Just before I stopped climbing I picked up some dragon cams. Does anyone retape the dyneema?

Think DMM will resling Dragons. Otherwise you could cut off the slings and replace with Dyneema cord tied off with a triple fisherman’s. Knot is a little bulky but does the trick.

“Did you see the climbers? They look grubby and very tired!”
Overheard in the CalMac waiting room in Castlebay after returning (grubby and tired) from a week on Pabbay.

I get a touch of imposter syndrome poking my nose into this thread so had a similar feeling of doubt that my climbing skills were up to scratch when joining a wee team heading out from Barra on the Boy James last week.

Stunning conditions for a few days got me into the swing of things before wind and swell built up a bit. Committing sea cliff abseils are always a little intimidating so mellow seas and passing porpoise feeding in tide races made for a bit more of a chilled mood for the climbing than I know that the Atlantic can throw at the cliffs.

My total lack of climbing fitness due to injury/life stuff getting in the way was a bit frustrating, but the rock was amazing, the crew an absolutely sound bunch of folk and the island itself a totally refreshing place to be. Inspiring to see folk getting onto some astonishing and improbable looking routes too.

Incredible wildlife including minke whale, dolphin, porpoise and grey seals, skua, snipe, corncrake, terns, gannets and sea eagles to name a few. Not many cliff nesting birds at all which was a bonus for the climbing. Bioluminescence in the sea during a midnight dip was a mind blowing surprise – I thought it only happened in warmer waters, but it turns out that it’s just more likely that folk go nightswimming without the prerequisite amount of alcohol advised for Hebridean seas.

I’ll hopefully be posting in here more frequently as I’ve realised that need some proper climbing mileage to make the most of such amazing places and really wish I could have done more before this trip.

Bàgh Bàn
Grey Cossack
Spooky Pillar
The Great Arch (not somewhere I ventured, but I’d love to return for The Priest or Prophecy of Drowning some day)

Have you considered taking a trip to a nice pub or restaurant that serves tasty food and welcomes dogs?

Jilly Goolden had a stab at it … “bubblegum, wet sheep fleece, barley sugar and plastic,”

Climbed Squareface and Cumming-Crofton in a long day from Invercauld last summer. Also nipped up Beinn a Bhuirdh and Ben Avon as it was such a braw day. Went in from Invercauld by bike up to Clach a Cleirich on the landrover track and excellent path beyond Gleann an t-Slugain. Bike shaves off quite a bit of time, especially on the way back out.

Garbh Coire is absolutely stunning place and both routes are great. Squareface absolutely stonking for the grade. 

Some photos from the Aberdeenshire coast and Moray Firth.

Todhead Lighthouse.

The Garran, a big archway just north of Catterline composed of what appears to be conglomerate choss. Not sure how often the massive boulders in the roof plop into the sea, probably wouldn’t like to paddle through here after heavy rain.

Covesea lighthouse in the Moray Firth from a different day. Early morning light and glassy sea.

Halliman Skerries off Lossiemouth.

Monaughty/Pluscarden has some great enduro/DH style trails off the steep south side of Heldon Hill if that’s what you’re after. Mostly marked up on Trailforks and there’s been a few new ones built recently. Quarrel/Oakwoods is worth a look too. Nowhere near as steep as Monaughty, but you also don’t plummet through the contours quite so quickly and its rideable from Elgin. Not explored Hill of the Wangie over Dallas way, but have heard it’s good too.

Hopefully a local will be along in a moment. Have ridden with a few friendly folk up that way after posting here or the Moray MBC site/groups (if they’re still going) but not for a long while.

I can see across to Loch Sunart from my house and hoping to get a good day in the next few weeks to get around to Oronsay and back.

Aye, Oronsay is a very pleasant explore. It was the windiest day we went out and less sheltered from a south easterly than we’d hoped with the wind funnelling pretty fiercely down Loch Sunart so didn’t follow the coast as much as we’d have liked. Worth doing on a spring tide I think. It was headed towards neaps for us and while we timed things with the high tide to squeak through the Doirlinn there wasn’t as much water as we’d have hoped in the big lagoon/fish trap on the south-east side of the island. Great though, especially around the north west corner.

