Great read. Makes me want to ride the route, even though I've done 80% or so of it already.

Interesting option to do the 3 mile road bit after Inchbae given that the HT550 successfully skips this (though I do prefer Strath Vaich to Strath Rannoch.

Your battles obtaining food and accommodation certainly made it even more of a challenge. I hate not knowing where my next meal is coming from so would probably have freaked out with anxiety.

I enjoyed that I've even ridden parts of it so that helped me know where you were.

When I stopped at Inchbae for lunch on the HT550 in 2018 the owner tried to give me an An Turas Mor sticker, but I said it was too heavy to carry so took a picture of it instead

ScotRoutes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 7:25 pm Great read. Makes me want to ride the route, even though I've done 80% or so of it already.

Interesting option to do the 3 mile road bit after Inchbae given that the HT550 successfully skips this (though I do prefer Strath Vaich to Strath Rannoch.

Your battles obtaining food and accommodation certainly made it even more of a challenge. I hate not knowing where my next meal is coming from so would probably have freaked out with anxiety.

Go for it - it's a really nice route. You can tell that a lot of time was spent in its creation.

Yeah we spent a fair while with the map trying to find an alternative to the Inchbae bit but all the options looked to add a lot of distance and climbing. In the end it was easier to just walk it.

You should try travelling with Locust Boy. Every time I turned around he was standing there with an empty packet in his hand and a sheepish look on is face saying 'Oh, I'm sorry, were you wanting some of those?!' At one point we got down to just our final emergency dried meal each and no other food at all. You know, that squashed thing that has lived in the bottom of your pack for the past 3 years. Thankfully we found a Spar before we became desperate enough to actually eat them, but it was a bit close!

The worst place was the Oykel Bridge Hotel. We were very empty by the time we got there and they turned us away, even though the air was thick with the aroma of freshly-cooked fish and chips. I know they are a bit of a snobby joint, but it wouldn't have hurt them to let us have a bowl of chips sat outside. That was the sort of thing I was talking about when I said that folk weren't very helpful - the attitude in many places was 'well, we don't want you here so if you don't like it then that's not my problem'. I do get their concerns - rural areas have very few healthcare resources - but if you are going to open then you need to be welcoming too. I think a lot of places had opened with the best of intentions and then found themselves inundated with way more folk than they felt they could safely cope with and for that I was partially responsible and consequently felt a bit bad.

sean_iow wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 10:41 pm I enjoyed that I've even ridden parts of it so that helped me know where you were.

When I stopped at Inchbae for lunch on the HT550 in 2018 the owner tried to give me an An Turas Mor sticker, but I said it was too heavy to carry so took a picture of it instead

We saw two on the whole journey!
Maybe that's because everyone has stayed true to TLS - take less stickers.

That was a great read. Thanks Borderer.

When I stopped at Inchbae (think it was 2017) the owner had just had some people pioneering the ride come through. That was the first time I heard of it.

Charliecres wrote: ↑Sun Sep 06, 2020 5:50 pm That was a great read. Thanks Borderer.

When I stopped at Inchbae (think it was 2017) the owner had just had some people pioneering the ride come through. That was the first time I heard of it.

Yeah, be nice if you could afford to 'credit card tour' it at all the hotels along the way.
Actually, no. I would rather be in my tent most of the time.

Have been saving this up to read at leisure. Really enjoyed it as usual and am looking forward to doing bigger rides like this as the kids grow up. Funny how some places always have the same conditions. The Road to the Isles has had spectacular skies every time I've passed that way and the pylon track to Tomich had the exact same misty miserable air on two crossings 12 years apart!

JoseMcTavish wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2020 5:37 pm Have been saving this up to read at leisure. Really enjoyed it as usual and am looking forward to doing bigger rides like this as the kids grow up. Funny how some places always have the same conditions. The Road to the Isles has had spectacular skies every time I've passed that way and the pylon track to Tomich had the exact same misty miserable air on two crossings 12 years apart!

I can believe that. I think that ugly bothy at the summit sucks all the enjoyment out of the place. The ATM pdf said that there were fine views from the top of that hill - I wonder how many have actually seen them.

Must be fake news! I had a freaky deja vu moment where I looked down and noticed the moisture in the air condensing into droplets on the hairs on my arms in the exact same way as the previous ride years before.

Having read bits during various coffee breaks, I finally finished this off with a glass of wine. A great read that deserved my full attention.

I admire your commitment to keeping going and being fluid with your plans despite the early setback.

Some cracking pictures too

Thanks for that Dave. You should give it a go - sometime when things are less crazy maybe though! From yours it would be fairly straightforward to hop on Route 10 to Kielder and then follow the Great North Trail up to Glasgow as I am sure you know. Rich and Tom put me off that a bit when then came by as they said it went up into the hills after Peebles, but it's probably no worse than what we attempted. Our route to Glasgow came apart on the central section - the old railway from Talla to Lanark wasn't rideable, but if you are ok riding on roads you could just nip up the A701 and get that over with fairly quickly. After that it's the Clyde walkway all the way into Glasgow, which I have heard is good (though probably a fair few dog walkers).

The bit of GNT between Peebles and Edinburgh is OK. I've ridden it a few times, doing Balerno to Peebles, a lap of Glentress, then back to Balerno. There's a slightly more direct line north of Carlops that involves one steeper climb as an alternative too.

Thanks for sharing it.

If I can justify taking that big a chunk of time to do it, I would like to. I recognised a few bits of your trip after Glasgow from when I rode the Scotduro (which I think follows the Badger Divide route - there's so many variations on north-south routes in Scotland, Badger Divide, An Turas Mor, Great North Trail, that I'm losing track) in September, albeit in the opposite direction.

I remember stopping outside that cafe at Bridge of Balgie one morning and debating whether to stop for breakfast. We hadn't been expecting to get anything til Killin so I'd only had a couple of Eccles cakes or something similarly nutritious carried from Fort Augustus. Glad we decided to push on to Killin where I beans on toast AND a bacon sandwich was available!

I think to be fair to the Bridge of Balgie cafe, I think they had a very reduced menu due to Covid. The guys who made the ATM trail really raved about the place, but it really did nothing for me.

When we got to Killin I needed to do some faffing with the bike, so I sent Joe ahead to scout out the hot food options. He said there was only the expensive cafe, which we couldn't afford, so I went to the Co-op and bought a load of cold stuff instead. Then we turned the corner and there was the fish and chip van - open and trading merrily. I was not best pleased with him

I'm sure it's a lovely tea room in normal times, or if you're pootling around in Glen Lyon (which is bloody spectacular isn't it), but maybe not so great for refuelling long distance cyclists. I've learnt whenever I'm in a place I don't know well, even off the bike, to look for the bike-themed cafe, or at least the one frequented by cyclists, as it's generally the one that offers substantial, simple food like beans on toast, at a reasonable price, and usually decent coffee

Inspiring read, and fantastic ride, you paint a lovely picture, it's on my list.
Thank you.