Van Nicholas Amazon has loads of tyre clearance and can be set up for rim brakes. Also has disk brake mounts for when you come to your senses… 😉

Dicta will be fine for a kid’s bike, I’ve had two on my commuter and not had an issue – ran the first one for about 5 years, commuting every working day. Just drip a bit of oil in every few weeks and make sure you us copper slip or something when installing. Was a bit of work to get off, but a youngster maybe won’t tighten it on quite as much?

Only 6 steps, that’s not complicated is it? 😉

It was the Schofields van for me in 80s Liverpool. I think they’re still doing it, but the brand is Dayla (As in Have a Nice Day La) now?

Closer to 60 miles, but this loop would be fine for a CX bike, with a beautiful offroad ride up Loch Sheil to Glenfinnan followed by mostly single track roads back round the coast.

Strontian Loop

I agree, I can’t imagine someone who rides 20 miles every day either side of a day’s work is going to struggle with 130km in one day as a one-off, as long as you’re happy with the bike setup.

Got loads of favourites for various memories of happy days out watching wildlife with my brother, but today I’ll say the tiny Goldcrest, since I saw one out of my office window earlier:

(Not my picture)

Great inspirational post – thanks for sharing!

Thanks for sharing, I really enjoyed reading that – would love to see pictures too!

I’ve got the XTR Rear mech set up on my road/tour/cross bike in a 1×11 setup. I’m using Ultegra 6770 levers with an EW90A junction with no problem, so I think you will be fine to use this instead of the XTR display.

The junction also works fine for charging, updating firmware and telling you battery status. It gives you indication of 100%, 75%, 50% and 25% remaining with red and green lights.

Another vote for the Van Nicholas Amazon here – it is pretty much exactly what you describe.

Looks a great trip, thanks for sharing. Still trying to avoid getting in to canoeing/kayaking as I know it will be yet another outdoor pursuit that I wouldn’t have time to do as much as I’d like!

Douglas Roulston[/url]

Lovely bloke and a keen mountain biker!

I’ve used it when staying in remote cottages and it was fine for general internet use, just a hint of latency when loading sites but you get used to the slight pause. It’s not like offshore vSAT, which is much more expensive for not much bandwidth. More like a slightly expensive ADSL connection bandwidth-wise. The biggest outlay is for the equipment I imagine.

How about:

Minigaig Loop

Not too big a distance, but bivvying on top of the Corbett Leathad an Taobhain or the summit to the East would be nice and feels properly remote. You’ll also have a super fast descent to Glen Feshie to start your next day’s ride. Can’t guarantee no midges though!

To be fair to the OP, 14 year old me would have been a lot more capable of doing these rides than 39 year old me is!

Taking the Eastern route down Glen Avon is easier going and has more options to escape off route if necessary, but the Lairig an Laoigh is definitely a shorter day. Weather conditions can always help decide.

Plenty of pictures of the small loop (Geldie – Feshie – Rothiemurchus – Lairig an Laoig – Glen Derry) here from a ride i did a while back:

A Cairngorm Loop

This was in the clockwise direction but should give an idea of the terrain!

Yup, the track up Loch Shiel is a beautiful ride – wasn’t sure if I was making it too mountain bikey for the OP, so took it along the quiet coast road to the East. Would recommend staying in the Ariundle bunkhouse in Strontian too – the evening meals were lovely last time I passed that way.

Aye, the route I’ve done there pretty much avoids the A82 completely using the Great Glen Way. If you only wanted to ride tarmac then keeping to the East of Loch Ness is a better option.

281 miles for that one – not too bad for a relaxed week I reckon.

Lots of good recommendations for ways to head North. I’ve lobbed together a route along to the West which could have alternative extras like the Applecross and the Bealach na Ba. The Great Glen bit would need a touring bike that doesn’t mind forestry tracks.

Nice Tour

Don’t think you can link those two services directly, but you have the option of using the Tapiriik site to synchronise the two accounts manually (Free) or automatically (Small fee).

If you had something like a Garmin for tracking workouts, then you can set it to sync to both services as well as Garmin Connect on completion.

I wanted something similar five years ago and went for this:

Recently overhauled and updated to 1×11 Di2.

Other ones I’d be interested in currently would be the Specialized Sequoia and the ubiquitous Tripster.

Have you looked at what you’re running in, rather than having to cover them up? I find that some synthetic base layers have a really bad texture to them, which over the course of a long hot run, has a sandpaper-like effect on the nips. I always do long runs in a decent, snug-fitting merino layer and have no issues now.

Hehe, it takes a while, but in a couple of weeks you’ll all start thinking about doing it again once the pain has faded. It’s amazing how much more stuff wears out when the weather is crap! You’re making me feel even more lucky for the weather we got in June for our C2C from Glenelg to Stonehaven.

Thanks for the write-up, I enjoyed that! If you want a re-run sometime there’s a lot of us here who can give route ideas for something with a higher proportion of good mountain biking I’m sure. Well done for persevering through the bad weather too!

I know what you mean, I got a shock on a ride over Kerloch Hill the other year – it’s pretty extensive!

Thanks all, I realise we were very jammy with the weather!

Trail_rat, not originally local, but been here about 16 years, normally found commuting along the Deeside railway line on a scabby Pompino.

Thanks, always hard to find time for big rides these days! Here’s links to each day, with stats and an option to export gpx:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

I know, couldn’t believe our luck with the weather!

What chainset do you have on the Tripster? If it’s a Shimano road one, then you’ll want the Dura Ace one as I think there’s a slight difference in width on the MTB one.

For tools you’ll also need this for the cranks.

Yup, if you wanted to shorten the second day, then incorporating the road down to the Crask into the route is well worth it – have stayed there a couple of times and don’t think there’ll ever be another place like it.

Tons of possible ones, but this would be fine on hybrids and Lairg has a railway station:

North Scotland Gravel Adventure

You’d be fine with either type of bike for that route, as there’s no stretch that would be a big disadvantage to them. The stiff climbs are mainly ups and downs along glens, except for Cullardoch which is very long and very rideable, meaning there’s no spinning out to give an excuse to stop! Nice fast descent the other side though. Any pushing is limited, only the Braes of Abernethy and climbing up to loch an Duin on the Gaick pass spring to mind.

Van Nicholas Amazon?

Does this:

This:

Also this:

There’s a 26″ Trek Fuel under there somewhere:

He meant the web version:

https://picasaweb.google.com/home

Log in here and all your Google Photos are available to share more easily. I use it whenever I make a thread on here about a ride with lots of pictures.

It was a “Takey” in my bit of Liverpool, I’m distressed no-one else has said it yet!

Keep us posted on your thoughts once you get a ride in them, I’m another interested party! Been thinking about something like these or possibly Wolvhammers for winter excursions.

Virb is going for £75 on Sport Pursuit till the end of today:

Garmin Virb

Got one myself but haven’t given it a run out yet.