We$t Highland Way Duathlon with the Wean

Been thinking about the logistics of doing the West Highland Way with the family for a while now. Which bits would be good, which would be bad and which would put them off cycling for life. What time of year and how long would we need etc. 5 days seemed like a generous amount of time to ensure they enjoyed it, but how you going to get 5 days good weather in Scotland?
Having a bit of extra time off work just now, and the big lad already finished school for the holidays, I realised that it might be an option for the coming weekend. However parties, dentist, childcare etc meant that we only had between Thursday evening and Tuesday morning, ie 4 days on the bike.
Given that he’d only ever done 25km in a day before, I was a bit doubtful he could so 4 days on the trot at 40km+ and still enjoy it. However we had time available, and plan B was looking good for Inversnaid-Beinn Glass so I just went for it and booked the accommodation and luggage transfer.

A quick flurry of organisation followed. Booked 3 nights’ accommodation in Rowardennan, Tyndrum and Glen Coe Ski Centre. Two nights on Jim’s floor. Rail ticket from Fort Bill to Dumbarton. Luggage Transfer with AMS Scotland.
On Thursday, after school, a party, a dentist appointment and tea, we piled into the van and headed up the M6 to Jim’s house in Dumbarton. Chips with Sausage for second tea, fine tuned the cunning plan with Jim and got some zeds.

Day1: Milngavie to Rowardennan
I couldn’t decide whether to leave the van in Dumby overnight, and get a very early train to Milngavie, or drive across and leave the van for 4 nights. In the end, I realised that we wouldn’t get the bikes on rush hour trains and that Son1 needed sleep, so we drove across.
We arrived in Milngavie to a completely full car park, no sign of AMS and a horrible drizzly rain. Son1 was clearly quite apprehensive about the next 4 days and I was deeply apprehensive about leaving the van double parked for 4 days. However, a few minutes later the AMS van arrived and took our huge bag of stuff off us. He also recommended checking out the layby opposite the Police Station, which turned out to have one space available, so that sorted out problem 2. Problem 3 was temporarily avoided by heading into the nearest café for breakfast:

Wayhey. Having loaded up on caffeine and lard, the world seemed like a better place so off we went:

For a few km, and then got a puncture: 👿

And a few raspberries: 😀

The bit through Mugdock and the Endrick Valley was easy and fast and we were pretty soon at the approach to Conic Hill:

And then on the steps up Conic Hill, at which point Son1 pretended to be bovvered:

…but he wasn’t really. He was starting to relax and enjoy the riding: (yes that’s the WHW in the background):

First of many hikeabikes:

Then some lovely descent near the ridge:

Looking down to Loch Lomond:

Before some hikeabike down the hill. Not ideal really:

Had some lunch in Balmaha before heading up Loch Lomond. This is one of my favourite parts of the route as it snakes about the shoreline and does some nice singletrack:

There’s a few challenging climbs, and a few pushes. With a bit of effort it was possible to push one bike up either side of the steps. Much steeper than it looks:

There was some good kitty litter, flowing singletrack to Rowardennan, where we got a decent room and Chips with Burgers from the pub.
We were both glad to get some proper miles in and cautiously looking forward to the next day where the path gets progressively worse until after Inversnaid where it’s pretty much unrideable. Weather was still half and half and I was still worried about whether the cunning plan would come together… if it didn’t then the wean wouldn’t be happy about carrying his bike 5 miles up the loch in midgie infested dampness…

And I’d be persona non grata at home if I put him off biking just one week before the Alps.

TBC….

8)

Day2 thegeneralist reported to childline for cruelty 😛

You have already made it as far as I did. I managed to fall off and break my wrist coming off Conic Hill, I remember riding along the side of Loch Lomond thinking how beautiful it was but was in agony. I finally gave up at Inversnaid as the pain was too much!

Got me thinking I could do this with my lad when he’s a bit older !

