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Grinding Gravel: Dirty Reiver 200

In the last few weeks I’ve finally gotten a Salsa Warbird of my own built up thanks to Bryan at Raleigh, so I can stop stealing Annie’s Warbird and making her cross. It’s been a busy few weeks for the new arrival too, with a bobbly-gravelly-soggy backroad tour of the Outer Hebrides and…

Review: Revelate Designs Periphery Pocket

Perfectionism isn’t always a virtue – no one is going to notice that your tyre logos line up with your valves when they’re caked with mud, and oftentimes it’s best to just crack on without sweating the small stuff too much. I’m willing to bet though that Eric from Revelate would disagree, and his…

Scott Addict Gravel 20

Yes, that’s right, we’re talking about gravel. Before you spray your cup of tea all over the screen, railing against the shadowy capitalist conspiracy that is clearly responsible for bringing you yet another buzzword and category of bike on which to splurge your hard-fought earnings, hear me out – if not for my sake…

The Capital Trail 2016

I’m a planner. I like, at the very least, to think that I know what lies on the road ahead, to be able to pre-empt, prepare, control.

45NRTH Wolvhammer review

Although it does happen, it’s not all that often that British winter conditions demand a full winter boot to keep toes pink and wiggly. A combination of overshoes and waterproof socks is usually enough to keep them warm, although keeping them dry is another matter, especially in the perma-bog of the Highlands. When…

Legal Highs:Guiding in France

It’s been a long time coming, but as of last week I can finally rejoin the promised land, enjoy lovely trails with lovely people, and ride obscene switchbacks until my handlebars get stuck in that position – I passed the French equivalency test that allows me to legally guide and instruct bikes in France, join…

Highland Trail 550 – Part 3

Part 1 Part 2 I managed to sleep anyway, though, and got up at 5 to tackle the Postaman’s Walk along the north shore of Loch Maree, all the way to a hot drink at the Whistle Stop café in Kinlochewe. It was a huge mental struggle to get up and face the long daily…

Highland Trail 550 – Part 2

Part 1 So far I was happy enough with my progress, I knew I had clocked up at least 100 miles a day, probably more on the first day, and that would hopefully see me home in the six days that I was aiming for. I knew that the trail would only get hillier,…

A Vision Quest on the Highland Trail – Part 1

Apologies, I was too busy swallowing flapjack, pedalling and talking to myself to take any photos on this adventure. Besides, the phone was firmly stashed in many layers of waterproofing, somewhere in the depths of my seatpack. So in their place, let the words do the picture-painting for you, and I’ve dug out some photos…

Þakka þér Ísland!

Well then. We arrived back home last week after an interesting month. It had been a hard winter at the point when we left for Iceland, five weeks ago. Well, by ‘hard’ I mean that we had been jollying around Chile and Argentina for a couple of months, followed by six fairly intensive weeks of…

Trials and Tribulations in Patagonia

Patagonia. What was all that about then? It’s been a pretty hectic winter since we arrived home in Scotland in January, but here are some words and photos that I put together for Bikepacker’s Magazine about our trip. “All things look good from far away and it is man’s eternally persistent childlike faith in the…

Iceland: Boots, Bikes and Boldly going…

Soon (this evening in fact), I’ll be heading back to Iceland for a second time to explore more of its mountainous dirt roads by bike, and to learn more about that improbable, impossible and very thoroughly lovely country; that’s not to mention further research on the infinite variations of liquorice-based sweets to be found all…