I was on my faithful Long Haul Trucker and Brian on his Ti 29'er set up for audax with a hub gear. So both steel and retro in style and feel. This was one of Brians road rides, so this time I came prepared, I had lights, a long mudflap and a new bell, though I was a bit worried as Brian had fitted mudguards to the 29'er
It was clearly the first day of spring proper as the temps were up around 14 and the sun was out, no wind, it was pretty bloody amazing for up here and even the drive down was glorious.
The ride, like most of ours had a vague route through the Ross shire hills to the west of Dingwall, Brian's home village, to find an old historic tower, supposedly cursed by a seer back in the days when Macbeth had his castle in Dingwall.
Our ride started in Dingwall and we round around the shore before turning inland. We crossed a few pretty big hills sticking mainly to singletrack and dirt backroads and at one point to get to the tower from the western side we had to use Brians GPS and Ordinance Survey maps on his phone to take to the dirt singletrack over the top of a pretty big hill and swampy top section to emerge out of a field about 100 metres from the tower, we could have come up from the other side on the dirt road, but that would have been too easy
The route really went in a circuitous route around 2/4 of Ben Wyvis, it was always there in the background. We didn't really get away until after lunch and so didn't get back until it had just gone dark but thankfully for Brian the last few kilometres are on the cycle route through Dingwall. Just such a lovely afternoon ride and while we ride these roads and tracks quite often the views always look different. The estate tracks/roads to the west of Dingwall were really lovely, no one for miles and miles, the road snaking along and up beside the river. Found a great campsite and would be really nice to hold a sort of 2 day ride with a campout there.
Anyway here's a few photos, and hope everyone else is enjoying the weather as well.
Todays looking great as well, so a ride on the Mercian might bring the retro back on line
Jamie
My drive south, heading for some hills
Brian near the site of MacBeths castle
Still some snow left
Best bloke a guy could ever ride with
Nice view of Ben Wyvis from up this high
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