West Highland Way Double Attempt & Endurance Film Announced

News

by 12

UK endurance mountain biker, and Team Syncros Endurance Team Manager, Rob Lee has announced that he will attempt to ride the full length, and back again, of the West Highland Way later this week. The West Highland Way is Scotland’s premier long distance route and runs from Milngavie, on the outskirts of Glasgow, to Fort William which sits at the foot of Ben Nevis. The route itself is 96 miles (154km) and so Rob will undertaking a journey of some 192 miles (308km) through some of the most scenic off road wilderness in the UK.

No stranger to such undertaking Rob was the first rider to take the South Downs Double record without a support crew, back in 2008, and has ridden a double version of the Pennine Bridleway, and linked all of the 7Stanes Red Routes, in his following rides, as part of his Seven Deadly Spins project.

This ride will be the sixth ride of that series and looks likely to be the hardest one yet. Having recently returned from filming and reconnaissance rides of the route Rob had this to say about the upcoming challenge:

“The route is really special, it goes through some amazing countryside and covers some really tough trails. I particularly like the way that it regularly changes and throws up so many variables that kit and bike choice are a really serious consideration. Looking back on the other rides I’ve done of this type this one is by far the toughest. The distance is no higher but the terrain itself is much harder to pass over at any great speed. I’m in fantastic shape at the moment, having worked very hard with my coach over the Winter, but even so I think this challenge is going to take about 32 hours to complete. This time I’m going to go supported; it makes sense really as we are producing a film about endurance mountainbiking so there will be a crew following me. I think this ride is hard enough as it stands so why make it harder? Whatever happens it’s going to make for some very interesting viewing. The scenery is so good and Mark (from film production company Reset Films) has a real eye for capturing visually stunning, and inspirational footage for the movies he makes”

This season Rob is working on a joint project with Mark from Reset Films – the makers of acclaimed mountainbike move ‘Home’ – to produce a new film that captures the spirit of the ultra-endurance adventures these riders undertake. The crew will be following Rob on this ride and gaining footage from trail, air and water as they search for the best vantage point.

The ride is scheduled to start at 11am on Friday this week (the 16th) from the southern end of the trail and Rob hopes to be finished some time before midnight on Saturday! As with all his challenge rides online viewers will be able to track his progress from the live tracker page, on his blog site, as well as following live updates via Twitter.

Tracker Page: http://roblee7ds.blogspot.com/p/live-event-tracker.html
Live on-the-ride Twitter updates: @RobLee7ds

West Highland Way Double trailer from ResetFilms.co.uk on Vimeo.

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 22 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

More posts from Chipps

Comments (12)

Leave Reply