Are we all ready for some vicarious adventure next week?

Saturday morning at Tyndrum will see the biggest field yet for the HT550, with a very sizable contingent of women after Alan making a special effort to encourage more along.

Weather has been damp and blustery this past couple of weeks so it’ll not be dry tracks. On the other hand, river levels are currently ok.

Some of the line up…

https://dotwatcher.cc/feature/bikes-of-ht550-2022

Follow the action in real time.

http://trackleaders.com/highland22f.php

Yay, love a bit of dot watching 🙂

I was chatting to some of them in Tyndrum thos morning. Posse of french blokes one of who wants to challenge the record.

Why are cyclists so obsessed with kit?
Why not invite the participants to say a bit about themselves, objectives, fears, aspirations

I couldn’t give a shit whether xxx is using an oval chainring…

TJ’s post is the most interesting window into one of the competitor’s psyche on the thread. More of that please….

As a counterpoint, I’m interested in their kit. It’s an article called ‘bikes of the HT550’, so the content isn’t entirely unexpected.

He was a young lad. I suspect he is going to be suprised. With the weather we have had i dont see anyone doing a quick time. The bogs will swallow folk and the river crossings will be fun

An old mate “Ed Smith” who is a photographer based out of Kingussie is one to watch…

Yes!  Love a dot watch, especially on trails you can, at least in part, relate to!

I do know that Alan has been really supportive of womans ultra, and its great to see many of the 24 spaces he set aside taken https://highlandtrail550.weebly.com/startlist.html

Women of The Highland Trail 550

Arghhh…two woman down. Phil and Alice both just tested positive for covid 🙁

One of the french blokes i met is also a small scale bike manufacturer and he had a very interesting ti bike that he built for this. I have pics but promised mot to post them yet as he is going to launch it commercially after the race. Ti frame optimised for adventure races /bike packing

It looked great

Women of The Highland Trail 550

Now we’re talking, that’s a bloody excellent article 🙂

Hope the weather improves

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz730e1j3djo

Hope the weather improves

Next couple of days aren’t warm and a fresh northerly wind but at least dry, easterlies and showers for the homeward leg. We’ve had record rainfall this year which means it’s quite wet everywhere.

Depends where you mean dovebiker – been so dry in the east.

Good luck to all!

Women of the highland trail was a good read, thank you.

If the French guy wanting the record is simon guingard, then he looks to be off course already. Hopefully a tracking error.

Has Rich Rothwell really pulled out? He seemed to stop quite early so possibly trashed a bit of kit? What a bugger.

The two Frenchmen are going well. I suppose this time tomorrow is the test of who has paced it well.

Cracking bit of dotwatching!

Has Rich Rothwell really pulled out? He seemed to stop quite early so possibly trashed a bit of kit?

An early injury due to a crash with another rider.

I quite like reading kit lists 🙂

What Kitty Packed for an Ultra-Cycling Road Race

Yes, According to Facebook, clipped by someone very near the start. Injured knee and bruised/broken ribs!

looks like a few folk in the chippy in Fort Augustus but two frenchmen didn’t bother! Still – have they gone out too fast? Tomorrow will tell I guess

Jeezo, that is rotten luck.

Angus Young way ahead! In an Instagram post pre event he said he was knackered 😳

Angus Young way ahead!

I bet he feels like he’s on a highway to hell

pulling out a 40 mile lead overnight is impressive – when I went to bed he was at a similar distance to the other leaders sleep is for losers?

I have ridden or walked most of the trails they use. the miles they are covering is almost unbelieveable

It looks like Angus didn’t stop at all. He would have missed Contin Stores so must have plenty snacks to get to Drumbeg!

Any news on Oonagh Thin? She was storming but her tracker is stuck at Fort Augustus. The other front five women are within 5 miles of each other. Naomi Freireich dropped her bike early on and broke (I’m not sure if that means bent or snapped) a brake lever.

Annie Le and Jonny Williamson are both in the area taking photos so we might get some non-dot updates on those with tracker problems today.

Angus aiming to gorge himself at Drumbeg Stores? Shoving a massive pork pie in yer maw whilst enjoying the view over Oldany…

Shoving a massive pork pie in yer maw whilst enjoying the view over Oldany…

Is it a typo or is it the English misappropriating the Scots slang …

Either way I’m sure you didn’t mean to write what you have written.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

OK, maw as in your mouth, not you mother…

Maw = mother

Mau/Moo= mouth .

None the less I laughed 🙂

I have been dotwatching on and off – is Angus Young human? He does not appear to have stopped yet and is at over 300 miles in a day and a half – and gawd knows how much climbing

I cannot believe the pace they guys are going for so long in such conditions

Looking at the elevation profile at around the 5 mile mark it looks like it jumps up by about 600ft in not much distance. Is that right or is it an error? Fair play if real but the contour lines make it out to be fairly level.

I remember that climb up to loch lyon as a fair old climb. I rode it so not that steep but yes it climbs a fair way

Edit – also a fair old climb out of tyndrum

Shell posted up on IG yesterday that he rode head on into a closed gate that he didn’t see, has withdrawn to heal and was assisted to a campsite.

Angus Young has not updated for 7 hrs now. He was 30 miles in the lead. has he scratched or is it a tracker glitch?

Crashed and broke his tracker

You’d have thought he would’ve got to cp6 by now though, it’s only 20 miles from his last position. Unless it’s a really tough 20 miles.