Remember seeing an epic tour of Ben Nevis in an old MBR once - does anyone remember the route?
I'm pretty clear on the Spean Bridge - Fort William bit, but does it then go up the road in Glen Nevis, then the path to Luibelt and over the singletrack back down to Spean Bridge? It's not following the WHW to Kinlochleven and then out past Mamore Lodge, is it? That must be much further than the 70ishK the MBR version was...?
Follows the WHW as you say. To go up Glen Nevis is a boggy mess.
Ta, that's a monster for a one-dayer. Better leave it til spring.
I have done it in winter a couple of times, it isn't that bad to be honest. A lot of the route is fairly fast. Go for it.
We did this in May last year. Started at Witches Trail in Fort William and messed about for a bit on the XC course. We then followed the WHW as Smee says toward Kinlochleven - good (optional, which we took!) techy descent to pick up the slog up past Mamore Lodge and onto to Luibelt. Push and ride up the Bealach then a great descent on singetrack before smoother fireroads toward Spean Bridge. We then rode back to the Witches Trail via fireroads and a bit of singletrack.
It's a great ride - I had it at about 50 miles - but a big day out.
There were four of us riding it - three a lot fitter than the fourth! I think it took us about 9 hours including all stops but the three of us could have probably done it in about 7 hours I think. We did benefit from bone dry conditions as well. It would be a BIG ride prior to April/May I reckon.
Just had a look at the route on memory map - 40 miles with 5600ft of ascent.
I'd consider doing it clockwise - i.e. start at Nevis Range and head up to tramway, follow as far as The Cour, drop down to bridge at 120m contour (singletrack), head east to Lairig Leacach then up the landrover track to bothy. Then take the track on the flank of Stob Ban to Meanach Bothy - this is mostly rideable in the dry but goes up to almost 600m so probably has a lot of snow on it, then descend down to the river (cracking descent, I loved it so I did). Cross river and take rough landrover track to Loch Eilidhes Mor and Beag and out towards Mamore Lodge. If you need supplies drop down to Kinlochleven on one of the paths (not done any of them but some are pretty sporting from what I've been told) and regain height up tarmac to Mamore Lodge. From there WHW into Glen Nevis then north up A82 to Mallaig turn - there is a cycleway from there that runs parallel to Torlundy then back into Leanachan forest picking up some of Witches Trail by the River Lundy if you have the legs for it.
It's an amazing day out in the hills - 40-45 miles from memory and a lot of climbing - one for a nice day in late spring/ early summer or late autumn.
As others have said it's mostly pretty quick riding but with quite a few nice techy bits. Definitely do it anticlockwise though, you do most of the climbing on good tracks and most of the descending on singletrack.