I bought a Ritchey Ultra hardtail frame last year and really rate the way it rides and feels.  I’d quite happily use it for bikepacking.

Just had a quick look at mine (2022 M-Pro TR), and there’s 2-3mm between the shock and the frame, so a little bit more than you have.  The had of the shock isn’t as big as your’s though (Fox Float Factory EVOL).  I’ll see if I can get a photo.

Was always Heinz for many years.  Then they got a bit too watery with the too much sauce and I discovered Branston.  Wouldn’t go back.

While I can see the appeal for security, especially off-road, the counter point is it makes it a total faff to remove – like if you want to take the bag containing your phone, charger, all your food and other assorted bits with you rather than emptying out all items individually and leaving the pack attached to the frame…

I use one of these, which allows quick installation and removal of a bolt on bag…

https://76projects.com/products/ass-anti-strap-system?variant=43982267515096

I ended up just taking over all of my Mum’s finances for 5 years after my Dad died.  I was named as a joint account holder but she only had a little bit of cash in the house for paying the window cleaner etc.  No card, cheque book etc. and she didn’t do online.  Meant I had to do everything, including the weekly shop. Was definitely the best move though as she deteriorated with dementia.  Even still she got a scam call and was convinced they were emptying her bank account and I couldn’t convince her they weren’t as she couldn’t give any banking details away as she didn’t know them!

I just had a chat with my Mum to get all this in place.  Speak to your’s and discuss your concerns.

The northern track is OK, A couple of short boggy bits and a washed out ditch stream you have to clamber across.  I’ve done it on a gravel bike and it was fine, but I rejoined the southern road by the bridge between Mailerbeg and Dalchruin as beyond this it looked a bit vague.  Seems like less climbing than the tarmac road. If it’s been dry for a few days I’d go the track.

Chemtrail emitters.

Had all my windows replaced just before Christmas.  Previous windows were 1980s aluminium and the seals had perished and a couple of units blown.  Condensation upstairs in the winter was really bad, with black mould around the edges.  New windows are uPVC with much thicker glazing and there’s basically no condensation now and the house definitely heats up quicker, so they have made a huge difference.

It’s such a tough decision to make.  I went through it with my Mum last year.  She had been getting a bit forgetful for about a year or so and then became paranoid before being diagnosed with vascular dementia.  She then went downhill alarmingly quickly over about 6 months to the point she went from living on her own and coping (albeit with me doing all her shopping bills, etc.) to getting cleaners in once a week, to carers coming in 2, 3 and then 4 times a day until she had one too many falls and a care home was the only safe option. By the time I got her into a care home she didn’t realise she was in one and was convinced people were in her house and stealing from her.  With hindsight it was absolutely the right thing to do as she just wouldn’t have been safe at home.  I actually wish I had got her into one earlier as she would have had a better quality of life than at home on her own. It’s a horrible horrible disease and professional carers and medical staff are best placed to deal with it.

A friend of mine does this:

https://www.meadowmemorials.com/

She’s very good.

Started ticking of rides like this last year, they’re great!:

Train from Tyndrum to Corrour and ride back via Br. of Gaur, Lairgig Ghallabhaich to Br. of Balgie, Loch Lyon and WHW.

Train from Taynuilt to Tyndrum and ride back via WHW to br. of Orchy, Inveroran, Glen Kinglass and Loch Etive. 

If your Mum’s house is sitting empty you’ll need to inform the insurance company and most likely take out a new policy or policies for building and contents for an unoccupied property.  I had to do that for my Mum’s house last year whilst her estate was finalised and before the house could be sold.  There were a couple of specific conditions with the insurance: the temperature in the house had to be kept at a minimum of 14 deg and someone had to go in and check the property (once a fortnight).

I have to agree with the original observation – I’ve cycled in and around Glasgow and it’s northern suburbs for decades and I have to say that it’s noticeable that there is a propensity for self-entitled people, who are deliberately awkward and obstructive, in the more affluent areas.

I have a pair of Universal 3 panniers in KS100e fabric (IIRC) – the orange coloured ones – which I bought in the late 80s as a schoolboy and haven’t been used much since! Good condition as been stored in the house all their life.