Envious of your local paddling @dovebiker Have you made use of the local ferries as a foot passenger with a boat on a trolley? It’s always struck me as a great way to shuttle trips and make the most of the tide in one direction, but I’ve never gotten around to it.

A few photos from a week based in Laga Bay on Loch Sunart in Ardnamurchan. Absolutely magic place to paddle. Mostly incredible weather, lots of interesting wildlife and gorgeous Celtic rainforest down to the rocky shoreline.

Lovely Loch Teacuis.

Conditions off Rubha Aird Shlignich getting interesting in the swell and wind.

Not too bad a morning.

Crossing Loch Sunart to Glen Cripesdale.

Absolute stoater of a day after the fog burned off. Made our way up to Repisole and stopped for ice cream at the Salen Jetty shop and a swim to cool off on the way back to Laga.

Doirlinn, Loch na Droma Bhuide, Oronsay

Ceann Garadh looking towards Ben Hiant.

Wandered up Ben Hiant and did some bouldering at Sanna beach on the days it was a bit too windy to get out on the water. Hiant joins the list of the best wee hills in Scotland for its outlook, absolutely amazing. Good views of all the places we’d paddled throughout the week.

Will hopefully be back up again soon, but likely only once the Corran ferry is sorted. Both of the alternative routes are a bit hectic with the extra traffic. Maybe just paddle out, best way to travel.

Technically this ride ended on Saturday morning so I’ll post this.

Had a couple of trips out of Rèinigeadal on Harris when the wind dropped to a fresh breeze last week. Paddled across the mouth of Loch Seaforth (the water depth goes from 100m in the loch to 30m rather abruptly so can get a touch bouncy) and explored the sea lochs of Pairc. Most of the settlement along the coast was cleared in the 1800s so aside from the lobster pot buoys that punctuate the skerries there’s not much sign of human life. Plenty of puffins from the nearby Shiants, gannets from further afield, razorbills and guillemots. Loads more exploring to be done here so will definitely be back for a longer overnight trip in the future.

Also went south to Eilean Glas and Scalpay. Glassy seas early in the day meant that spotting dolphins was easy. We had to wait until the ferry back over the Minch to see the minke whale that had been reported in the area, but did see sea eagles feasting on a deer carcass on the hillside above Loch Trollamarig. Whether it was due to warm water temperatures or the way currents have been moving there were assorted flavours of jellyfish absolutely everywhere.  The wind picked up during the day and we had a pleasant following sea to aid the journey back up to Port Rèinigeadal.

Loving the photos in this thread and thought I’d add some of my damp lensed snaps while I’m stuck behind a screen and missing being afloat in a boat.

Excellent thread … “there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

Hadn’t been out paddling since December last year so good to get out for a few days last week. Paddled out of Eyemouth, North Berwick and Elie, enjoying the minimal swell, light winds and sunshine.

North Berwick – Seacliffe – Bass Rock – Craigleith
Glad to see loads of noisy, smelly gannets on the Bass and rafts of cute puffins bobbing around Craigleith after last years avian flu outbreak.

Elie – St Monan’s
A lazy paddle on a roasting day. Arrived at St Monan’s on a low tide, so popped up a couple of rusty ladders on the harbour wall to pick up some lunch from East Pier Smokehouse. Found a wee bay to enjoy langoustine and chips with a leatherman proving to be valuable claw cutlery.

(When I tried a dog in a boat, it went the hilariously bad way, those look like very good boys above)

No maol cheann dearg appearing so far, but the sgur dubh ones look great.

Not been in here in a while. Lots of cracking hill photos! Here’s a few of my snaps from a braw afternoon on Ben Lui earlier in the week. Biked in from Tyndrum to a wee bit beyond Cononish where the going got slow in the snow. Walked up via Coire Gaothach and Stob Garadh. Didn’t see a soul on the hill. Just an eagle, ptarmigan and a couple of raven patrolling the summit.

