Bikepacking in Scotland - Northern Cairngorm Loop

Sunrise on morning 2 of our trip.

Bikepacking has been on my radar for a couple of years now.  It's something that I've read trip reports about, watched youtube videos, and even gone to a Steve Fassbinder lecture (at Backcountry Scotland in Aviemore).  But... I'm pretty bad on a bike.  As a kid the most extreme it got was riding off the kerb onto the road, down dusty flat Norfolk farm tracks, and dodging cars in London.  Skinny tyres, five gears and panniers were my norm.  27.5 (yes, I now remember what size wheels my bike has!) fat tyres, greasy rocks, drops, bog and a really wide handlebar with lots of bags on it, were alien to me.

Bikepacking means eating lots of food

I am the proud owner of a full suspension mountain bike, now fully paid for after months of payments, and a mere 400km of riding clocked up, mostly on forestry roads.  Earlier this year I hurt my heel, putting pay to my running and personal walking, so our annual holiday to Scotland turned into a mountain biking holiday.  Eek.  Most people went on mountain biking holidays once they could ride their local trails, I thought!  I couldn't even get down the Marin trail, and sometimes at work, I hear of novice groups going their during their first week of riding.

Wild camp on the first night

Naturally, three days into our holiday, Jim, my other half (and total mountain biking machine) suggested we go to do part of the Cairngorm Loop.  This is a 290km long bike packing route in two (or three) loops around the entire national park.  It is a classic, contains single track, hill roads, hike a bike, river crossings and more.  Some people bike it in a day, bikepacking.com recommend four.  Four!, that works out at 72 km a day, plus 1000m of ascent.  I once biked from London to Norfolk... but I took the following day off.  We would do the Northern Loop from Glenmore, and take enough for four days (Jim thought it would take three, I was doubtful).

Pushing up a steep hill track into a 60mph headwind on Day 2

At 134km, 2200m of ascent, including an 8km hike a bike over bog and peat hag that everyone we met described as atrocious, I didn't think we would make it past Braemar.

Beginning in the Glenmore Forest was beautiful, perfect dry trails, Scot's Pines and not too many 
people.  We had a brief pause at Ryvoan bothy before continuing through to Abernethy Forest and the gap of Eag Mhor.  The second forest had trails as narrow as my bike, and I would frequently ride onto the heather from side to side, weaving dramatically, trying to desperately get used to the weight of my handlebars on the narrowest thing I had even ridden on!  

Riding through the forests on Day 1

A piece of heather got caught in Jim's bike and his cassette broke.  We were an hour in, and he could now only use the bottom two gears, and the top four.  The middle ones were bent.  Typical, I thought, we would be finishing our trip before we'd even started, we wouldn't even make it to Braemar.  Maybe there would be a bike shop in Tormintoul.  Carrying on, along the route, we got to the village and stopped for a snack.  Jim suggested we carry on, and see how it went.  Amazing hill roads led us south, along Glen Avon and Builg.  52km later, we set up camp down from the Loch.

Seeking shelter behind the bridge to make breakfast

By the morning of Day 2 the winds had picked up and we were thankful for the shelter of our campsite.  A shortish section of riding up to Loch Builg brought us into the full wrath of the wind.  It was during the single track that followed that we realised that there was absolutely no benefit in attempting to ride the normally ridable against a 60mph headwind for a couple of metres before having to dismount to cross a severe patch of bog or rocks beyond my technical ability.  Later on I was even spat off my bike from a particularly large gust and received an equally impressive bruise on my right buttock!

The cockpit of my bike, Garmin Fenix strapped to the handlebars for easy navigation, and plenty of food in accessible pockets.  The Revelate bag on the front of the harness gave me ample space for map, suncream, midge net and more food.

Brief relief arrived at a bridge, behind which we sought cover from the wind and finally made breakfast (we had delayed our first meal due to the winds at camp and wanting to make headway, as despite our sheltered campsite location, the longer we stayed the windier it became in the morning, and the campsite was only sheltered relative to the wind - It was probably still 40-50mph here!).  Our renewed energy drove us to pedal not only up and along the double track, but down it too!  We only needed to complete our biggest climb of the trip to our highest point, just below 700m, in the worst weather we would encounter!  Thankfully the climb was steep, and thereby even on a calm day we would be pushing!  A group of mountain bikers passed us on their way to Tormintoul and told us how awful the bog to Feshie was - great, another thing to look forwards to!

