Arrochar gravel loop mini-report.

Celebrated lockdown restrictions easing by meeting two pals (one of whom happened to be my director, no pressure…) at Ardlui for an 85km loop taking in Sloy Damn, Coire Grogain, Ardgartan Peninsula, Hell’s Glen and Glen Kinglas back to the cars.

https://www.strava.com/routes/22976356

I’d spent ages tweaking the route and making it just perfect, but one of my late additions, a switchbacking gravel climb starting 1km south of Pulpit Rock, was to set the tone for the ride.
It was a good double track, but waaaaaay steeper than I had imagined, and the surface was especially loose and soft, I’ve never had so much difficulty maintaining traction. As my mate put it, who the **** put gravel down on this gravel route?!

The climb took us to a valve house at the top of the famous turbine pipes above Inveruglas. From here it was a fantastic tarmac descent which would be worth of climbing on the road bike just for the novelty. We descended to the Sloy Dam access road and climbed to the dam.

We then descended a bit and joined the Coire Grogain loop to climb/traverse along below the Arrochar Alps and descend to Ardgartan. The Coire Grogain climb was steep (and REALLY steep) in parts and also very loose and rocky in parts, we were all off and pushing in places. Also enough to shake a Dart loose in one of the guys tyres resulting in a stop for a fiddle and re-inflate.

After the various loose/steep/rocky sections and final (lovely) singletrack descent back to the road, one of the guys was ready to bail. He’s a pure roadie with no off-road experience and although he had 650b wheels on I noticed he was actually only running 40mm tyres on them, so probably more draggy and less cushioning than my larger diameter 700s with 40mm tyres.

We persuaded him to carry on by promising to skip Ardgartan peninsula by climbing the (old) Rest and Be Thankful and rejoining our route at the start of Glen Kinglas. The old RaBT was a good climb as the road has been surfaced and repaired to act as a sort of ‘landslide bypass route’ for the glen. We plummetted down the other side of the RaBT to start the tailwind assisted climb through Glen Kinglas.

Glen Kinglas started as the sort of Gravel we had been looking for all along! A lovely glen and really nice surface, fine, loose gravel but the gradient and tailwind allowed you to clip along quite happily, even up the climbs.

It wasn’t to last though, I’d never normally complain that a descent seemed to go on for ages, but this one had any number of really jarring cobbly sections to begin with, which I quite enjoyed but I knew our struggling friend on his 650s wouldn’t. Also, as the descent went on there were some surprisingly steep and fast sections, I went steaming into one quite happily only to spot what looked like instant pinch flat and probably rim death rocks and loose rubble sticking out everywhere. Again, I had to stop and flag it down for our struggling friend.

Scenery at the end was constantly fantastic though, high above Loch Lomond

So, lessons learned: a standard gravel build (let’s say 1x with 40mm tyres) is perhaps treading quite a fine line between suitable and unsuitable, even generally ‘good’ forestry or farm land double track can be a struggle, which is not what you want when you’re plotting long days. I’m happy with my 2x setup but if I was bikepacking I think even my 31×34 lowest would be pretty restrictive.

Also, there is a difference between an ex-MTBer on a gravel bike and a pure roadie on a gravel bike. Shouldn’t have been a surprise but I still think of gravel riding as just being road riding with fatter tyres, but when you’re trying to find traction on steep loose gravel, or trying to skim over the top of pointy loose rocks when you’re basically going too fast, well, that’s where the MTB experience comes in.

Final lesson: don’t invite others on rides unless you’ve ridden it all before or are absolutely damn sure it’s a good route. Simply sticking to double track the whole way is no guarantee of a day out that everyone will enjoy. We cut an 85km loop down to a 45km loop and it still took us 3hrs, when I’ve easily averaged 20km/h or faster on previous gravel rides. Basically, small differences in surface and gradient can make a disproportionate difference to your average pace.

The irony is that I was going to propose a loop of Glen Coe and Loch Etive next, taking in the famous misery of the ‘Three Sisters’ between Bonawe and Ardmaddy. Think I’ll keep that as a solo mission…

Nice write up and pics there. Good work sir!

I would definitely do the Glen Etive ride solo though.

As a point to point, may I suggest the John Muir Way for a big day out? Perfect for a gravel bike. A tough climb out from Helensburgh to start if you go via the 3 Lochs Way over the old coffin road but a bit more interesting. Once in Strathblane, the hill climbing pretty much disappears.

Looks like the John Muir Way is getting a new section off road towards Gartocharn judging by the trail building I saw a few days ago.

Cheers

Sanny

I’ve been tempted by the John Muir Way, need to give it a go although since it passes my doorstep pretty much I’d probably just do Helensburgh to South Queensferry.

I think I’d be more keen to do Fife Coastal Path first though, it’s less familiar to me than a lot of the JMW.

