30 degrees late afternoon.

Good luck. Let us know how you get on.

A friend of mine did it “backwards” in April starting off in Fort Bill at around 10:30pm and finishing early the next morning. He did it on his tod and managed fine but I imagine it’s harder doing it the proper way??

Plenty of good info on the bearbonesbikepacking website.

Sounds like you’ve thought it through. Get stuck in and enjoy/endure until the end!

Link to the brief writeup my mate did including a few pics along the way if it helps in any way http://www.trials-forum.co.uk/topic/180815-post-a-pic-of-your-non-trials-bike/?page=27#comment-2633803

I did it last September, various threads looking for advice/info on here. I didn’t expect to manage it in one push, had thoughts of a quick 6 hour bivvy followed by an early start to meet the 24 hour deadline… in the end I was enjoying it so much I just kept going.
I’ve done a couple of road centuries, including some moderately tricky ones like Fred and Etape du Dales and was expecting something similar but twice as hard.
In reality it was just absolutely brilliant fun. Totally amazing. I grew up in that area and it was brilliant going past all the old haunts from childhood, then past various rivers I’ve canoed, ice climbs I’ve backed off, ski areas I’ve visited etc etc.
Other long cycle rides have been a chore, but the WHW was ace. It wasn’t till Devils’ staircase that I had to start focussing and pushing myself to continue.

So Wednesday morning I set off just after 2am to attempt the west highland way!! Arrived in fort William about 2030 so in total 18 and a half hours I was done!! My garmin died as soon as I arrived so haven’t managed to check the moving time, but think it was about 16 and a half hours ( I hope it saved.)

Thanks everybody for their tips came in very handy especially the first 30-40km of the route in the dark!

Was a brilliant but hard day, got one puncture 10km from the end but the rest went smoothly. The north side of Loch Lomond is as frustrating as has been mentioned, I am glad I was pre informed or it would of drove me crazy!

Anybody else thinking of trying it I would recommend it! Even at this time of year my cheap eBay lights lasted 5 hours on the lowest brightness in the morning, then a change of battery in the evening. Having the wife their supporting was good for moral, topping up fluids, food and freshly made coffee, although I maybe wouldn’t of stopped for so long if I was by myself!

Good effort! Thanks for reporting back

good effort.

i swore id never do it again 😀 I dont mind hike a bike but i draw the line at bikes riding humans to get through 😀

Well done! The short days at this time of year make such outings a lot harder.

Yesterday I think I met about 30 walkers in total, so was a fine quite day!! Wouldn’t fancy it at all in the middle of summer though!

Well done! I really want to do this next year, when would you say is the best time to go?

Nice work chap. I found it hard enough over two days!

Aye, well done. Perfect weather for you too. Interestingly I said I’d never do it again too, but I was on me tod/unsupported. Now a mate is trying to encourage me to do the whw (from glasgow) & great Glen in 24 hours a la Keith Forsyth-Maybe next year 😉

Iridebikes- I would say October was good for it as it was very quite for walkers, but I was really lucky with the weather, no wind and no rain!!

Great job! 🙂

It’s on my to do list for 2016, over 3 days though…..

Are you watching this Scotroutes?

great effort, well done

piemonster – Member
Are you watching this Scotroutes?

I’m free on Sunday. You?

Looks like a good next single day ride after the Trans Cambrian Way…