TR: UK Road Trip

A little less than a year ago my lady friend and I moved out to Scotland, leaving the liberal metropolis that is Utah behind. For the first six or so months I wasn’t working, who knew it would be so hard to find a gig in a new country without knowing anyone? It left me with ample time to check out lots of riding spots and try to pretend I knew how to ride my bike down steep, muddy, rutted trails – that shit is fuckin’ hard. Also, riding year-round in the rain and mud destroys bearings, so there’s that.

Had a couple of friends fly out a few weeks ago to see what the fuss was all about. I drove a few hours south from Glasgow to pick up John and we headed over to Wales. Our first spot wasn’t anything special; I just found a place on trailforks that had a campground nearby.

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Car camping…I miss the primitive camping from the intermountain west so damn much. Car camping over here is typically done by paying £12 to £20 for a night in a field with basic amenities, better than a hotel I suppose. There are usually sheep, lots and lots of sheep.

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On our first ride I asked some locals about where we should ride. They offered up a pretty rad spot not on TF which turned out to be pretty fun. With everything in sight green, rolling hills the big cliffs and rock was a nice surprise. Thanks, local dudes!

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We drove over to Snowdonia National Park with hopes of hitting Snowdon early the next morning. Being the highest peak in Wales and the fact that it’s super crowded there’s a rule that you can only bike it before 10am or after 5pm. We setup at a campground a few miles from the bottom and woke up early to some straight-up bullshit weather. Actually about 20 minutes before my alarm went off, I had one of those moments where I thought my tent was about to get ripped out of the ground by wind. The forecast was for sustained 40mph winds and rain all day on the mountain and increasing the next day. We scrapped plans and did some random touristing.


We snuck in a quick hike-a-bike steep and techy ride that evening, it would be a lie to say we didn’t get blasted by a few quick downpours. Fun trail though.

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After another stormy night we picked up John’s lady mate the next day and decided to blast back up to Scotland to regroup and dry out at my place. We rode the local techy trails in pouring rain for a few hours and I schemed up where to chase the weather for the next couple of days.

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We ended up about an hour and a half away in the Tweed Valley where we found mostly clear weather and an abundance of trails. We did get some rain, but not that much.

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The trails at the Golfie are so steep you ride right out the bottom of the picture


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Trailhead camping at Glentress


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Steep and techy


I wanted to show my guest some of the proper highland mountain rides but they can really be shitty if the weather isn’t cooperating. Looking at the radar for the next day, there was a break in the afternoon up at Ben Lawers, we boogied up there after a quick morning spin.


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Livin' the dream


There’s actually a fairly nice non-campground spot near the base of the mountain, when we got there it was 11 degrees and windy…not exactly what you want at the bottom of a big hike-a-bike. It kind of cleared up on the way up, and then got socked in and windy, and then cleared up again, and so on.


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Walking is so fun!


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Cold and cloudy up top


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Not too cold for beers though, naturally


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So good, might be my favourite trail out here...maybe


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We were psyched to get that ride in, we woke up to more wind and rain, couldn’t even see up the mountain from the bottom of it. We rallied back to Glasgow in the pissing rain to pick up my chica and dog and then headed north.


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Glencoe


A few lift-served laps at Fort William was pretty fun. Note – the world cup DH track is really techy and sporty on a hardtail. From there we headed out to get basic and see cool shit on Skye. More rain and wind for those camp vibes.


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Last ride of the trip on Skye - moist

Nice pics! Looks like some amazing places to ride

Very cool! Moist seemed like a theme. Thanks for posting!

Rad pics! The weather over there sounds pleasant.

Amazing. If that's the mid-summer weather I can only imagine what the other seasons are like.

Awesome!

D00d, way cool!

Looks awesome, cool atmosphere despite the bad weather

Excellent stuff. Gracias.

Nice TR, and cool photos.