Like any bikepacking race, the Highland Trail 550 has its own unique set of demands that makes packing the perfect kit a proper head scratcher. While our weather rarely hits the extremes that give races like the Arizona Trail race or winter ultras their notoriety, it’s always… interesting. Ground conditions vary from a surprising amount of tarmac road through to unwelcome amounts of trackless blanket … Continue reading HT550 2022 — what’s in yer bag pal?
Well, 2020 was one hell of a year, wasn’t it? Nobody needs reminding of the ways our lives have been affected by the pandemic, but among the difficulties and hardship there have been a few silver linings to be found, so this blog is a reminder of one of those rare positive sides to the year instead. If you regularly spend time in the outdoors … Continue reading The Fisherfield Twist
For obvious reasons, 2020 was the year of the homegrown adventure. With even travel around our own countries being off the cards for so much of the year, if you were looking for opportunities to stay busy and rack up some miles they were likely to be found in your own backyard, and one of the slender positives amidst the crappiness of the pandemic was … Continue reading The Lakes 200
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A one-hit wonder ride of the Cairngorms Loop, which did (and didn’t) go to plan… Continue reading Navigating Internally: going off-topic on the Cairngorms Loop
Going in to the AZT300, my main aim was simply to be present, be confident in myself and to find that elusive state of mind that makes ultra-racing so utterly addicitive. Annie and me spent a full month in Arizona, spending some time with Kurt Refsnider and Kaitlyn Boyle, the respective male and female record holders of the 300 (and the 750 for Kurt), and … Continue reading Desert dreams and ghost cows: the AZT 300
In January I moved to Canada. A short sentence makes it sound simple, and I suppose in the end it was. All the umming and ahhing, and then the paperwork, and the tickets, and the plans, and finding somewhere to live boiled down to a day or so of actual movement. Despite all the preparation, plane travel makes the act itself feel a little bit … Continue reading A new continent, and a new camp spot
This story originally appeared in issue 1 of the Bikepacking Journal. To get access to more tall tales from the journal in its beautiful, tactile paper format, you can become a member of the bikepacking collective here: https://www.bikepacking.com/join/ Three parallel tracks led straight on, seeming to merge as they crested the next dune. The two tracks on the right were pairs of reniform depressions like … Continue reading Boundless: A Greenlandic Bikerafting Journey
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I looked again at the map, at the confident lines that we had traced across its surface a few days before, but which now more closely resembled a rod for our own backs, and as time to think was plentiful I asked myself how I had come once again to a familiar position: lying in a tent somewhere cold, trying to ride (well mostly push, … Continue reading Fat tyres and Friluftsliv: bikepacking in Arctic Sweden
The 2018 Highland Trail got a little too exciting for me, and in the end wasn’t a completion, although it had nothing to do with my gear choices. I do like to indulge in a little gear nerding from time to time, and optimizing my kit for this year gave me something to think about in the months leading up to May. At the end … Continue reading Highland Trail 550 – Gear freak-out
The granite plateaus of the cairngorms began their life far from the sun, at the roots of a mountain chain, at a time when Scotland and America were still parts of the same landmass. Wind, water and ice took their toll, and the mountains were eroded into nothing, but their roots remained. Ice came and took bites from it, but the granite was only … Continue reading Tread lightly: A Tale of Three Plateaus
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