Aviemore Weekend Ride Report

It’s usually a good omen when Dawn suggests a trip away someplace – the weather and the biking seems to turn out pretty darned good and this trip was no exception.

After meeting up at the ever helpful Bothy Bikes and getting our bearings we headed off to ride some local trails armed with some route advice including a warning to watch out for the belligerent Capercaillie guarding one of the trails!  To our surprise it was positively warm up in Aviemore and the first trails we rode were amazingly dry and grippy as we wound our way through the flowy forest singletrack.  The route headed up into the hills with various tempting options heading off in different directions but we stuck with the local’s advice until we were close to some singletrack shown on the OS map.

This singletrack turned out to be more of a wish than an actual trail and after a lunch stop we found ourselves wondering why the OS map didn’t state “here be marshes” as we took part in a variety of new sports including Lithuanian Shoe Bog Snorkelling, Marsh Leaping and the spectator sport of Watch The Orange P7 Sink In The Mire.  Keeping the faith we made our way to a high point and stumbled across some beautiful, dry singletrack.  Pleased to be back on the bikes we raced off down the trail only to be stopped a few minutes down the trail when Paulius The Bike Destroyer ripped his rear mech off snapping the mech hanger in the process.  After a brief (failed) attempt to singlespeed it we opted to escort Paulius back out to civilisation in time for him to make it to the local Specialized dealer before they shut for the day.

Once he was safely on his way Dawn, Tom and myself headed back to do some more exploring and were rewarded with more singletrack and some lovely, steep, techy downhills.  The angry Capercaillie was not encountered – much to Dawn’s relief.  What we did encounter later was the Lesser Spotted Sarcastic Hostel Owner who commented that Paulius left enough mud in his clean hallway “to grow tatties”.  Fair point though.  He had been bog snorkelling earlier!  Following a meal at a local pub and a few beers and it was lights out after a short but hard day’s riding.

The sun was out on Sunday and we were out of the hostel and riding from Boat of Garten about 10:30 following Dawn’s instructions round Abernethy Forest.  We couldn’t believe our eyes with large patches of blue skies and sunshine being glimpsed through the pine forests.  Our route took us over to Ryvoan Bothy and into Rothiemurchus with a well timed refuelling stop at a cafe.

By this point in the weekend the legs were getting weary but we still had a fair bit of climbing ahead of us.  Spurring us onwards was my promise of some amazing singletrack up in the hills overlooking Rothiemurchus.  There was the small caveat that it had been years since I’d been riding there and it was a bit of a guess as to where the trails were.  Luckily we found a couple of the downhill sections and saw another but time was against us so we had to push on with the fireroad return to the cars.  It was about this time when Paulius The Bike Destroyer  struck again managing to bend a brake lever in a crash on the singletrack.  But he soldiered on with the downhills and managed to survive.  I’ll gloss over the bum-steer where the 70m fireroad climb didn’t result in the epic views I’d promised – unless you count phone base stations and more trees as epic.  Oops.

By the time we were back at the cars we were pretty done in but over the moon that we’d had a superb weekend of riding on dry trails surrounded by beautiful scenery.  High Five to Dawn – another top weekend away suggestion!  Keep an eye on the calendar – I reckon we’ll be back there before too long.

More Aviemore photos