Biking in Leanachan Forest

We were hoping for another day out cragging today, the vague plan was to head out as soon as all the guests had gone, get a few hours climbing and then come back and try to do all the cleaning before anyone turned up at the hostel (you know, our hostel in the Scottish Highlands!).

When we woke up the weather seemed to have other plans, the ground was damp and it looked pretty overcast. We decided we'd head to the Nevis Range and check out the biking in the Leanachan Forest. As usual, most of the guests had hills to conquer and were all out and about pretty early, we made it to the Nevis range for about 10 am. The sun had decided to come out and it looked like it'd be another great day.

Apparently we were a day too late for the "10 under the Ben" endurance race so we had a look around to see what we fancied doing. Jen was still feeling a little unsure about her "clippy inny" spd pedals so we decided to warm up on the short "skills" loops. Handily they are colour coded like ski runs, we whizzed through the burns and drops of the green, blue and red runs a couple of times, we looked at the black but decided we'd leave it for next time!

Some warm up, I was ready for a sit down and a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake. Unfortunately, we didn't have any tea or any cake so decided we'd head off on the "Cour" route, a 19km blue route through the Leanachan forest. I tried to convince Jen that she needed more weight over her back wheel to help control it, she ignored my advice and I ended up carrying the rucksack. After about 20 minutes of pedalling I was thinking we'd made a bit of a mistake, we'd been on slightly inclining forest roads in baking sun since we'd set off and I was beginning to worry it'd all be like this. 5 minutes later it got a lot better. After a quick downhill blast the route cuts on to some nice fast singletrack that went through the forest (with shade and a nice breeze!) for a couple of kilometers then carved through the open countryside under Aonach Mor. Unfortunately, there were a few kilometers of forest road to get us back to the van, but the route finishes at the top of the skills loop so we had another blast through there to finish on a high.

The route was OK in the end despite the slog along the forest roads, a good introduction to biking at the Nevis Range, now we've got the blue out the way I'm looking forward to trying one of the red routes.

--Matt