Don’t worry about kit or what things look like. We all turn up thinking we’ve got it covered only for someone to appear in the bikepacking equivalent of a thong! 😂

Packing is a bit of an art. There’s several ways you can go about it but I try and have “wet” stuff at one end and “dry” at the other so will have tarp & bivy bag at the front and sleeping bag and dry clothes at the back. Or maybe the other way round depending on weight and bulk of the two groups of kit.

Don’t use the stuff sacks that come with items like sleeping – they make the items an awkward shape to pack and leave lots of gaps between them, just stuff soft stuff in and around the genuinely awkward things like mugs. Probably the difference between getting everything into a 5L bag and an 8L one. If you want extra protection for items put them in an open plastic bag or dry bag, stuff them into the main bag then lightly close the bag, that way you pack better but still get two layers of protection.

As for taking the bags off the bike for a river crossing – that means three trips across any given river, two of which will be without the “prop” of the bike.

Didnthurt, have a look about 10mins 30 into this, so simple but helpful!

without the “prop” of the bike.

Not tried a river crossing with a bike, their floaty nature cant make them much use as a prop can it? I wouldnt want to cross 3 times though and the bikes in the pics are pretty lightly loaded compared to what I’d take.

genuinely awkward things like mugs

Nah, you lot are all backpackers so sport beards, casquette’s and dangle f*&^$(“g mugs

As Colin noted – fat bikes can be a bit “floaty” but not tried a deep river crossing with one myself – but standard MTB most definitely aren’t. If you hold the bike at an angle to the current then it will be swept away but that’s not “floating”. Hold the bike inline with the current and it will stay in place (with a little help to push against the current).

Here’s what my bike is likely to look like but no top tube bag and with a couple of Stem Cells for trail food instead. In there are all the items listed earlier by the OP.

Handlebar bag: Wet stuff – tarp, bivy bag, pole for tarp plus sleeping mat.
Jones bar bag: spare batteries, phone, cables, glasses
Frame bag: tools, spares, stove, mug and fuel, extra food, first aid kit, pegs for tarp, spare buff, spare gloves.
Saddle bag: sleeping clothes, microfibre towel, spare socks, sleeping quilt, extra thermal.

Not sure what else I need.

standard MTB most definitely aren’t

Mine is with 2.25x 26 tyres and a heavyish steel frame.

I’m liking the handle on that bike, nice bodge.

Also I’m taking a tiny packable backpack (just like the video), just I need to carry something like a sandwich or whatever.

Still unsure about the tyres, I’m pretty happy with my tyre setup as it is. But after the ride I did at the weekend on my cross bike with 38mm tyres and seeing how well it managed with rough trails. I’m now wondering would I be better off with something a lot racier. Maybe I’ll have a look on Facebook market place for a pair of lightly used pair of xc tyres.

One week to go. Any more?  Forecast for next Saturday is 14C, sunny and only 17% chance of precipitation.

Went for a shakedown ride today: 70km & 1200m. Without realising it I went at the same pace as Huw Oliver’s record for the full loop – chuffin’ Nora! Doing that four times in a row is some going especially given that the Nethy Bridge – Linn of Dee section is particularly slow.

13thfloormonk rode part of the route today, he managed a Strava KOM on one section. The Gaick river looked an easy pass. 👍😁

Yeah apologies all, amateur bike-packing skills here, there’s a Torq Banoffee pie caffeine gel and a pair of flip-flops lying in the heather somewhere at the side of the Gaick Pass singletrack, shaken loose by my attempts to ride it on 40mm tyres and rigid forks…

I walked back to look for them but had no idea where or when they fell off, d’oh! Was really looking forward to that gel as well…

At the very least if you see them can you stuff them behind a rock so they’re not an eyesore? Much obliged…

I keep checking the weather and it seems different every time I check. Fingers crossed 🤞

Weather looks reasonable ATM, certainly not wall to wall sunshine but not seen anything suggesting heavy rain in the next few days. SEPA is giving river levels at the low end of normal, let’s hope they stay like that. Might be windy though.

God help you if it is a high wind weekend …… Glen bulig is a wind tunnel although not directly into the prevailing wind….. It’s a long exposed section that has a perfect funnel out the feeder glens which collects the wind…..you get out of glen bulig into the prevailing wind all the way to the fealar lodge turn off…..

I got stung by the high wind in 2018

Trail-Rat is not wrong! I was in that infernal glen in (according to MWIS) 50mph headwinds at the weekend, lowest gear on flat track, some comedy steering moments when I stopped concentrating…

I really felt for the MTBer I passed before the loch, comedy wide bars with a big tent strapped underneath them, a perfect sail!

I had the same problem all the way from Tomintoul to Culardoch. The climb to Loch Builg was comedic.

New Covid guidance from Nicola Sturgeon, hope that it doesn’t change the weekend. 😬

I’m hoping the additional guidance I’ve sent out takes care of any concerns. The only time we’re likely to be pushing the limits is on the car park at the start and there should still be space to maintain social distancing.

The Aviemore Triathlon takes place on Saturday too and there’ll be a lot more there than at our small event.

Awesome, cheers.

Shame there is now a yellow weather warning for rain. Oh well.

The restriction to six people meeting comes into force on Monday but best practice and all that.

Not seen a yellow warning. All the forecasts ( BBC, MWIS, Met Office & Accuweather) have strong winds with around 60-70% chance of rain later on Saturday. So …

that means we’ll either have wall to wall sunshine or continual thunderstorms 😆

This what the bike is like packed:

Handlebar bag: tarp, pole, bivy bag, sleeping mat and windshirt.
Loop bars bag: phone, spare batteries, leads, glasses
Stem cells: trail food.
Frame bag: tools, spares, spare tube, mug with stove, fuel, midge net, some food, shock pump, first aid kit, pegs for tarp.
Seat bag: merino leggins and full sleeve top (pyjamas), down quilt, down jacket, spare socks, spare gloves, microfibre towel. SPOT tracker on top.