Jim fixing his seat post which kept dropping further as he rode - not ideal!

Towards the top of the climb the angle eased and we were finally able to ride our bikes again, albeit mine in a very wobbly line matching the gusts.  Lower down we could start to appreciate our surroundings, the winds dropped and the riding was amazing.  Upon reaching tarmac the only thing driving me forwards was the thought of different food at Braemar.  Road riding seemed strangely alien.  Cars, other people, road works and noise all came as a bit of a shock.  Finally we arrived in town and immediately went to the cafe in Braemar Mountain Sports.  Jim treated us to hot lunch and coffee, meanwhile I sat there recovering from the wind, smelling bad and watching everyone as they stopped to look at our bikes with a range of facial expressions; whilst expecting Jim to say ‘shall we look at the bus timetables’.  I also knew that public transport between Braemar and Aviemore was pretty much non existent, and therefore tried not to think about it!

Hot lunch in Braemar

To my amazement, rather than the bus, Jim was then saying, ‘where are we going to camp?’  We bought some more supplies and headed off towards Linn of Dee.  Our aim was to get to the end of the road and then camp at the first sheltered spot, which we hoped was at the edge of the first forest a few kms beyond the car park.  Despite the wind, the ride passed quickly and the spot we’d chosen from the map provided ample space and shelter for the night, with a water source.  After last year’s windy camp in the Cairngorms we both still had some doubt about how long the tent would survive, and whether we were just in a lull, we needn’t have worried, for never once did either of us grab the tent pole in an effort to add rigidity in a sudden gust.

Day 3 brought a beautiful sunrise as the morning light glowed around us.  The winds had dropped and we were on the home stretch.  Packing my bags was easier today, although sharing one headnet between us was nearly entertaining when the wind dropped!  I felt as thought we were starting to get to grips with bikepacking.

Singletrack riding on day 3

Today’s route was split into three distinct sections.  Pleasant double track, 8km of ‘atrocious bog single track’ and good tracks through Glen Feshie.  Navigation was simple and before long we arrived at the single track.  I had visions of being knee deep in bog and peat, barely able to push my bike and taking an hour per km to cover this section, such were the descriptions others had given us.  It was positivity benign in comparison, taking three hours including breaks for water, photos and food.  Perhaps years of running across the hills of Wales had built my bog resilience, or maybe it was just better than I thought it would be!  My only disappointment was that the minute the trail appeared rideable, you would begin, only to turn a corner, or go over a small bump, look ahead, and see a massive puddle or drainage channel built into the path and have to dismount and push.  On the bike, off the bike, on, off, on, off and so forth.  I was stubborn to arrive at the realisation that it was pointless and I should just continue to walk until the 8km ended.

Happy to be back on a track after the bog!

Glen Feshie is as beautiful as it’s hyped up to be.  Full of trees, old and new, winding tracks and water courses.  You wouldn’t be surprised to see bears, lynxes and wolves roaming.  The big river crossings took me by surprise though.  Some of them were over 10m across and knee deep.  A combination of small amounts of rainfall forecast and a presumption that we wouldn’t make it this far meant that I had failed to study the map closely and anticipate how many we would have to do.  Jim later told me the loop was notorious for river crossings!  Three crossings later we were on the home straight and started to discuss whether we would make it back to the van today instead of tomorrow.  Joining the tracks around Rotheimurchus felt awesome as we had always discussed going mountain biking here on previous holidays.  A mixture of tracks, just at the limit of my technical riding took us towards Glenmore.  On the way I managed to fall off a large footbridge into a stream without obtaining a single injury! we cooked a second lunch, and the jelly baby emergency stash was broken into.  

River crossing in Glen Feshie - they were quite big

Exhausted, but happy we arrived at the van ready for a big home cooked dinner.  For the first time in over 7 holidays to Scotland together we had camped longer than one night in a row, and therefore completed a multiday planned adventure, still very much on speaking terms and eager to plan another human powered trip.

Still smiling despite the hardship!