Highland Trail 550 2015

Anyone know who or how the guy on the Ice Cream Truck is getting on?

Never mind found him. Cracking job!

Looks like Tom stopped for a few hours just north of Fort Augustus last night

But he’s “only” got 84 miles to go now and is over 75 miles ahead of the next guy.

Looks like today’s the day.

think so! the weather is about to go to shit, good reason not to stop.

Just outside Fort Oggie – 60 miles to go.

Still watching the dots….

Really pleased and rooting for Steve Field, one of ‘our’ Stirling bike club coaches…

Official Scratch Update:

Alasdair McClean – two days in the redzone, food no longer works. Getting the train back and eating more.
Chris Alder – scratch at Oykel Bridge .

I do feel like the grim reaper some days.

Saw Steve Field eating in Ullapool last night. He’s doing ok, but wasn’t sure where he was going to stop last night ( maybe at the end of the road before the off road section to corrie hallie.

Looks like Rich & Tom are re-visiting Strathpuffer!

Mark McPhillips has scratched.

He stayed at the Dundonnell hotel last night and is unable to continue this morning. He’s trying to figure out how to get back as he cant ride! Legs, knees, back trouble etc etc.

^^

Official Scratch as above for Mark McPhillips

Scratch Update:

Bryan Singleton – Arm injury … can’t hold bars.

Scratch Update:

Bert Platzer – no reason given.

That was a flurry – it is an attritional race.

I’m in Garve now, riding an OK 30 miles this morning validating my decision to scratch. Both knees now sore, and I’m feeling generally worn out from pushing too much over the last couple of days. Suggestion for next year is to pass directly through Garve as the food van is amazing!

Sorry to hear you scratched Alasdair!

I rode some of the course with this man the last couple of years, and he did an amazing job of finishing last year, despite starting off with a nasty cold. He looked like death warmed up that year at the start!

Did you go out too hard this time? I know you had wanted to better your time. Bad bonk two days in a row, and the weather sounded bad, plus a twitchy knee, not a good combo!

At this stage in the race, it gets really really hard. Being exhausted, and there area lot of hard walking sections all the way down the West coast. If you are carrying any kind of injury, it is not good.

I don’t think I went too hard really as I was fine for the first two days. Day 3 even when I did the Bealach Horn was OK but I just couldn’t eat enough food towards the end and I’d stopped getting any energy from it. I used to get an effect from food within about half an hour but my digestion had slowed down so much it was taking two hours before I felt the benefits, even from a combination of simple and complex carbs.

I had considered exit as far back as Kylesku but kept on to Lochinver. A frankly horrific bonk from Achfary to Kylesku had me almost crawling up the hill and considering a nap in a ditch as my spirits were so shot. Lack of accommodation in Lochinver meant I committed to the bothy, which in turn meant I needed an exit to the road the following morning, so Oykel Bridge. No buses from there so I rode out to Ullapool and it was that section, which was just lovely last year, that sealed it for me. The majority of it was pushing into a headwind and even after three bacon rolls and loads of fluids in Oykel Bridge it still took me two cans of Coke and my emergency big bag of sweets to get me through.

That sounded a bit like a whinge and a confessional – oops!

Scratch Update:

Jonathan Edwards & Bryan Singleton have both scratched and are returning on the road together.

Mark McPhillips is riding back to Spean Bridge over two days (50 miles a day) so he can jump on the train.

Ok,

So far these are all of the scratches I have recieved:

Jonathan Edwards
Bryan Singleton
Josh Ibbet
Steve Heading
Bert Platzer
Mark McPhillips
Darreb Kosliki
Amanda Brooks
Tom Gibbs
Alasdair McClean
Chris Alder
Giacomo Maltman
Ed Procter
Ashraf Kame
Kristan Rivers
Dave Barter
Steve Robbins
Andrew Hutchenson

Also confirming the following:

Pete Lumsden will be starting his ITT tomorrow at 9am.

Scratch Update:

All three French riders have scratched together. Oh mon Dieu!
Fabien Frohlicher
Nicolas Senie
Jean-Louis Doridot

Dropping like flies!

Worth nothing Phil had finished 4 hours ago at this stage last year

😯

r8jimbob88 – Member
Dropping like flies!

Is that the midge concentration?

😉

Last climb coming up for Tom – wahoo!

Ilan’s back on the route!

He’s going to confuse a few of the other riders.

After riding for that long I don’t think it will take much to confuse them…

surroundedbyhills – Member
Ilan’s back on the route!

If his tracker is right he’s done an epic of his very own. 🙂

The race between 3rd-6th looks as if it could be interesting… those dots are getting close to each other.

2nd is surely sewn up (assuming no major mechanical or illness). Poor Mike Toyn is treading a lonely furrow out there. (sneaky edit there…)

Lots of interest behind that though, with Ricky Cotter in 5th/6th place.

<edit??? ;)>

Javier Simon could be in a spot of bother – hasn’t moved for 2 hours and just been over taken by Steven Sloof …

More likely his SPOT tracker is off (intentionally or otherwise)

Hope so – it would be heartbreaking to get so close.

Is anyone there to meet Tom? He should be on the final hill by now. Not a record time but hours ahead of Mike and conditions seem to have been much more challenging than last year.

His fiancee is there waiting for him. He has a few days to recover now before his stag this weekend.