I was tempted by the Kielder event – props to all those who entered, it sounded tough – but chose to do a bit of a Cairngorms epic instead with my mate Sam (Techno).

Started at Blair Atholl on Saturday morning and rode up Glen Tilt to Braemar – some of the burn crossings, especially the Geldie, were 'interesting.' The Glen Tilt singletrack was as mint as ever. From Braemar we went up over the Bealach Dearg and down to Tomintoul, restocked on water and scran and did a few road miles to Tomnavoulin before going up through Glen Livet and down Glen Fiddich into Duffotwn and then onto my mum's in Aberlour. 82 miles, took us 9 and a half hours with only a small amount of faff.

Today – got a lift to Aviemore and rode from there back to Blair Atholl via Glen Feshie, Glen Geldie and Glen Tilt. Either side of the Eidart waterfall was like a sponge, very hard going due to the recent rain. Lots of on/off and a few swearwords. Was quite hard into the wind down Glen Tilt as well. 45 miles today although it took us over 6 hours. 127 miles in total.

Pretty done in now! Given the rain I nearly called the whole thing off but the Cairngorms can handle a bit of rain it seems as the going was remarkably good aside from the top of Glen Geldie.

Sounds like an epic or two!

Yep – full of curry and lager now 🙂 Sam had come up from London so couldn't really take him to Glentress……

I've ridden all the trails at various times in the past so that helped mentally I think, knowing where I was and what was to come. Great trails though and lovely, isolated scenery. Saw a couple of groups of kids doing Group of Edinburgh but that was it. Going back down Glen Tilt today the only tyre tracks evident where ours from the day before!

I've just had a look at that on MemoryMap – that's one big day for Saturday's ride. Must've been doubly hard with all the water that's lying around just now as well. Good effort!

I've ridden the Glen Tilt singletrack going the other way – what's it like heading towards Braemar?

Stuart – we had a tailwind the majority of the way on Saturday except for a few sections. There were a lot of puddles but mostly avoidable on the doubletrack sections apart from Glen Fiddich which was biblically wet, although solid underneath. Yesterday was payback as the wind was more or less straight at us all the way aside from Glen Geldie where we heading south eastish. The wind was stronger on Saturday though, thank god!

Glen Tilt singletrack is pretty rideable south to north – lots of good little sections up and all rideable apart from a few of the stream crossings.