Cannich – Glen Affric – Tomich loop – what bike?

We are there next week. I would rather take mrs_oab’s hybrid on slick-ish 40mm tyres rather than mountain bike.

It looks mainly access road & forest track. She’s quite happy with a few short sections of single-track/more challenging.

MtB or eHybrid?

Decent Landy track south side loch not an issue. but if do north side it’s pretty lumpy old broken up drovers road for a chunk of it. I’ve done it on gravel bike wi 50mm tyres. Doable yes maybe not fun in places tho. 

How far is the broken / bumpy section?

If it’s a short walk, that’s fine. Maybe upto a km or two?

Few years since done it. Looking at OS maps it’s about 2km from western end  along north path to river crossing (not wide and can stepping stone scraps. but in spate can be fast flowing and trickier).

Cant mind if path improves after that. Hopefully someone with better memory be along. 

We did the Loch Affric loop in June from the Forestry car park. We did the north side first, then back along the fire road. There’s some pretty big drop offs and rock gardens on the north side, but I was able to negotiate them fairly easily on the hardtail with our 2 year old in the WeeRide. I did get stuck in a bog though up to the axles though. It’s probably doable on a gravel bike, but I’d rather have a MTB for it.

Oh, and the deer gate is locked and you have to lift the bikes over it as they won’t fit through the kissing gate. There’s various access issues with the Estate up there at the minute, which is a shame and the bridge outside the lodge is a no go for non-residents of the Estate.

MTB for the north side of the loch. Gravel for everything else. Don’t be tempted by the ROW between Cougie and Loch Affric.

Guess where we were today…

We didn’t do the north side track today as the whole area is exceedingly wet and the many fords would have been an issue.

Thanks all, that’s really helpful.

We may just do and out and back on the south side…

I’ve done the south side loads on a rigid with 1.25 slicks. It’s rough but ok, nice ride. North side mtb, to be fair I shy away now as when it’s wet it gets pretty cut up.

In or after rain the north side burns could be Fairly problematic

Had a great day on the gravel bike incorporating the north bank but in fairness I hit some great form and necked a caffeine gel just before I got to the tough bits. Was on an absolute flyer, skimming over rocks, hopping up embankments, generally getting away with murder until I hit BrokenBanjo’s hub deep bog and did a spectacular superman into the mud 😂

This was us in June. We had a marvellous time.

And here’s the bog. I exercised some epic core strength to not fly OTB.

Was there a deep, 6ft tall mud angel in the bog ahead of you?

I like to think I left a mark somehow…

Dammit, forecast has nosedived from sunshine and frost to edge of heavy rain warning area…

Yesterday’s forecast was wrong 😉

Indeed, fingers crossed and pull out a jacket…

What dummy for epic Highland rides?

What dummy for epic Highland rides?

Not needed – I’ll spit it if the weather is shite… 😂

Mildly relevant, thought I’d share for anyone who hadn’t seen it, some stunning footage from a classic bit of trail around the 30 minutes mark

I was so jealous watching their drone footage, when I rode this years ago on my Cape Wrath trip I had to perch my camera on a rock and set the self timer before running back to the bike and hoping I was in shot for one of the five shots the camera took 😂

That’s a great video.

Today was fun – we got out and went as far as we dare before storm Babet arrived. The storm arrived 3mins after we drove off from Dog Falls car park – and getting back to the campsite involved dodging and helping clear fallen trees and branches. I’m glad we timed it – there was at least 20 cars up at the main Affric Lodge car park who might have had ‘fun’ getting back if they were any later.

We took mountain bikes as mrs_oab wants to inspect Laggan’s new trails on the way home.

Anyhow, some nice pics.

The pics are in a random order for some reason. Ah well, enjoy the autumn colours.

👍