I bought a Scandal 29er frame and Exotic carbon rigid forks second hand off two different people on here in 2011 for £175 and £65 respectively to build a winter bike. It’s been ridden through every Scottish winter since and I still love it. Just passed 13,000km logged on Strava this week (and I wasn’t on Strava the first couple of years I had it). It’s been through many (many) components right enough, but the chassis keeps going.

I refer to it as my old armchair – it just feels right when I sit on it.

My partner has a Superstar V6 hub on her front wheel and the 15mm end caps have play in them no matter how tight the through-axle is tightened, which results in side-to-side play in the wheel, a bit of rotor rub when out the saddle and a slight knocking when rocking the bike back and forward with the front brake on. Been like that on two forks, so it is the hub, so worth checking that (assuming you can sort the sheared rotor bolts…)?

I believe my parenting is complete after I asked my youngest (17) an obvious question last week and his reply was “Does Stevie Wonder pi$$ on his shoes?”

In the absence of a Local Access officer you could always try the National Access Forum…

https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/act-and-access-code/national-access-forum

My understanding is that basically all land in Scotland being accessible is the default, with the exceptions to this, and reasons for exclusion, set out in the legislation.

I got a Giro Merit Spherical Helmet a couple of months ago. Really comfy, quite light and Mips. Haven’t taken the peak off it but I reckon it will look alright without it. Got a hefty discount at Sigma Sports.

https://www.giro.com/p/merit-spherical-bike-helmet/100000000500000116.html

We get that you don’t care about that, but maybe other Scottish forum members are a bit more empathetic to mtbers outside their own back yard

I’m very empathetic to the issues south of the border. What we are trying to avoid in Scotland in this case is a reversal of our hard-won access rights that many people and organisations campaigned for. I will happily contribute to a campaign to improve access rides for mtbers in E & W. In fact I maybe do already through Cycling UK?

My understating is Ramblers Scotland is supporting The Highland Council’s action, or at least “sitting on their side of the table” against the landowner.

My concern is if the action against this landowner in this case is unsuccessful or cannot continue due to lack of funding, then the consequences for access across Scotland for all recreational users could be grave. It would basically give the green light to any unconscionable landowners to restrict access.

If you ride off-road in Scotland I would recommend you donate to help the legal action. If you don’t, then don’t.

TJ is spot on.

I frequently drive the road and it’s a disgrace that this section of main western arterial route north from Glasgow is still in its current condition. The amount of times I’ve been diverted because of accidents (often fatal) on the Tarbet to Inverarnan section is depressing.

As far as new route corridors go, there has been a full detailed study undertaken over several years by experts to come up with the preferred new route choice:

https://www.transport.gov.scot/projects/a82-tarbet-to-inverarnan/project-details/#52885

That’s me on the front cover… :-)

Something like £2.20 at the Cluanie Inn on the A87 when I passed on Friday…

Of course you’re allowed to ride the WHW! We have very progressive access rights doncha know!

Very do-able in two days for a reasonably fit rider.

End of an era indeed. I bought my first decent mountain bike there in 1991 – a Specialized Stumpjumper Comp. Loved that bike.

Basalt ejecta with what’s called ‘onion skin weathering’.

I did a light version with a few friends in 2019 as we were limited for time. Our route meant we had the same start and finish point at Uig, where we left cars. Downside was we didn’t see the southern and northern extremes of the HW (Barra and Lewis).
Day 1 – drove to Uig on Skye and got the last ferry over to Lochmaddy on N Uist;
Day 2 – rode down through Benbecula and S Uist via the ‘main’ road to Eriskay;
Day 3 – rode back up S Uist, Benbecula and N Uist but taking the off-road tracks and smaller roads that skirt the west coast (Machair) of S Uist, the west coast road of Benbecula and the west coast road of N Uist and onto Berneray (great bunkhouse). This was the longest riding day by far but you ‘should’ have a bit of a tailwind and you have shortcuts by retracing your route from the previous day if required;
Day 4 – Berneray on to Harris via Leverburgh Ferry and up Harris (Golden Road) to Tarbert;
Day 5 – Ride exploring Harris and back for ferry and return to the cars at Uig.

One of the guys in my riding group a few years ago was an nuclear-grade faffer. Came to a head when we were all meeting at my house at the time (Cumbernauld) to drive north to Fort William for a weekend’s riding. When he was half an hour late I decided to phone him: He was still out walking his dog. He lived in Hamilton (at least half an hour’s drive away). We stopped including him in invites for rides after that.