Look forward to your next instalment

Day 2: Rowardennan to Tyndrum:

Breakfast was a bit industrial, but continued the lard/caffeine theme nicely:

We left the hotel and rode up the loch to the place where the Way used to split. The map shows two options: a fire road which stays high above the loch and a smaller path which descends to the loch shore. I think that when I did it last, the lower path was being built, but it now appears to be finished. I dithered for ages about which route to take but eventually plumped for the ‘safe’ option and stayed on the fire road. Has anyone biked the lower route from Rowardennan north and know if it’s any good?
The paths rejoined and there was the usual mix of lovely singletrack:

Nasty pushes:

And beautiful, but nasty pushes:

Saw some deer:

When we arrived in Inversnaid, the drizzle was pretty constant, but I was hugely relieved to find Jim and his motor in the carpark with our secret weapon:

It sure aint no Packaraft, but in conjunction with Jim’s Canoe, I was hoping it would stay inflated long enough to do the business. It took a while to get the bikes dismantled and packed into his open. I was well impressed by Jim’s pragmatic approach to packing, and his complete lack of protectiveness about his beautiful boat. Son1 was dispatched into the hotel at this point to fill up on Irn Bru and avoid the heinous midgies.

And we set off 😛

The inflatable kayak is a bit of a slug on flat water, and took a fair effort to paddle, but I was conscious that I needed to do most of the effort in order to keep Son1 reasonably fresh for the rest of the day. Consequently I suggested he paddled only when he got chilly or when the wind was really strong. It was raining properly by now, but I wasn’t bothered… Son1 was in his wetsuit and I was happily cocooned in one of Jim’s spare dry cags. The best time for it to rain on a cycle ride is definitely the bit where you’re in a canoe.
I was keenly keeping an eye out for struggling bikers on the proper route, and did indeed spot one on the rocks above Rob Roy’s cave. Alas he scuttled off before I got my camera out, but you get a sense of how nasty the path is by this photo:

Me and the boy were having trouble clashing paddles:

But eventually got the hang of it and made good progress up the loch:

To the island with the ruined castle (Island I Vow). Where we had some food and chilled:

It was so cool being there again, the last time being about 30 years ago when I was the same age as the wean. Life’s great circle.

At this point, the wind was really picking up, and paddling was quite hard work. We agreed that we’d just paddle as far as Doune, rather than the end of the loch, since Jim had to paddle back again on his own. This was fine by us, since we’d avoided all the heinous bits of the north Loch Lomond path. I was well chuffed, the plan had worked excellently. Son1 was relatively warm, dry and fresh, and we only had another 20km of ‘easy; riding to the Bed and Breakfast. All Good.
We landed and assembled the bikes again:

Jim set off back at double the speed with the wind behind him:

The riding from here to Bein Glass farm was reasonable, but for some reason we both took some tumbles into the bracken:

I think we were actually more tired than we realised.

Fast bit after the farm:

Up the long gradual hill towards Crianlarich:

Under the railway:

Under the road:

Mmmm sugarrrrr:

The track up the Falloch valley was relatively easy, but still very bumpy and required concentration and effort. By this time we were both flagging quite a bit. My plan of keeping him fresh had worked reasonably well, but at the expense of my weedy arms being knackered. With two people in the kayak I hadn’t been able use a decent torso rotation to paddle, rather just using my arms and shoulders. Ho hum, it was all part of the plan.
From Crianlarich to Tyndrum was proper hard work, up/down/up/along/down/up etc etc etc. It was strange cycling, very like the surface at a trail centre, but without the berms. You’d go tearing down a straight section carrying loads of speed, and then regret it as you skidded off the side on the next corner. Still, lots better than carrying.
The section from Dalrigh to Tyndrum was excellent singletrack. Nice twisty and interesting. This delivered us perfectly to the GlenGary Bed and Breakfast, complete with chickens:

SSS, then off into Tyndrum for Whale and Chips:

At the highly esteemed Real Food Café:

Now, call me a southern English (*%^, but only in Scotland could something which is basically a chippy with seats get such a huge reputation. People rave about this place and I just don’t get it. Fair enough, the chips were damn good, but that’s about as far as it goes. And surely “Real Food” sort of implies something a bit more sophisticated than a deep fryer.
It was just what Son1 was after, but I do recall last time round being desperate for some proper slow release energy and struggling to find anything better than a scone. And nearly £7 for a pint of lager, piss off.
On the plus side, they did have the only Highland Cow on the whole route. Which the kid had to take a phot of:

So that was it, we’d broken the back of it. We were well gubbed, but we’d done about half of it, and the next day would be an easy section to GlenCoe over nice easy tracks. Weather was still not ideal, but was nowhere near as bad as it could have been. All was well. 😀

💡 A cunning plan if ever I saw one. Much misery neatly bypassed and some adventure added for good measure.