Apart from the frame bag which is pretty full it’s not overly stuffed. There’s actually loads of room in the handlebar bag as it’s only half full. Might put my evening meal in there as well. I’ll have my waterproof in a shirt pocket.

Looks like we have 17 starters tomorrow. Weather forecast isn’t looking great, with 50mph winds over the higher summits.

https://www.mwis.org.uk/forecasts/scottish/cairngorms-np-and-monadhliath

Me and two mates are starting tomorrow as well quite late in the day though. Safe to say our pace will easily identify us as non racers.

@13thfloormonk. How were 40mm tyres through glenfeshie? I’m away with work on nights just now. If weather allows In a few weeks time i was planning on trying:

Linn of Dee – Glenfeshie – Aviemore – Glenmore – Fords of Avon – Linn of Dee

On my cross bike with 40mm tyres am I just setting myself up for misery? My theory on the route was i realize there is a bunch of hike a bike even if you’re on a mountain bike so. Cross bike is quicker on landy tracks and roads and lighter to carry through the hike a bike.

Have a good ride – definitely a bit blowy out there, rode down to Tomintoul yesterday against a 30mph headwind but it was fun on the way back

LoveBBQ – I didn’t do the Cairngorm Loop proper, just bits of the outer loops.

But I agree with you, coming through the rockiest bits of Gaick, Loch Builg and Tilt, it struck me that the bits I couldn’t ride would possibly have been unrideable on an MTB anyway! I was probably also having to work a lot harder, I felt like a riding god threading through sone bits of Glen Tilt but was probably going half the speed of an MTBer!

Am beginning to think 40mm tyres are better on river crossings and boggy bits, I was pedalling through rivers without even using momentum to get through.

Have a good ride everyone!

Will try my best. 👌

Good luck nutters 😀

LoveBBQ – Glenmore to Linn of Dee on 40mm tyres wouldn’t be for me. Depends what your misery threshold is, I guess 😄

Err…

And they’re off!

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFHysj]DSC_1554[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

Some fully laden

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFM5yP]DSC_1549[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

some less so!

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFM5RY]DSC_1545[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFM68V]DSC_1540[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFMVn1]DSC_1541[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFM62H]DSC_1542[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFM5Xp]DSC_1543[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFMVaC]DSC_1544[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFHyRA]DSC_1546[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

And more

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFHyQo]DSC_1547[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFM5EF]DSC_1548[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFMUJs]DSC_1550[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFM5uv]DSC_1551[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jFHyt6]DSC_1552[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

Saturday went pretty well- somehow got to the Linn of Dee two hours quicker than three years ago. Didn’t need lights until well after the Red House. Then somehow lost all of it getting to Glen Feshie.

Bivvies in an old horse box😄which was dry but with lots of hay in it meant no stove usage.

Sunday I had zero energy. Phil Clarke had bivvied a few Km further on and was just packing up as I passed him. Nothing open in Tomintoul when I went through. The wind wasn’t too bad in Glen Avon but from Loch Builg onwards it was really hard work.

Had an hour in Braemar getting food, Steve Waters caught me up here. He got about ten minutes on me as I needed some medication for my arse which was really sore🤕

Linn of Dee to the Geldie took an hour as I was starting to get cramps. The Geldie was much deeper than on Saturday and the next two burns were also tricky. The wind didn’t let up so I walked a lot of the singletrack to the Tilt then walked all of the ravine section but still managed to fall a couple of times 🤨 one time I ended up with the bike on top of me and my leg jammed between the bottom bracket and the chainring! Some serious sense of humour failure occurred. By then I had had enough so bailed down the Tilt.

Still waiting on an update from 5 folk but so far, out of 16 doing the full double, we have 5 completions and 6 DNFs. I’ll hopefully get a full results list up in the next couple of days. Looks like our fastest finisher was just inside the 24 hours. Astonishing.

Conditions were challenging but not ridiculously so. It probably helped that the temperatures rose substantially yesterday as it meant folk could at least be warm and wet for a while.

Ian (don’t know his last name) was looking at completing today to be able to get a train home. Apparently he was a bit knackered yesterday

Ian on a Scalpel? Completed last night I think, all I know was that the pub was closed when he got there!

Yeah, Ian and me (Stuart) completed just after 11 last night.

Never been so happy to finish something I’d been looking forward to :). Really enjoyed the weekend though.

Colin, I can confirm that being warm and miserable was better than cold and miserable.

Hi All, I’d like to thank Scotroutes for organising this and other fellow ‘loopers’ for making it a very memorable (and challenging, for me anyway) ride. Special mentions go out to Stuart, Bob & Steve who all helped me navigate when my Garmin malfunctioned, plus had some good chat.

Some truly fantastic terrain intermixed with some long horrific hike-a-bike sections. The wind was at times pretty dangerous (imo) and I was blown off my bike a couple of times when caught unawares.

All in all it was a positive experience for me and well worth all the hours training for it but not one I’d repeat anytime soon. I think I’ll try to stick to routes that 100% cyclable as I felt that’s where my strengths are, I could barely walk in the end as my right knee and ankles were quite swollen and very sore, still sore today but will heal no doubt.

I’ll try to post a few photos later as I took quite a few. Also once I work out how to extract a gpx file from Garmin will submit it (well actually I have 2 files as I had to reset my Garmin to get my navigation back).

chapeau to all who completed, and thanks again.

Ian