When planning a ride there's always someone who can't help pushing the boat out a bit further - turning an otherwise extremely interesting night ride into a 'glad we made it back' epic. When you go that far out, love it and return largely intact, nothing beats that feeling - spiritual isn't it?
So where is all this hippie-shit going? To Glencoe my friends, to Glencoe - with Team Beige and The Happy Camper. For those who have yet to enjoy (read endure) the ride of the Happy Camper, a 10 year old beige Ford Transit camper conversion (read 'no loo') then stay with me on this journey.
Arriving in Kinlochleven, amidst the ridges of Glencoe and the Mamores, the blackened sky pushed silvered clouds through the glen, whilst the moon drew our eyes towards the snow-capped mountains, Am Bodach and Na Gruagaichean, shadowing our planned route - it was majestic, and posed a slightly intimidating invitation to their heart.
We parked the Happy Camper, and unloaded our bikes around 9.30 p.m. Operation 'Discretely Get Changed for a Night Mission Without Scaring the Local Curtain Twitchers' ensued. Drawing the van's velour curtains against night eyes Andy 'crash, bash, destroy’ McKenna and Willie 'tougher than he looks' Catchpool donned sealskins, balaclavas, bib tights and all manner of feeble protection to ward off freezing night air and imminent aerial acrobatics, integral to any memorable ride in the dark.
We were out. Resembling a pair of rejects from an early Milk Tray advert, stalling over, it was now time for business. A mix of laboured breathing and adrenalised gibberish resisted the icy air whilst our Cateye's halogen brought out a few curious stares. Curtains twitched and heads were scratched as boys on bikes were seen, (stupidly) avoiding a bee-line to the warmth of the Tailrace Inn, our attention on collecting thoughts and stomach contents for the long climb into the Mamores mountain range.
Adrenal chatter subsided, making way for subdued hysteria as we committed to the run. It's amazing how utterly insignificant you feel as you enter real mountain territory, that addictive component of mountain biking, that sense of 'place' in this grand scheme - it never fails to amaze.
A bit of backslapping banter was required: "Wait till the rest of the boys hear about this run - it's going to be fantastic". A good and bad thing about night riding is that you can't see the trepidation on your comrades’ face - you're never sure whether it's a good time to suggest a retreat or offer encouraging words. Similarly, they can't see your vice like grip on the bars and the sweat doused 'perma-frown' that creases your face on challenging climbs like this one.
The mountain's snow dusting gave an eerie glow to help light our path as we climbed onward, now in silent contemplation, excited anticipation tempered with the occasional knocking on the brain - 'is this a good idea, tackling an uncharted run like this in darkness?'. The seductive outline of the snow-capped mountains banished these momentary lapses and drew us on.
Weird thought number two: "Are there many activities that make you feel like you've just eaten a box of Victory V throat lozenges washed down with a pint of ice-cold milk?" Climbs like this really give you time to conjure up some weird stuff. If you don't think, I mean really think, in fact concentrate on 'something', you become too aware of the pain, the burn, and the general unease - the need for a 28th gear and an extra cubic foot of fully operational lung capacity. That sense of over stimulation of the worst kind, that makes the idea of just stopping... stopping makes everything all right... and falling over and going to sleep, still clipped in, seem so attractive.
Instead you concentrate, you know if you stop, the torture you and your 'friend' (mental v physical) will give you outweighs this kind of temporary misery. "Repeat pain is good, lactic acid is my friend, the reward at the other end is good - someone remind why I'm doing this - Oh yea, Willie is still ahead and making this climb look like a breeze.... Must catch Willie, must catch Willie!"
No sooner have you rationalised the complete sanity of just stopping and lying on the ground, when you make a breakthrough. Without warning, that muesli bar, that packet of crisps, that scoffed banana, start to work their magic. The sirens of sleep are silenced by mild euphoria and the long and rutted Landover track climb becomes an essential rite of passage to singletrack nirvana. Where the contours merge so tightly, and the dotted singletrack switches back and forth across the mountain-side, onwards to singletrack heaven with Team Beige, such thoughts are this sports' anaesthetic.
Steep mountain climbs affect people differently. For some it's the opportunity to work on your Zen mind control. For others, the control of acid indigestion is a burning issue. Of the mixed messages reaching my throbbing temples, the most demanding seemed to be: "Why do I choose to ride up mountains that I can barely walk up?"
The massive blackness of the Highland glen helped re-focus the mind. Stopping to take in our journey so far, heart rates subsided, breathing became more regular, we turned, eyes retraining to natural darkness - an almost religious moment as wind teared eyes took in the moonlit Loch Leven, 600 metres below. From our elevated plateau, two warriors of the glen glowed proudly, the bulk of the climb behind us. Life made sense, Team Beige was happy.
Only the chill of the wind nudged us back into action - and the thought of those enticing contours. If the singletrack descent was rideable in the dark, this ride was going to be unforgettable.
The key to singletrack heaven, a thin strand at the head of Loch Eilde Mor proved more elusive than we had hoped - the gates would not open without a bit more effort - it seemed we had to earn the right to go further into the glen. Perhaps if we'd really given this escapade a bit more thought we should have ridden it in daylight first, but in reality, all of these 'unknowns' only added to the epic stature of this ride.