I like the secret weapon – I have two of them as well.
I also like sunglasses at breakfast. I may have to try this tomorrow in oab_towers.

Has anyone biked the lower route from Rowardennan north and know if it’s any good?

If that is path along to the north end of Loch Lomond, yes.

In my opinion, that track is fine if you are familiar with non-trail-centre riding and not carrying a load of camping kit -We travelled light and had our bags couriered between hotels.

Before we did the WHW I had read terrible stories about the “many hours” of rock scrambling with a bike on your back required to reach the end of Loch Lomond. In the event, there was some great singletrack, a bit of pushing, and very little actual bike carrying, albeit a small number of steps and a fairly shallow angled ‘ladder’. There was no misery.

It probably took us (blokes in our 30s) abut 1.5 hours in good weather and we weren’t racing along.

I really liked it.

For OP (and interested others):

I’ve ridden the new path after Rowardennan and Ptarmigan Lodge on the way north towards Inversnaid; I’d suggest don’t, as a rule. It’s not awful, just harder work than it needs to be. Although brand new, no concessions have been built in to make it more rideable, such as bridges wide enough to accept handlebars or steep wooden steps with somewhere alongside to wheel your bike.
There are significant parts that you can ride but also sections where it’s either too steep or too narrow, a bit of a foretaste for the northern section beyond Inversnaid.
However, at some point soon the older upper track will be ‘closed’ to allow for forestry operations, so it may not be a great option for a while.

Loving this thread. I have a son who loves this sort of adventure riding and this sounds like the adventure to beat all adventures. Fantastic write-up and photos. I’m going to get the maps out tonight… 🙂

Thanks Highlandman for the info about the bit of path south of Inversnaid. I’ll bear that in mind if I ever get round to dragging the wife and little ‘un along.

I’m thinking that Aristotle is referring to the bit north of Inversnaid, ie the original unpleasant bit that we kayaked past.

Cheers Daern, give me a shout if you want any info. The Harvey WHW map is great. Partly because it’s printed on plastic, but also as it has a really good distances table to help work out how far you can manage each day.

Will try to get the next bit of write up done, the last day was a cracker.

Great write up, can’t wait for your final bit. Definitely something I’m thinking of doing at some point, hopefully to coincide with the world cup one year!

One of the Fling nutters ran Milngavie to Tyndrum (53miles) in 6hrs 41 earlier this year – mental.
Well done on the boat – the mrs ran that bit (well the dry bit on the shore) last year and said the bit from Inversnaid to Beinglas was hard work – but she was about 8hrs into her run at that point.

Loved reading about the last piece into Tyndrum – the runners refer to it as the rollercoaster – sounds about right going by your description.
We’re up there next weekend for the Devil – Tyndrum to Fort Bill – I might take a bike to do parts, but mostly will be ferrying sandwiches about between checkpoints whilst the Mrs tries to lose more toenails

Day 3 – Tyndrum to Glen Coe Ski

Lard rations at the GlenGarry B’and’B were superb. Proper quality sausages and I guess the egg had just popped out of one of the chickens pictured above. Coffee not up to much, but ho hum:

Easy riding up the hill behind Tyndrum. Then some nice singletrack:

Farmer near Auch with sense of humour:

!!

Down the hill:

Under the road:

And onto the really obvious landrover track that you see snacking round the hillside from the main road. Nice fast surface descending gradually all the way to Bridge Of Orchy. Where you duck under the railway again:

Then over the Orchy and over one of the best bits of singletrack on the whole route. The great thing about this bit is that it is all rideable, just. No bloody carrying, and no fire road. Just good riding and good views:

The descent to Inveroran is great:

At Inveroran, Son1 got all enthusiastic about taking photos of some deer. It was a bit blasé about it, and feel silly putting photos here of deer; but that was the coolest thing about the whole ride… he was just so interested in everything and absorbing all the new stuff. He hasn’t seen many deer so he was joining the lines of tourists to snap away.
If you think the deer is cool, you’ll be blown away by the frog AND a caterpillar that we saw later (Re-wilding, eat your heart out)

The next section is a bit strange, it’s a big wide track with these tiny ‘cobbles’ which makes for a bumpy ride. We were somewhat tired by this point, so just chilled and pedalled:

Until Son1 jumped off his bike and ran over to capture this:

Amazing huh?

