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| The dammed Spey |
Alongside the dam Paul stopped to upend his bike and started trying to take his back wheel off because it wasn't freewheeling properly. When he'd got the bolt through axle out the cassette dropped off and the pawls fired themselves over the road - diagnosis was a snapped hub axle... bugger.
It wasn't feasible for him to carry on riding so we got out the map and realised we were only a km or so of forest road away from Laggan Wolftrax, which had lost its bike shop last time Paul was there, but was worth a look. Paul acquired Fi's bike and we rode across, there was still no bike shop. Some people in a portacabin reckoned the nearest shop was Aviemore, 25+ miles in the wrong direction. Paul did some ringing round and eventually found a shop in Fort William with a new axle that should fit. The next challenge was getting there, it was 40+ miles in vaguely the right direction, and just a canal tow path ride down the Great Glen to bed in Fort Augustus. We rode back to Fi and Alex so Paul could pick up the rest of his bike and then try and hitch a lift or find a bus on the A86. Alex, Fi and I then left him for dead and rode off down the glen.
General Wade's Military Road is paved to Melgarve, so it was fairly easy going for a good few miles, there were even some roadside deer to distract us from the grind.
During our daily hummus sandwich stop Alex told us that when he passed this way last year he found that the old Corrieyariack pass road wasn't steep but it was covered in loose rock making the climb tortuous.
We found that the track had been upgraded to a nice easy smooth surface, the only excitement being some massive rock water bars that needed to be ridden off every 50m or so. They're putting in the accursed mega pylons to replace the old pylons over the pass, to do this they've built a whole new access road along the line of the pylons and maybe as part of the deal repaired the old track.
The top of the pass is marked by the old pylons and still seemed a long way up when we reached Corrie Yairack, the line of the track up the back wall of the corrie is hidden and it was a pleasant surprise to find it gradually climbed in a series of well surfaced zig zags.
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| Bambi |
During our daily hummus sandwich stop Alex told us that when he passed this way last year he found that the old Corrieyariack pass road wasn't steep but it was covered in loose rock making the climb tortuous.
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| The easy bit |
We found that the track had been upgraded to a nice easy smooth surface, the only excitement being some massive rock water bars that needed to be ridden off every 50m or so. They're putting in the accursed mega pylons to replace the old pylons over the pass, to do this they've built a whole new access road along the line of the pylons and maybe as part of the deal repaired the old track.
The top of the pass is marked by the old pylons and still seemed a long way up when we reached Corrie Yairack, the line of the track up the back wall of the corrie is hidden and it was a pleasant surprise to find it gradually climbed in a series of well surfaced zig zags.
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| Topping out on Corrieyairack |
At the top it was a bit breezy but there was a hazy view over to Kintail and it looked sunny in the direction of Fort Augustus, our destination.
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| Kintail |
The downhill had also been smoothed out so our progress was fast and comfortable, there were a few undulations along the way but with a tail wind we were soon in the sunshine and in sight of Loch Ness. Going east to west over Corrieyariack there's a net height loss, so we got more down than we paid for.
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| Smooth |
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| Fort Augustus and Loch Ness |
At the end of the pass we had a few sections of road and track to negotiate before arriving in Fort Augustus mid afternoon. We worked out where we were meant to be staying, Morag's Lodge and checked in. Paul rang at 3:30 to say his bike was on the mend and he'd get to us for about 7 after 3 hours of riding up the Great Glen Way. He'd had a two and a half hour wait by the road at Laggan before a kindly downhiller heading for Nevis range offered him a lift to Fort William. In the meantime we shopped, prepared some bolognaise and ate lots of chocolate and fig rolls, not leaving many for Paul.
The hostel is very nice but is a stop over for Haggis Tours, which are apparently 'Wild and Sexy', so it was full of hormonal teenagers. Paul was a bit worn out after his undulating canal tow path ride and helped us demolish 1kg of pasta, our mega portion sizes were far more impressive than the morsels of lasagna put on by the hostel. After tea we popped into the village for a pleasant al fresco beer by the locks.
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| Monsters |
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