Willie scanned back down the trail for any tell tale signs of the elusive meandering thread. Pulling my bike onto its back wheel, I swivelled the bars from left to right scanning further up the hill. After a few false starts we were off. We had found a strand of singletrack that would have been delicious in daylight - to find it in the dark was a bonus. Right now, even if we were heading in the wrong direction this stretch of tight, bermed, bunnyhop-culvert singletrack had us well and truly gripped, we had no intention of slowing the charge until the adrenaline tanks ran out.
Over and over in my head the chant echoed: "can you believe this track.... there is a God and he loves to ride his mountain bike". Flowing through one more sumptuous section of hard pack we were met by the moons reflection upon Loch Eilde Mor. As we stopped to soak up the views the moon lit the silver clouds and we glimpsed our path skirting enticingly below Meal na Duibhe. Fuelled by these simple pleasures and a glance at the map, we didn't hang around in the icy air.
Back on our trusty steeds, we made good pace, it all seemed to be going very smoothly, big gear riding, when we turned a bend and met a very precarious bridge, a sheet of plate metal spanning a 'chasm' of unknown depth. The closer we got, the more detail our lights picked out.
Willie being a bit of a skelf was not intimidated by what the lights saw. Me on the other hand, 14 stones, not all muscle, shivered at the prospect of riding over what was clearly a very rusted metal makeshift bridge. Enter Indiana Jones and a huge sigh of relief as the bridge held. We had to keep the pace pretty quick, we wanted to ensure plenty of light for the descent. What would be the point of all that climbing to then have to pussy foot on the descent?
Now the fun really began. Knowing that Willie was going to be in his element with his new Gary Fisher Sugar Plus, with disk brakes and loads of cushy suspension, I felt a little under armed. In a bid to keep up, I had clad my v-braked hardtail with 2.2-inch 'Fear master' tyres. If ever a misnomer existed, I was subjected to its full glory in the first vertically steep switchback singletrack section. Although intended for downhill use, these tyres gave no traction - 'fear factor' more like!
"Brake on grass verge, nope, try on dirt, rock, nope, going over bars, can't see ground, try and relax.... oomph!!!” Falling in the pitch black from an incline so steep your wedding tackle does a good impression of a third brake can be a bit surreal. The fleeting expectation that I may well meet with the teeth of a jagged rock and rag doll on down the mountainside was banished by the soft acrobatic thud of my large body landing on soft wet mud. Over in an instant, a retrospective of my nighttime crash would look like this:
Scraping off the mud, and stamping my dead leg into action, Willies lights below cast eerie twisting shadows on the hillside - he was obviously in the zone. Adrenaline still pumping, I jumped back on and tried to regain momentum. Cursing my tyre choice, and after a few more aerial trips I was surely going to be one of this mountains statistics. Drastic measures were required; deflating my tyres to about 20psi I could feel the old downhill demon returning at last.
There was far too much good stuff ahead to hang around worrying about skint knees. The grin widened and the flow returned. Rocky singletrack switchback - heaven, the kind that begs you to ignore instincts and keep the pace up. Slow down and the baby head boulders will snag your 26 inchers.
After shaking off my sketchy start everything came together, even better as I passed Willie rubbing a bruised shin as he'd got his inside crank snagged on a left hand hairpin. Through the super steep switchback on open mountain, the gradient eased enough to shake out pumped up fingers, dropping into a spindly forest section. Knuckles took a beating as we negotiated tight trees and tried to float over the river that had formed in the singletrack groove. Keeping front ends light we were feeling absurdly gung-ho, leaping off two foot drop offs straight into right hand hairpins, to the crescendo of the tumbling waterfall fuelled by the bulging contents of the Blackwater Reservoir - a constant reminder not too stray too close to the trail edge.
We were treated to 30 minutes of scintillating singletrack, a complete grin fest that let up only when the trail spat us out without warning on the streets of Kinlochleven. Arriving back in the late night quiet, intact after such an epic nerve jangling descent, was surreal. Dawdling along on tarmac so suddenly was absurdly easy. Calm descended after the thunder of the glen, the scraping of brakes and bikes on boulders - Team Beige was happy.
Back in the land of the curtain twitchers, the locals really had something to look at. Two mucky bikers climbed into a beige camper van. Unlike Dr Who's Tardis, the happy camper really is as small on the inside as it looks from the outside. Two bikers, too much adrenaline, four elbows, lots of wet lycra and stupidly tight waterproof socks - a black eye in the making.
To celebrate we burst into the local pub, The Tailrace Inn, to be met by stunned silence. A truly 'Deliverancesque' moment, we asked for a couple of lagers at which point all stares turned to the clock. The penny dropped - it was almost one am, the pub was closed and we had been out on the mountains for almost 3 hours. Suitably embarrassed we shuffled off back to the Camper. Although the heart of some stunning biking, we decided that without a lager celebration in the pub, there are more picturesque places to wake up after a cold night in the van.
We packed up and headed to the Kings House, at the mouth of Glencoe, where a full on competition standard Jenga contest ensued. A bottle of champagne (a remnant from my recent wedding celebrations) and a dozen Kronenbourgs later we crashed out and dreamt of singletrack (and an inside loo!). The following morning the extra shift to get us round to Kings House was well worth it. Behind the velour curtains the stunning view of the Buachaille Etive Mor was a glorious start. To top that off Willie had kept his stash of bacon rashers a secret. Bacon rolls and hot coffee. Life made sense - Team beige were truly happy.
Last Updated 25-03-2002
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