Bearsden/Milngavie – handy for Clydebank, the city centre and the countryside. And of course the friendly riding community :-)

Did LEJOG in 2008 with 2 mates in 8 days averaging 120 miles/day, unsupported and finding YHs and B&Bs on the way. We went as lightweight as possible, which definitely helped and split the day into four roughly two-hour riding efforts interspersed with food/cafe stops. We rode S to N as the prevailing wind is SW but we ended up riding a week with mostly NE winds!
We were a bit time restricted and if I did it again I would take a bit longer to try and enjoy the scenery – 10 days supported would be OK. Day 3 was the hardest as the legs were tired and stiff after the relentless ups and downs in Cornwall and Devon, but it got easier after that as the legs realised that was what they did all day and the route wasn’t as lumpy further north. If massages are available to you, take them. Chammy cream is worth its weight in gold. Take some warm clothing as, even in summer, it can get chilly/wet/miserable/D) all of the above as you progress north…
Presumably your supported ride includes getting to and from the start and finishing points and this is often the trickiest logistic – we got the train to Penzance and just rode to the start at LE. Getting back was trickier as (back then, don’t know about now) the train from Wick didn’t carry bikes and Scotrail’s way around this was to drive them in a van to Inverness, but that was quicker than the train so they chucked the bikes out onto the platform at Inverness and left them there for almost an hour until the train got in! We ended up getting a mate to drive up in a people carrier to J’OG and paid his fuel and and overnight in a B&B.

Live reasonably close by and know the area well. Killearn’s a nice village, pretty quiet and lots of decent riding within a pretty small radius. Handy for Glasgow and all the facilities there (nearest train station is Milngavie). Good bike shop too!

My mate’s uncle used to try and mask his farts behind a short false coughing fit. Problem was he could never time it right and always coughed too early, and then farted…

Happened every time. Flippin’ hilarious. And still twenty years on, when my mate and I are out on a ride we always cough before we fart.

As TJ has already said, cyclists and walkers have had the same access rights to rural paths in Scotland since waaay before the LRA. It just wasn’t widely known. One benefit since the LRA is I’ve found myself explaining access rights, when challenged for riding my bike on a ‘footpath’, to far fewer self-righteous people who feel compelled to tell me how they think I shouldn’t be there. (I even had one chap have a pop at me and say I should ‘stick to bridleways’ – that was a hilarious encounter when I told him he was in the wrong country).

Anyway, to get back on point with the OP, the landowner in this case is behaving outrageously and it’s not just the one path the walkers were reported on that have locked gates – it’s tracks all over his estate. Basically he thinks he’s above the law and needs to be brought to heel and other landowners, who may be tempted to behave similarly, enlightened. I for one totally support Ramblers Scotland and have donated. Even if you don’t like the RA in other parts of the UK, that is under a different legal system and a separate issue and ultimately, in this case, surely as off-road cyclists we can go by the ancient proverb of ‘the enemy of your enemy is your friend…’

For a few years now I’ve been washing all my cycling kit (except waterproof stuff) at 50deg with bio liquid/powder. It got to the point where I was binning kit because it was stinking long before it wore out so I figured I’d nothing to lose. The extra heat doesn’t seem to have affected it and now I get much longer use out of my kit as it doesn’t stink.

You can ride the forest track from Carbeth up to Kilmannan Reservoir (either directly or via Burncrooks) and keep climbing to the south which takes you to Cochno Loch. There’s then singletrack (all rideable you just have to find where it jinks off the forest road at the second turning hammerhead on the right) down the east side of Cochno Loch and across the causeway and island between Cochno and Jaw Reservoir. You can then either descend from Jaw directly towards Duntocher or ride up Cochno Hill and over to Greenside Reservoir and then up the steep path to The Slacks. From there you could descend the main track from Loch Humphrey down to the Erskine Bridge, and pick up the Balloch cycleway to Dumbarton, or head round Loch Humphrey to pick up some of the tracks there and descend to Milton.

There is a singletrack from the high gate on the Burncrooks Reservoir path that head to the east side of Lily Loch, past the west side of the Duncolms and down to Loch Humphrey, but it’s a narrow line in the grass in places and boggy in others. Best done after a few good hard frosts or after a couple of weeks of dry weather.

Absolutely ditto to Northwind. Built it in 2011 and still ride it to this day as my winter bike.