Highland Trail 550 2015

He’ll be a one pot screamer after all that toil and exertion. 🙂

Under 4 miles to go, and 85 miles ahead of the next rider. That’s awesome.

Edit, too hasty, oops.

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

Might have got his beard caught in his rear sprocket. Lovely guy with the BEST bikepacking beard ever

Non confirmed time – but looks like Tom has finished.

Superb! Massive respect to him and all participants.
Thanks for a truly weird but compelling spectator experience for yet another year.

Honked the horn and waved as I passed the pipz near contin earlier this morning. Sorry for putting you off if you thought it was just another aggressive anti bike driver!

Did they give you the forks…. Minipips is well trained.

Fantastic effort Tom (other Tom). Hope you and your Missus to be have a great day.

Unconfirmed finish time 8.19pm.

Brilliant effort.

Jenny is still going. Good Lass!

I was talking to her about the HTR just a couple of weeks ago and she was really excited about it. I did have to show her how to start Tracking on her SPOT though!

Well done Tom!

Awesome work Tom. Congratulations!

Jenny is doing an awesome effort.

Just spoke to Rich & Tom – the weather has been awful. Rain and headwinds all day. They are going to try to get to Tyndrum tomorrow to see the end of the 3rd place race. Hopefully the blackhole of Strathcarron lets some of the riders escape…..

Honked the horn and waved as I passed the pipz near contin earlier this morning. Sorry for putting you off if you thought it was just another aggressive anti bike driver!

No they didn’t think that you were anti cysclist – they have had quite a few honk and waves over the last few days.

Ahh,good! They seemed to be motoring on pretty well.

Great ride Tom, well done!
Real shame about Josh’s bike letting him down, he was flying up until then. Seems to be a high toll on bikes and riders this year. Fingers crossed for everything holding together for Mike Toyn to bag second later today.

Scratch Updates:

Steve Field – Got really cold fixing puncture just out of Poolewe, only to get another one 30min later. Thought of spending time with wife won!

Phil FT – Hub SS freehub failure (again) lack of toenails not helping….eew.

Pretty sure this is the most up to date list of scratched riders:

Karl Booth
Steve Field
Phil FT
Rich and Tom Siepp
Ilan Rubenstien
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
Fabien Frohlicher
Nicolas Senie
Jean-Louis Doridot

Well done Mike Toyn, Staveley rider I deliver his post 🙂

Scratch Update:

Scott McGill – no reason given (@scottmcgillsr)

Looks like Jenny is struggling with the river crossing in Fisherfield. Given recent rainfall it must be pretty deep by now.

Looks like Jenny is struggling with the river crossing in Fisherfield. Given recent rainfall it must be pretty deep by now.

Yes, looks like she’s taking the safe option. That must be pretty demoralising at this stage.

Looks like Jenny has been turned back by the river – back at Shenavall now…

I’m at home in Edinburgh and eating a giant cookie and drinking endless mugs of tea. Doing some catching up on this thread!

Thanks for the support all!

Yes, looks like she’s taking the safe option. That must be pretty demoralising SMART at this stage.

FTFY

She’s made the right choice. If it’s high, she can wait for it to drop in a nice big dry bothy with firewood.

Fond memories 😕 of crossing those rivers, in gentle times, wouldn’t fancy it at others. Bothy sounds like a winner to me.

FTFY

She’s made the right choice. If it’s high, she can wait for it to drop in a nice big dry bothy with firewood.

Totally agree with you. Still can’t be the nicest feeling.

Well done Tom, looked tough conditions for much of the ride. Must be slightly weird sat at home watching the event you’ve just finished but is still going on.

Any pics of the finish Tom?

Thing is, how much food is she carrying at this point? You can only wait so long.

I don’t have any pictures of the finish but Alan Goldsmith’s friend Sarah took some, so will hopefully get them in due course.

That’ll be Mike Toyn finished now.

Fraser MacBeath looks safe for third if he can stay awake.

And Jenny is still pacing the banks of the Abhainn Strath na Sealga looking for a way across. In hindsight, she’d have been wise to have taken the permitted detour via the coast road. Easy to say that in retrospect of course.

The diversion is only permitted after you’ve been to the loch and decided not to cross. But, yes, she could have backtracked earlier in the day, and been well round the coast by now. She’d even have seen Ilan, which would have been good for morale.

Hope she is OK. Where is the nearest bothy?

Right next to her – Sheneval 😆

Looks like she didn’t go far out enough into the loch. I believe it gets shallower the further out you go, to a point.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@57.7813684,-5.2739742,808m/data=!3m1!1e3

I think it’s running high by anyones measure, Nik.

Alan G’s text from yesterday morning: https://twitter.com/ht_550/status/603499126072946691

But I agree, best chance nearer the mouth, though it looks a lot wider and therefore “worse”.

Scratch Update:

Steve Large – Bad food last night and now vomiting. Hitting the road back to Tyndrum.

I’m loving following this and am feeling for Jenny now who must have been searching for a safe place to cross the river for such a long time. I’m in awe of these guys (and boy and ladies).

We’re so inspired that we’re looking at some mini bike packing. Dotwatcher: I saw mini pips is using a half bag. Do you know where you can get one from and how long are they? I’m probably a similar height and am limited to what I can carry. God knows how I’d cross a stream without some sort of biblical water-parting help.

Got a guy from our club (hackney gt) still out there James Stephens – jj Stephens on live tracker