Electric Bogle-oo

Last week I promised tales of further Derring-Do. Well, I was going to write about completing the Cuillin Ridge traverse on Skye, but Sam's pretty much summed it up in words, and Rik's got pretty photos up too. All I can really add to that is how chuffed I am to have completed one of Scotland's best mountaineering challenges in good time, with good weather and with good company. It really is a spectacular day (or two) out.

On to a different, but still spectacular part of Scotland - the area around Loch Laggan



I went mountain biking up there at the weekend with a different Sam, and after a wet day of cruising around the built trails at Wolftrax, we decided to go for a spin around the Ardverikie Estate.

TV watchers may be vaguely familiar with the area as the site of the ficticious Glen Bogle in Monarch of the Glen. Climbers will no doubt know of the classic Ardverikie Wall on Binean Shuas. Either way, it's a perfect place to go exploring on a clear Autumn day.

And what a day! After setting off into a fairly dense ming (it takes a lot of faith in the weather forecast to cycle directly into some clouds), we gradually saw the clouds lift as we rode on, with the odd wisp still clinging to the lochs. I know it looks pretty cool in the photos but that doesn't even get close to doing the sight justice. Even though I know it's due to temperature differences in the air, it still looks like magic happening right there.

We stormed our way through the first part of the riding - mostly on good Land Rover tracks. Because the area is a deer estate there's actually pretty good infrastructure for getting around, and even the odd holiday home hiding in the trees:


To be honest, after a while I was getting a bit weary of riding on good tracks - part of the fun of mountain biking is overcoming the obstacles that the trails throw at you. Luckily, the trail turned into some incredible singletrack snaking up a beautiful glen.



Unluckily it was the wrong glen and we had to re-trace our steps for about 6km. And the push our bikes most of the way up a munro, made all the more soul-destroying by the fact that the trail looked almost unrideable. If we were going to have to push back down the other side it would have been quite upsetting.

Of course, the downhill was rideable, and utterly fantastic.

Riding this sort of ground is exhilarating in so many ways. Squirming the bike between rocks and ruts focusses the mind like few things I know, and then letting loose of the brakes on the smoother sections brings some raw speed into proceedings. There's no time to think about how broken you'll be if you stack it - all your thoughts are on spotting the best line, or even just one that's kind of safe. Zen monks train for years to achieve and emptiness of mind like this. I suspect they'd be doubtful that riding a pushbike down a hill could lead to enlightenment though. Who cares - it's brilliant fun.

So for any mountain bikers reading this - hell, anybody reading this - get thee to Glen Bogle. It rocks.