It’s all academic though until Scotrail start taking bikes on trains again, still anxiously awaiting them opening bookings so we can get to Bridge of Orchy and back in September…

Enjoyed reading that. Nice one.

It’s all academic though until Scotrail start taking bikes on trains again, still anxiously awaiting them opening bookings so we can get to Bridge of Orchy and back in September…

Aye, here too, waiting on getting bike booked onto FW train home from WHW in a day attempt. 🤞🏻

They’ve been pretty responsive on Facebook although still not confirming one way or the other whether they’ll open bookings up any time soon.

When’s WHW-in-a-day pencilled in for?

Scotrail responded, ‘August sometime’ is all they’ll commit to for bikes on trains.

I guess they’re still taking the ‘essential journeys only’ mantra quite seriously.

August 15th Ian, travelling back on 16th. I really don’t want to have to pedal both ways!.

If only national express would let a broken down bike on, their luggage holds are never full.

At the risk of hijacking my own thread…

Fancy any company from Milngavie to Cailness? I have a route I want to try from there up and over to Aberfoyle. I could even bring my MTB so you wouldn’t be seen consorting with a gravel rider 😉

Don’t worry if you would prefer a solo epic, I totally understand some experiences are best suffered alone! I’ve fobbed folk off in the past when I basically didn’t want someone else messing with my best laid plans 😀

Ian, we’d be delighted to have your company mate (YoKaiser doing it too), but not sure you’d be up for a 2am start!.

not sure you’d be up for a 2am start!

What’s that? the sound of a gauntlet being dropped? 😉

Will be in touch, it sounds fun but I might be pushing my wife’s patience a little, she’ll just have started a new job so I should probably being doing extra daddy duties for a few weeks…

Haha! would be good to catch up buddy!.

Another option for thoughts, there’s a section on luggage on national express website, about restricted items – Bicycles which aren’t folded, dismantled or wrapped

I’ve a few mates in FW, reckon I could post some DPM, cable ties and a roll of packing tape* up to one, and get em on the coach doon the road instead…. Ever tried it?.

*Yes, it does sound a bit rapey :-0

nice route, think I’ll venture down from Aberdeen and ride it. Where would be a good bivi spot on the loop? Cheers!

That looks and sounds fantastic, nice work. I did need to read that twice though, for a minute I thought you’d climbed Claire Grogan early on in the day.

nice route, think I’ll venture down from Aberdeen and ride it. Where would be a good bivi spot on the loop? Cheers!

Huh, weird, I’d typed a big response to this earlier, must not have posted.

There’s a bothy on the shore of Loch Long, near the bottom of the Ardgartan Peninsula. Even if it’s closed due to Covid it might be a nice spot for a bivvy.

Alternatively the wee lochan right beside the route at the southern tip of the Peninsula would be great.

If you want a bivvy with some historical relevance, Alistair Borthwick’s caves from ‘Always a Little Further’ would be easy to include in the route, you just need to drop down to the floor of Glen Loin after Coire Grogain and do some sniffing around.

Lastly, my original loop took in the west shore of Loch Goil towards Carrick Castle, and then further south to Ardentinny before returning on the roads. I reckon there could be some nice shoreline bivvying to be had in that general area.

Markus Stitz included a lot of this stuff in his Wild About Argyll trail I think, he might have more pictures etc. on his site.

climbed Claire Grogan early on in the day.

Had to google her 😀

Nobeer – alas the West Highland Way dream has fallen at the first hurdle. APPARENTLY it’s my son’s birthday that day. I averted near divorce by pointing out that his birthday is actually the following day but it seems his actual party has been planned for the 15th…

🙈😆

Apologies for bumping own thread:

Nobeer – how’d you get on with the WHW?

It’s done, about all I’m saying. 🙂

Weather was pretty much perfect (meaning midges though) climbing over conic in short sleeves at 4am sweating our tits off. LL just bloody awful, had a couple of cracking OTB moments that reigned me in a bit, Klaus tried to commit suicide just before the ladder, plummeting to the lochside rocks below, bruised hand and wind out of sails moment.

Lots of stops, lots of fannying about, and into FW in the wee small hours.

Black sheep bunkhouse is tremendous, and also Baggage freedom for getting us back to Milngavie sharpish.

£2155 raised for charity, which is the main thing.

Best bit of the weekend was lying on the grass next to Nevis sports in gorgeous sunshine for 4 hours, snoozing and watching the world go by. How often do you ever get the chance to do that?.

Nice one! My one and only attempt finished at Kingshouse, spent too long over a bowl of chips in wet gear, cooled down, walked back outside shivering into a hoolie, phoned dad for a lift home… 🙁

Didn’t realise it was for charity, got a link?

Sure have buddy.

https://justgiving.com/fundraising/gsk-greg-bowie