Fanylion Mountain Bike Team
Official site of the Fanylion Mountain Bike Team. Includes mountain bike ride guides, gear reviews, bike maintenance, team reports and rider profiles of the Fanylion Racing Team.
Fort William
July 03, 2003, Scotland Tour
Glen Orchy, Fort William, Glen Etive, Pooley Bridge, Grizedale Forest, Hawkshead (home of the maddest campsite on earth!!!). You are probably wondering what the hell all of these have in common? Well read on and find out, dudes!
Team Shack had booked a couple of days off work to do some extreme pursuits and contacted me to see if I fancied joining in. Now as my life has been shit recently I decide to book a couple of days off and get away from it all. The Plan? Biking!
We would be camping and decided to head for Scotland and then to the Lakes. I arrived at Phil’s in York on the Wednesday evening for the usual steak and chips and a few beers. 5 pints later we stumbled home and went to bed.
Thursday dawned grey and wet and our enthusiasm for the trip was jarred as we packed up the car and headed north. As we hit Glasgow our Team (break-away team that is) prayers had been answered and we were blessed with sunshine. As we drove round the shores of Loch Lomond we felt glad to be alive, glad to off work and glad to be going biking. Life was wonderful! Phil knew a place we could camp for the night so we headed for Glen Orchy. Now, imagine peace and tranquility, the gentle flow of a river, stupendous views, birds in full song, sheep (nice) and above all amazing sunshine. That’s right you have just imagined Glen Orchy!
We unloaded the car put the tent up and lit the barbie and opened a few cans of Bud. The place was amazing: it was pure tranquility! As we ate our burgers, beans and sausages we planned the next days’ events and decided to head for Glencoe. After our food we decided to have a quick spin on our bikes. An hour later we returned hot and sweaty from our roadwork and went to bed.
When we awoke next day the sun was shining through the trees and we were greeted by our good old friends…Midgets (midges). The place was swarming with them and they wanted us badly, so we decided to pack up and head for the Glencoe visitors’ center for tea and a bacon roll. I had been bitten to death but Shack escaped lightly.
After we filled our stomachs we headed for the info center to find out about any way marked routes around Glencoe as we really couldn’t be arsed map reading. The guy at the desk was helpful and pointed us in the direction of Fort William downhill/xc courses and surrounding trails.
As we arrived in Fort William we were surrounded by 20 or so Steve Peat style downhill maniacs. Chris would have been at home here but we thought our XC bikes/kit looked out of place so we decided to leave them in the car for now and get them out round the corner, for fear of looking like a pair of girls. After a quick scan of the centre we picked up a map of the World XC course (Witches Trail) and decided check it out. We quickly got our bikes out of the car and set off eagerly in the hot July sunshine. A brief single track and then a fire road climb brought us to the more technical sections of the trail. The Bomb Hole (aka Bum Hole) was awesome and a few MBUK style pics were taken of us being rad. The north shore style planking and drops made us whoop with delight but the wooded section made us think how the f**k did those guys ride down it! In the wet it must be madness. It was truly unreal. Hodgson we must return to see if you can ride it!! More north shore style planking and then a man made single-track section brought us back to the centre. Ninety minutes of map reading, picture taking and generally arsing about made us want more. We decided to set off again in eagerness of the North Shore sections that we had ridden. A more respectable 50 mins was taken this time! A quick bite to eat and a quick check of the downhill maniacs on their 7 inch sussers and we were off to Pooley Bridge in the Lakes for Round 2 of our excursion.
Shack had brought wet suits and helmets and we stopped off at beautiful Glen Etive for some crazy waterfall diving. Shack donned his wet suit and helmet and inched towards the edge, the fear in his face telling me this wass going to take some nerve. He paused for a few seconds, and then jumped approx 40ft into the white water below. I too donned my wet suit and stood at the edge of the rock and looked below into the foaming water. It was high, it looked deep and I didn’t want to jump. Shack shouted encouragement from below, I took a deep breath and jumped. It was awesome!. We had one more jump each then set off for the Lakes.
We arrived at Pooley Bridge at about 8.20pm and booked ourselves into a quiet campsite and quickly put up the tent and made our way over to one of the many local pubs. Steak and Chips was on the menu (they must have know we were coming!) so a few beers followed by the team issue meal saw the evening out.
We awoke next day to be greeted not by midges but by fine drizzle. We had a quick shower (not together Hodgson!), packed away the tent and after a brief stop in Ambleside for breakfast we were on our way to Grizedale Forest. As we drove through the small town of Hawkshead we noted two campsites for the night and in hindsight the one we stayed in was unreal to say the least. More on that later!
We arrived at the Grizedale at approx 11am and went straight to the bike shop to find out about routes. The chap happily said “its a fire road” , “it’s a fire road” as we asked him about the hardest route on offer. He said you want to go this way and quickly drew some arrows on the map. We agreed and went back to the car.
After much farting about we mounted our bikes and rode off in the direction drawn on the map. After much stopping and starting (due to map reading) it became apparent this was a mighty fine trail. The section called ‘Body Armour Descent’ from the stunning view of Lake Coniston was truly awesome. Fast and furious. More singletrack saw us drop into a valley and then up and out into the woods. The ‘Three Bitch Descent’ through three fire roads was awesome, and we met some motorbikes and a 4x4. More singletrack followed by some roadwork saw us dive back into the forest for a fire road climb. By now I was ufcked from lack of sleep and a cold. Shack was on form as we rode more technical sections and then back onto the road to the centre. 14 miles in total and we had discovered a great future ride for the full Team.
After a brew and a sarnnie we set off to find a campsite. The best one in Hawkshead was full but the other had space so we drove in and set up camp. There were plenty of tents and the site was busy. Groups of people were playing football, drinking and generally having a good time. It must be good we thought!
The music was thumping and the barbies were in full effect. I lay in the tent whilst Shack read MBUK. At about 6:30pm we were hungry and headed into Hawkshead for a curry and a few pints. 8:30pm saw us fed and watered and back at the site. We sat around by the car and generally ogled all the fit birds and laughed at the drunken piss heads playing football and getting stoned. Was this Glastonbury Part 2? Was it an organized Rave? Was it a load of knob heads just getting drunk in a field? I think it was all of these and more as 10 o’clock passed and then midnight and then 2am. The music was blasting out from all areas, a G reg Escort thumped out the Stone Roses whilst another stereo played ‘Now 678’ or something like that. It was pure madness. People were shouting and drinking, lighting fires, dancing, getting stoned, etc. till at least 4am.
I awoke at 6:30 am, feeling terrible. As I opened the tent door an eerie silence greeted me. It was like Hiroshima. The ground was smoldering from the fires, dogs were roaming around in the smoke that drifted across the site, rubbish was strewn everywhere, one person was up walking around as if he had lost his family. It was weird.
We packed and drove off quickly, taking care to run over one of the party-goers tents and headed home.
As I dropped Shack off I felt a tinge of sadness that our trip had come to a close. It had been awesome in every way and we even laughed at the campsite we had left. We must return to the Highlands again soon with a full Team and explore the trials on offer as it is worth the drive alone. We shall return.
Team Starkey, Out.
Riders present
Team Shack
Team Starkey
Enjoyment level
Camptastic