Up the hill below GlenCoe ski Centre:

Wee dram to recharge the batteries:

Look, it’s Danny Macaskill:

Perhaps.

Ski lifts of The Mighty One in the background:

And the first of many obligatory pictures of the Big Bookle:

This was a pretty short day, with no carrying, so we’d made good time; arriving around 2:30pm. Which felt very weird to me. I even considered trying to rebook accommodation in Kinloch instead, but thankfully binned that idea.
Instead, we played pulled silly faces in our Hobbit House:

Shot some pool:

And generally wondered at the lack of snow compared to usual.

Number 3 Hobbit Hut:

I was all chipped out by this point, and wasn’t taken by the limited menu at the Ski Centre so persuaded the wean that a few km back along the WHW and down to the Kingy would be in order:

Narrowly avoiding a monster killer caterpillar:

The Kingshouse was shut for repairs and the temporary pub they’d set up in the old bunkhouse was understandably limited in terms of options. Son1 didn’t fancy the potatoes mixed with neeps Specials (Colcannon? Crannachan? 🙄 ) and so I necked my beer and we headed back to the Ski Centre for chips again. This time with burger if I remember correctly.

The weather had truly sorted its shit out by now, and it was a glorious sunny evening. I did vaguely contemplate a trip down to the Etive for a swim, but we were knackered and frankly couldn’t be arsed. So I had another beer instead and Son1 took more photos of midgies or something.

It did however promise good things for the morning…

Day 4: Glencoe Ski to Fort William (the sunshine edition)

The weather in the morning didn’t disappoint. Wall to wall sunshine. The ski café didn’t open till 9am so we headed back down to Kingshouse for breakfast instead:

Then onto the minor road for a bit:

Sorry, you can never have too many pictures of the Buachaille (sp) in the sun as far as I’m concerned.

Good trail goes up the side of the A82:

Enough already?

We’d run out of wildlife, so Son1 insisted I take a picture of this cloud:

Last one, I promise:

Then at Altnafeadh, it all got a bit tricky. I’d done this bit beforehand, but luckily in the dark, so didn’t really remember much about it. We cycled bits of it, but generally it was hikeabike:

There were quite a few groups of hikers about, and as usual I was trying to race them. I managed ok, except for the part when I had to go back down for the kid’s bike 😥 Anyway, Son1 was managing reasonably well in the heat, though he was somewhat perturbed by the sheer length of the climb.

We got to the top:

And set off down the other side. (IMHO) you can see from the picture why this was considered one of the classic descents in Scotland before they opened up access. It’s just bloody great and goes on for absolutely ages:

It even goes up in a few places, which is definitely the mark of a good descent 😉

Some of the bits look better with some serious camera tilt 🙂

After the very rocky section…:

… the trail reverts to fire road taking you down to Kinlochleven. We got food at the Spar and new shades at the Ice Factor. I had wanted to eat at Ice Factor as well, but the 3 signs they had littered on the Devil’s Staircase descent had really pissed me off. Fair enough, put a sign near the bottom advertising their food, coffee and impeccable adventure credentials; but putting one further up saying “Only 3 miles to the …..” and one at the bloody top saying “Only 5 miles to the …” WTF? It’s not like people are going to stop and eat between 5 and 1 mile away elsewhere.

I’d been dreading the slog up from Kinloch to the north. NaeBeer had suggested going up the road to Mamore Lodge instead of the trail, but Son1 wasn’t having any of it. He said he wanted to follow the route proper. I don’t buy it, I reckon he knew that if we went on the road he’d have to cycle, but if we went on the trail I’d be pushing his bloody bike.
How right he was:

I’m not actually that short, it was just very steep.