Decent deal. They run these every so often and I bought full 50k/25k and marine charts a few years ago. Mainly use the mobile app, which isn’t amazing, but does what I need and I’ve gotten used to the way it works. Can punt routes to Garmin Connect/Strava etc relatively easily and for the price I’m really happy even if there are better nav apps out there. Can’t compare it with the OS app as I’ve never tried their offering.

Think MM comes with five licences so you can run it on desktops (which give you elevation models, flythroughs and a few other tricks) and mobile devices. This makes it an absolute bargain if you have anyone else in the family that would find offline OS mapping useful or even if you wanted to chuck it on an old mobile as an additional GPS only device.

@boblo I had the same with the older Memory Maps files stopping working so, aye, “perpetual” needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Would still rather “own” rather than subscribe to maps though. The original format maps do still work with another app called AlpineQuest on Android though. It’s a superb app and the only reason I updated to MM was because the lowland/city/road mapping was so far out of date. Still worked fine for the hills though.

@convert – I have the whole of Scotland all offline on my phone. 25k Scotland is 4.4GB, 50k Scotland is 1.4GB Have bits of England/Wales cached but cannot see what the total size bulk downloaded would be. There’s no limit aside from the storage on your phone as far as I know.

Watch videos of folk crashing bikes?

Opening clip on Friday Fails. International fame!

Hope you’re healing up and have found some entertainment off the bike.

May as well paint it turquoise and bright green ;0)

🙂

I’ll peel the label off a bottle and put it on the seat-tube instead of the 853 sticker

That would be such a nice touch I couldn’t quite get it out of my head and just wasted half an hour of my life on this.

Whether it’d be allowed if you’re an authorised Reynolds builder or whether you’d want to go for it over a standard 853 badge is another matter.

I’d stick to a single malt and just go Laphroaig. Save the Talisker colours for another bike!

The green bands would look amazing with a thin gold line around the bottom of each one if that was possible. Perhaps make the bits at the bottom of the forks, tubes around the BB and stays the dark green of the lid/base of the tube the whisky comes in?

Rourke name in a similar typeface would look great if they’re up for doing that. Can’t find a perfect match but a tall serif font would work. Maybe Perpetua with a little bit of tweaking to make it less squat. If the ‘R’ and ‘O’ work that’d be the main thing.

Again though, as long as you love it that’s all that really matters.

Merlin Malt GRX

99 quid over budget, but spec, sizes, stock and style are all pretty pleasing.

@spin Those photos are terrifying and inspiring in equal measure! Superb.

@jimmy I’d be up for heading out. Only been winter climbing a few years, but happy at those grades and have spent lots of time in snowy mountains and a while trad climbing. Edinburgh based, pretty flexible for last-minute mid-week condition chasing and weekends too. Can promise mediocre chat, moderate enthusiasm and decent snacks.

Quite excited for winter after so much time with the Highland hills on the horizon like forbidden ice-cream. Had a day on Beinn a’Bhuird a fortnight ago where winter was beginning to show its teeth. Full winter above 800m and good to get a reminder of how to operate and do a bit of navigation in anger for the first time in a while.

Love all of the pictures on this thread, some great inspiration to get out in the hills. Liking the sound of Friday’s mountain forecast for the Cairngorms and Monadhliath of “Exceptional snowfall following after dark.”

EDIT – For C1 crampons I quite like something that will fit on as many boots as possible so that I can loan it to folk I’m heading out with or fit them to snowboard boots. Think they’re Grivel G12 New Classic. That Petzl lever lock looks great for ease of fitting though. I have some Black Diamond C3s that are so much easier to fit in a cold hoodie hiding behind a boulder without all the strap nonsense so less faff definitely an advantage.

Have a 2008 Reba Team dual air fork that’s been sat unused for a long while. QR, 100mm travel (can be internally spaced to 120mm I think). Has screw in canti/V brake studs which have never been used, blanking bolts in the holes on the fork, so should be grand. Steerer has been cut to 187mm and stanchions are free from any scratches or wear, but there are a few bits of cable rub and scratches elsewhere on the fork. Floodgate, rebound knobs all working. I’ve chucked in 150 psi to check the seals are still alright.

