BECAUSE IT'S THERE

AFTER A SESSION ON GOOGLE EARTH, JAMES VINCENT AND HIS RAGTAG RIDING CREW HEAD TO SCOTLAND TO RIDE WHAT'S NEVER BEEN RIDDEN BEFORE... AND FIND OUT WHY

- James Vincent

SOMETIME EARLIER THIS YEAR, MY GOOD FRIEND MAX AND I WERE CHATTING AND PLOTTING ADVENTURES. With a penchant for hike-a-bike and steep, borderline-ridable tech, our discussion drifted north of the border, to the remote mountains of Torridon. I'd ticked off the classics here, yet always found my gaze shifting up to the lofty peaks, wondering what was hiding in the dreich Scottish mist. Max, much more familiar with the area than I was, casually mentioned the sprawling mass of the Beinn Eighe ridge. My interest was piqued.

I grabbed an OS map and things looked promising the contour lines were so densely packed in places that there was more ink than paper. Oddly, I wasn't concerned by the large section where marked paths were nonexistent. Putting the paper map to one side, I turned to the wonders of modern technology and fired up Google Earth. The 3D render confirmed just how steep the hollows flanking the ridge were, while the crude satellite overlay showed a whole heap of rock and a distinct lack of vegetation on the summit. It was too pixelated to show much detail, but a 360-degree Photo Sphere (similar to Street View, but static) taken near Kinlochewe gave a little more info, teasing what looked like a classic section of Scottish singletrack wending its way off the summit of Sgurr an Fhir Dhuibhe, alongside a stream with Scots pines scattered all around. I decided then and there that I needed to ride this trail.

Hike vs bike 

The sensible way to do this would be to set out from Kinlochewe and pedal up until you can't take any more, then pick up your bike and carry it as far as you dare, before turning around to enjoy the descent. However, I have an innate distrust of out-and-back rides, preferring to either loop back to where I started or take on a point-to-point adventure, with a cunningly placed van at the finish in which to shuttle back to the start.