Cooked:

New shades 8)

Blue shades:

To be fair, he did ride most of it:

At the ‘top’ it opens out into a gradual ascent to the watershed. Slow Uphill:

At this point we got chatting again to a couple we’d met on the Staircase. She was on an absolute heap of a bicycle and I was totally made up that they’d managed the whole of the WHW in 3 days. I’m conscious that there is so much bullshit talked on STW about wheelsize, OneBy, Tyres and other such toss. It was so refreshing to see someone who just borrowed a POS bike from a friend and rode that damn thing up the WHW. Respect.

Down the hill a bit:

MOARRRR Sun:

Lovely golden granite underneath:

By this time we were totally chilled. We’d done all the hard bits, and the only question was whether we’d have time for a dip in the Nevis before catching the train south.

We sped through as many puddles/streams as possible for a cooling spray:

I’d remembered that last bit as being a bit pants, but it appears that they’d done some work on it in the last 3 years. (It also helped not being 2 o’clock in the morning). The last section from the Kiachnish get-in up to the ridge above Glen Nevis was great. Loads of amazing sigletrack, with some fast descents and lots of brilliant lung busting climbs.

I’ve always loved climbing, and Son1 was also well into it. He’d absolutely bust a gut trying to clean the various sections… I was well impressed.

Then the big Beinn came into view:

Nice descents:

It transpires that they’ve rerouted the last bit. Previously there were some heinous ladders about, but they’ve gone and the section of trail you can just make out in background in the picture above is great.
Takes you up to the forest, and then the forest road down to Nevis.

Shame to lose all that height on fire-road, but we weren’t bothered as we needed water.
Which we got:

Took me a while to find the right pool, but it was excellent.

We then piled into The Fort to search for souvenirs, as the wife had explained that they’re expected once you go on your 3rd trip in 6 weeks 😳

As ever, the youth was as enthusiastic about purchasing tourist tat as he was about everything else.

Alas Ben Fong chippy is no more, so we had to settle for pasta salad from Tesco.

The station was a hive of stress, with around a dozen cyclists milling about trying to find out if they could get their bikes on the train without reservations. The answer seemed to be a resounding “No” especially as the train was only 2 carriages instead of 4.

We got on the train and stuffed our faces whilst looking at the beautiful scenery and grinned inanely (well I did):

Swapped trains in Dumby and Westerton and got to Milngavie at 10pm.
I had considered missing out the last train, leaving the boy at Westerton station and cycling the last 3 miles to pick up the car. In the end we both agreed that leaving an 11 year old on the platform near Drumchapel with all his gear at pub chucking out time wasn’t a good plan.
The van was still there, Tesco wouldn’t sell me beer after 10:30 (go figure, Scotland’s getting more like Norway wrt licencing). BUT the chippy was still open so we got 3 sausage and chips and completed our frankly impressive run of 5 consecutive nights eating fried junk food with chips (When in Rome).
Splendid, splendid. Really enjoyed it. After an apprehensive start, the sprog really enjoyed it too. We both knew I can be too pushy, impatient and keen to do too much on some of my rides, but this one had been excellent. I’d got the WHWIAD nonsense out of the system 3 years ago. The prime directive on this one was to enjoy it. I was completely gubbed doing most of the carrying and paddling, but quite content.

Right, better shelve this tome, and get the washing done. Gotta drive to Tignes tomorrow : -)

Ooh hang on…

Logistics:
You can park free for a few days opposite the Milngavie Police Station. You can also park for free at the railway station, but you’ll need to be there early on a weekday to get a space.
Various luggage transfer companies service the route, the most popular of which is AMS Scotland. They were flawless, from pickup in Milngavie to dropping off the bag in a locker at Fort Bill (£49 total). You could probably carry all your stuff with you if you wanted, but the combination of young kid, needing sleeping bags for Glen Coe accommodation and the stipulation that we needed to enjoy ourselves made luggage transfer a no-brainer for us.
The Kingshouse in Glen Coe is being refurbished, and so is closed for 18 months, so there’s a bit of a lack of accommodation for that stop off. Predictably the free market has stepped in and so Macs Transfers are doing a roaring trade bussing people down to Balachulish and Glencoe village each morning and evening.
Take some change with you if you like fizzy drinks/sweets on your ride. There are loads of Honesty Shops along the way selling sugar in various forms. As you’d expect, the prices vary hugely, with cans of coke on top of the Devils Staircase costing a whopping £1.50. Gawd knows how he gets them up there.
Make sure you book your bikes on the train back from Fort Bill. There were loads of very stressed cyclists there on Monday evening who hadn’t booked. Two ended up leaving their bikes locked up outside the station and went home without them. The others just didn’t travel.
Strava seems to think we did around 170km over the 4 days, most of the extra must have been cycling to the pub/café.
If you don’t know Jim, then you could just get the ferry from Inversnaid across to the A82 to miss out the nasty bit of Loch Lomond. My original plan was to pay AMS to take the boat, and a spare dinghy to tow behind it for the bikes, to Inversnaid Hotel and then paddle all the way up the Falloch to Inverarnan Inn and leave it there for pickup again. But it didn’t fit in with the 4 day schedule and Social Services may indeed have had something to say about taking a kid out in a toy boat on the big bad loch. I’ve done shit loads of kayaking before and know how quickly it can get very scary, so it was definitely best that Jim sorted it for us.