Owned from new, used but in decent nick. Pretty sure they were never serviced though. Could take some photos if you’re interested.

Godzilla in Hibiya, Tokyo

Loved visiting Glenkiln, but sad to read that one of the Henry Moore statues got pinched and the others were subsequently removed.

Valley Uprising on Netflix is ace, whether you like climbing or not.

Dodo’s Delight on Redbull TV is hilarious. Arctic sailing, big wall climbing and sea shanties.

Lots of other great stuff on Redbull TV too, only caveat is the – easily scrubbed – 2 minutes of guff at the beginning of each film.

Happy armchair adventuring and a speedy recovery.

On a good day – not today – Stuc a Chroin, Ben Vorlich, Uamh Bheag and Dumyat.

What is the largest can of butane/propane mix that will work as donor?

What did you have in mind?

Have BMX and skinny jeans ready to roll, but not sure I can carry off either look.

Interesting couple of days… impressed by the awesome Velosolutions crew and – quite frankly – blown away by the tenacity and long term efforts of the Braidwood Bike Park group in making this gallus plan a reality. Chapeau!

yourguitarhero – nice surprise when I put 2+2 together and figured out who you were in the real world this evening 🙂

Decided I like barrowing tarmac more than my actual job, so went back to help again this morning.

Track was complete and landscaping work was about to get underway when I left.

Grand opening event with barbecue and bands is on Friday 31 March[/url], though I must admit it’s the quiet midweek mornings I’m most looking forward to.

Spent the morning helping to barrow 16 tonnes of tarmac up to the Velosolutions / Architrail crew who have been expertly sculpting the track.

Think it will probably be finished tomorrow morning/early afternoon.

It is going to be amazing 🙂

Huawei P9 Lite?

No fancy Leica dual cameras like the full P9 but only £199. Impressed with the battery life – can’t kill it in a day even with lots of browsing, video, gps usage, calls and tunes.

Not stock Android, but the Huawei stuff is pretty much cosmetic. I’d prefer stock, but for less than £200 I can cope.

It is dual sim, but at the expense of an SD card, which might leave it a little pushed for space. Never tried that, so can’t really comment.

Thanks for organizing that Ian, a grand night to get out into the Pentlands. Good to meet new folk and catch up with those that I’ve not seen or ridden with in what we calculated was years! Sunset with a wee dram followed by that lovely descent off Allermuir was ace.

Pints and scampi fries also most welcome. Wildlife spotting included a squirrel, a kestrel, two deer hanging out under the bypass and a large rat.

Will not be able to make the next couple, but hope to be along regularly after that.

I took some poor quality snaps for those stuck on trains, in traffic, at work or at home nursing offspring and injuries.

Aye, I’m up for it. Will be at Bonaly for half six.

Will there be beer and scampi fries?

More on the amazing railplane.

Eastside Bikes is good. I used them a couple of times when I was over that end of town. Had them service an alfine hub and fix a broken spoke. All good, would probably still be using them if I was based there.

+1s for both The Bicycle Works and the Cycle Service. Good opening times for dropping off / picking up too.

Amazing effort Nick, enjoy the well earned beer.

Looking forward to seeing photos and a blog post or two, did you take the GM5 you took on your recce?

5. Get up and sheepishly look around to check that nobody witnessed your inept riding.

ooft. Just realised this years route goes down the Slioch side of Loch Maree 😯

The Fisherfield can have a big river crossing, there’s lots of tricky riding and a big hill in the middle. It’s an amazing place to be on a bicycle, but most will question what the hell they are doing there on one at some point, even in benign conditions.

I’m in awe of these riders, I have no idea how they can keep up this pace over such difficult terrain. I fancy doing it as an ITT a holiday ride sometime, perhaps over a leisurely fortnight rather than a few days.

Anyway, here are a few photos of a ride through the Fisherfield a few years ago to keep us entertained as we wait for the Spot dots to update…

An Atari VCS, complete with a stack of games I bid for on eBay, paid for with a postal order. Quite a strange transaction really.

The SAIS blog[/url] might be useful.