Yep - when your feet are cold it can often help to get off and push your bike for a while. I think Sealskinz socks are great but I've also got a pair of Gore socks that are much thinner and will usually fit over a normal thin sock inside your shoe boot. Wearing socks that are too thick can result in...

Modern 105/Ultegra has a different cable pull for the brakes than Sora.

nobby wrote:Indeed you do but I can't quite get my head around the idea that that a luggage item that is about half the size of my saddlebag

What saddlebag do you have?

Hi Scotroutes, I did it counter clockwise as a tour. I have done quite a bit of it as day rides etc in both directions and agree that it rides better that way, for me anyways. The link for the tour. http://racksonracksoff.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/cairngorm-tour-day-one/ Gari Brilliant! Confirms my ...

Gari - every report of this route I see has the riders going clockwise. Some if the bits I know would work better t'other way (eg the Dorback - Abernethy route). As an expert in the area, what do you reckon?

It surprises me just how much tarmac is on that route. There are some decent forest tracks running from Blair Atholl to Bruar and then through Feshie/Inshriach that would be much more pleasant mountain biking.

Heading northwards tomorrow night...... How are the conditions? Sunshine and 19 degrees C in the sunny south..... Am I right to risk death by leaving the down jacket at home and relying on a Montane Fireball smock with optional Enlightened quilt hobo cape combo??!! Frost forecast over the weekend -...

Adrian Brewster wrote:Watch other riders disappear over the horizon sucking their gels/power bars and think life's too short for all that hyper-competitive nonsense.

:D

Yep - I didn't realise bikepacking was so competitive!

My fatbike weighs 31.5 lbs at the moment. Dunno about the El Mariachi.

I got under-tape gel to my road bikes. It makes them much comfier on longer, or multi-day rides.

Have a look at the Specialized gloves too. They mostly have some sort of Ulnar Nerve padding.

Very little. I look forward to cafe stops!!

I always carry a couple of gels/energy bars though. I've found that Torq has the least impact on my stomach, although the Honey Stinger products are quite good if they ever import them again.

Mrs ScotRoutes is across in the Atlas Mountains from 28th of this month up until 6th May

You'll be coming downstream on the Right Hand bank and you have various options as you descend. At NN862899 you can stay in the valley floor and do a couple of river crossings using the obvious landie track or climb up a bit higher and follow a single track path across the bit that had a bad landsli...

I've done a few longer rides from home (mostly on-road) and while I appreciate that I can, it still means heading out on familiar roads/tracks/paths for the first day or so and that usually also means through the central belt of Scotland. I now prefer to take a train to the start, or take the van an...

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8261/8655632102_e28b46d1b9_z.jpg 008 by ericrobo , on Flickr I'd just cut it down a bit with a sharp knife/scalpel. It would certainly give you a nice, robust fit. If you get nowhere with PowerMonkey, let me know. I have a spare "DOPOD" connector that I'd swa...

I've had a bike on quite a few trains (couple of dozen or so) over the course of the last 3 years. Booking ahead always seems to work. If looking at longer journeys, try split booking. When I travelled Edinburgh-Penzance I saved almost £100 by splitting the journey at Exeter. Scotrail let you book t...

One issue - as it is a Track and not a Route, some of the functions don't work (e.g. Time to Next Waypoint).

Where To?
Tracks (select track)
Go

I have a Ti tourer that I often fit larger, CX tyres too and take off road. I have an El Mariachi that can either be run rigid or with suspension forks. I have a 9:zero:7 fatbike. All are/can be used for bikepacking and each has their strengths and weaknesses in terms of comfort, load carrying and o...

Turn to the other side?

I usually plan my stuff out as a track before I go (use OSGETAMAP or Basecamp). If I decide to wander off the ore-planned track then the built-in OS 1:50K usually has enough detail for me to just wing it. The problem with storing Waypoints and using automatic routing is that it'll just join them all...

I've got something like that for blowing up my packraft. I plan to make a valve to connect it to my air mat.

Yetiman wrote:missing that section out completely and heading north on Rob Roy way to killing then over top to tyndrum longer but looks great route

Nah. It's rubbish ;-)

I never have the random jumping about thing but it's true that it starts to take a while when drawing longer routes. The other issue is that it tries to write to my Garmin as a route with waypoints and longer routes exceed the garmin limit (and it doesn't throw up an error when the number of waypoin...

I'm mostly using the OS Getamap service at the moment. You can draw a route on the 1:50k or 1:25k map and then zoom out to look at it in a higher scale. It also has aerial photography which is useful for spotting un-mapped tracks. Garmin Basecamp works well too. I've installed the OpenStreetMaps and...