All fabulous. 😆 😀 😆 😀

(and I agree about the RFC in Tyndrum)

Great trip, well done.
I rode the WHW 29 years ago and I still remember the 9 miles along the shore of Loch Lomond as a miserable carry.

Great write up. Well done to the pair of you.

Great write up, really enjoyed reading and what an adventure for the young un.

A few of us get antsy when people talk of riding the WHW minus the good bit, but this is ace. The self propelled option up Loch Lomond seems like a good idea, especially when you’re riding shiny bikes like that, destined to get scratched tf on the carry.

🙂

Great little adventure for you and your lad, he will remember it for the rest of his life.

As my kids get a bit older, I plan to do plenty of this sort of thing.

Great write-up, thanks for sharing! Looks like you had very similar weather to when I did the WHW with my Dad (by foot).

Thoroughly enjoyed reading that over my morning coffee, sounds like a fantastic trip!

Exceptional ride and write-up. I’m so jealous and it looked fabulous.

Congratulations to your son from us!

That was a brilliant write-up, really enjoyed it. Can’t wait till my wee fella’s big enough for this scale of adventure.

Brilliant. A great adventure.

Thanks, brought back some memories!

Agree that the food and opening times at Glencoe leave a bit to be desired.

OP:
Great write up mate, inspirational. I’ve been trying to get the Mrs to join me on a WHW trip for a couple of years and I’ll show her this as a further prod in the right direction.

Allfankledup: give me a clue, who are you?
I’m the event medic for the Fling, WHW & Devil races among others, so am quite familiar with both the territory and most of the regulars..
I’ll maybe see you at the finish line.

For those who don’t know, the course record for a runner on the WHW has just dropped to 13hrs 41 minutes, courtesy of a loon by the name of Rob Sinclair, same chap who set the new Fling record in April.

Nice report and pics

The next section is a bit strange, it’s a big wide track with these tiny ‘cobbles’ which makes for a bumpy ride. We were somewhat tired by this point, so just chilled and pedalled:

Telfords parliamentary road IIRC and thats pretty much the original hundreds of years old surface. Thats where we blew a tyre on the tandem going south at speed with trailer and made the walkers laugh by shouting Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee as we passed them

@highlandman – Met you at Rowardennan in January – you were on your MTB supervising some of the loonys on a run out from Balmaha – I will introduce myself next weekend, assuming you’re not too busy with folk 😀

Aye, real food cafe is a bit shite, I reckon it’s only considered good by comparison, the comparison being the only other option, that embarrassing green wellie place….

Great write-up, thanks for taking the time to post!

Excellent!

The RFC certainly used to be good, this was back when the extension next to the road was a “tent”. That said, I’ve been in hotels in Scotland where the food is worse than that currently being served at the RFC

What a wonderful adventure, really enjoyed reading each day’s news!

Clare

Been saving this until I could sit down and read it all properly – you did not disappoint! 😀

Congratulations to you and the lad for a great adventure, and thank you for the eloquent and beautifully illustrated account.

Where’s that bloomin’ LIKE button…

Well done to you and your wean.I’d be lying if I said this hadn’t inspired me to plan the same with mine next year. Though

Superb. Great read. Off to do the WHW in a couple of weeks north to south over a couple of days. Cant wait.