As far as I can remember Dad had never been a cyclist, so it had come as a surprise to see he had put his heavy steel steed as part of this trips equipment stash. Despite many attempts to persuade him that it would be perfectly valid to use one on some of the long approaches to distant munros he preferred to just start earlier, or keep walking longer.
So with both of us with bikes i picked out a route we could do at least some of together. Although 54km the initial section of the Glen Tilt loop looked reasonably flat and not too far. We started off together, his pump was a track pump, awesome for getting your tyre inflated quickly, less awesome for carrying.
There were a few ups and downs, but he was steady, our difference in speed was most notable on the downhill sections where he would most definitely make sure the brake pads were in constant contact with the rims.
We parted ways at Forest Lodge and i polished off the remaining forest track to join the singletrack to the Falls of Tarf. The valley forked, steep sided it was obvious I wasn’t riding out of here. Neither was the path too obvious so. I push and hauled up the most likely looking sheep track until the hillside flattened out, but being grassy it wasn’t immediately possible to ride. The ground was soft so there was a lot more walking on this section than I had expected. The slow progress taking me further and further into the wilderness made me anxious, so I was relieved when i could finally ride again and join Fealar Lodge, the most distant point of the trip.
I was now on well surfaced track which weaved a path along the hillside before making a 7km decent to Daldhu farm. Another climb stood ahead and the surrounding still felt marvellously remote, it felt like. I had done a lot of riding and I still had a lot to do!
The decent to Shinagag was very good, even if I did veer off the path a few times where the path widened out over the hillside.
From here all that remained was well surfaced track back to the Old Bridge of Tilt, it had been a great introduction to what to expect from Scottish riding.
32/18 54km