Sat 11th May 2019 - LHT Forsinard via Altnabreac off road route

Well today was meant to be the far north gravel ride that Brian posted about on Retrobike forum last week, short notice and a long way north for many.
There was a big turnout, well if you count me and my multiple personalities ;)  and even they were calling me Billy no mates.
This ride I decided would continue on to Altnabreac from a start point near Loch More then turn off the loop and head west across the flow country and up over some big hills to Forsinard for a cup of coffee and some cake.
It was looking a bit wet around the place up here this morning but was due to clear but I still allowed to get a bit wet from a shower or two, thankfully though the day just kept improving and I missed the rain completely.
The ride to the station was not as enjoyable or as quick as it usually is as over the winter the fast orange sand/gravel has had tons of big chucnks of blue metal stones laid on it for the estate which makes for about 7 of the nine miles to the station very rough indeed. Thankfully from the station turnoff to the west there is still the nice clay/sand road and while there is a lot more climbing and descending on this part it is a nice road to ride on.
The only drawback or pain today was the really heavy wind from the north west, it was up around 30mph in the high country and it was cold as well. Out the wind it was quite warm. As you can see for big sections this is really open country and there is no hiding from the wind. At least on the way back it wasn't so bad. I stopped at Forsinard and had a coffee and cake after stopping at the viewing platform. It was a quick turnaround as I didn't get going out there until late morning and with a round trip of just over 6 hours it was getting late.
I ended up doing about 76klm and about 5 of this was on tarmac, into and out of Forsinard. The rest was gravel/sand/dirt road, most of which was fairly good condition. This is wide open country out here and there isn't much about, least of all people. On the dirt sections I had one car from an estate come past me on the 3 klm climb from the tarmac on the Forsinard side and one parked car a bit further on. About a dozen though on the tarmac section.
All in all a great ride in some nice weather. Took a good few photos to maybe try and entice a few people up next time ;)
The Trucker also rode perfectly as it usually does. It feels really nice on the sand and gravel and handles it very nicely.
Off tomorrow morning early for Brians ride on the Black Isle.
Hope everyone has had a good day as well :)

Jamie