GregMay wrote:Wake up. Ride bike. Intermittently eat food. Ride more. Walk a bit. Sleep.

You'll be reet. Remember, you're out there to have fun. Be hopeful you don't need to send me a message.

Hence the avatar.

Looking back at last year eating wasn't intermittent. I had six sit down meals and at least six resupplies! Any more and I would have invited Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon along

Hopefully this year I'll work out how to use the SPOT

Steve

Cheers for the vote of confidence. I wondered how you had based your assessment until I remembered my signature image is my veloviewer details It doesn't show when I view the site on my mobile.

Greg. You're right, and the instructions are on the back of my jersey in case I forget. On big rides before I have remembered your previous words of wisdom when the size of the challenge seems overwhelming - I'm sure it was you that said it "It's just riding bikes"

The tracking page is up, two ITTs starting on Sunday. Best of luck

http://trackleaders.com/highland18

Looks like I won't be getting much work done next week then Dot watching tends to eat into my day quite a bit in the office

The current bbc forecast is dry from Sunday on so hopefully they'll get good weather.

Depending on how much snow there's been and how recently it melted some of the higher paths might be a bit "soft". Not muddy as such but winter cold tends to lift the top 5mm or so a little bit and it's a bit harder work to travel over a bit like the difference between a wooden floor and carpet. There's a technical term for it (the soil lifting) but I can't remember what it is. When we reccied the northern loop last year the stalker's track from Glen Golly to Bealach Horn was like that. A month later and it was firm (well apart from the boggy bits )

Frost heave....

So we need to hope the ITTs have wide tyres and heavy bikes to flatten it down ready for the group start

I’m going to try later (leaving 9th June)

Pretty Please
Has anyone got the maps printed in a handy format that they would let me have?
Just thought i would ask before i spend time generating my own

Thanks in advance
Mart

Mart - either search on this thread, PM Ian Fitz or email AlanG. Ian Fitz created a set of maps of the route that he put on Dropbox. Alan included the uri in one of his emails to those on the group start but I don't know if he sent anything to those doing ITTs.

Ta - will do

IanFitz ..... incoming!

sean_iow wrote: Greg. You're right, and the instructions are on the back of my jersey in case I forget. On big rides before I have remembered your previous words of wisdom when the size of the challenge seems overwhelming - I'm sure it was you that said it "It's just riding bikes"

It was. It was said to me by Jenn during a 24 hour race I was overthinking. Reminds me of her every-time I say it to someone.

Fact is, it is just riding bikes.

Mart wrote:Ta - will do

IanFitz ..... incoming!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... EN3RWpxdEk

Thanks Ian much appreciated

Just spent the night at Inchbae Lodge. Comfy rooms, and more importantly great food! Worth a visit. As has probably been said before, the owner is a mountain biker.

https://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2018/ ... pair-phase#

I remembered that there are a couple on the route at the moment. Looks like David Gooberman is about to start the Coffin Road over to Dundonnell http://trackleaders.com/highland18.

Not sure what's happened to Guy Whaley, his tracker hasn't updated for two days but at least as far as Lochinver he and David were probably riding together as their SPOT pings were very close.

I've been following them as well. It did look like they were riding together, or at least at the same pace. They started at the same time. Not sure what's happened to Guy.

Despite the fact I've been riding to work in a short-sleeved jersey I've been checking the weather forecast out for their location and it has been decidedly less pleasant with rain most of the time Hopefully Guy's is just a spot issue and he's still riding.

I've been keeping an eye on them too. Was hoping it was just dead batteries in his tracker or something.

Judging by the trace, Guys SPOT hasn't been tracking well since the start. Assuming he's on a SPOT, not a Delorme.

Spookily I just looked at Trackleaders before I saw the above posts about the ITT's. No work for me for a bit

David is on the move again and it at 'the' river crossing. We'll know if it's currently passable soon. Guy's tracker has still not updated.

sean_iow wrote:David is on the move again and it at 'the' river crossing. We'll know if it's currently passable soon. Guy's tracker has still not updated.

Looks like it wasn't a problem as the last ping has him across.

Shenavall is a bit of a dilemma, especially mid-week when you are likely to find room: do you use it and hope the river is OK in the morning or push on? There is shelter on the other side but it's nowhere near as good as the bothy.

The crossing is the only bit that gives me nightmares, I'm a much better bike rider than I am a swimmer Pleased to see he's across and and still on the move.

sean_iow wrote:The crossing is the only bit that gives me nightmares, I'm a much better bike rider than I am a swimmer Pleased to see he's across and and still on the move.

Although the Sealga (or lower down, the Gruinard) isn't one of the monitored rivers there are a few river level monitoring stations in the area so you can get a feel for how high things are generally from here http://apps.sepa.org.uk/waterlevels/default.aspx?sm=t Currently everything is on the middle to low of "Normal".

The last two years the crossing has been low but there's no guarantee

I reckon for the river to be an issue you'd need a few days of decent rainfall.

The year Jenny had issues crossing it rained lots.