Torridon and Skye Mountain Bike Tour – 8 Days
Type of tour: Guided
Level: 5
Duration: 7 Nights
Distance: 17 Miles/day average
Dates: May 2, 23; Aug 1*, 29, 2015 (*guaranteed to depart)
Tour price: £1095
Start city: Inverness, Scotland
End city: Inverness, Scotland
Tour Desicription
This mountain biking tour of the Torridon and Skye areas, offers an epic week of all-mountain riding on Scotland’s west coast; a land of wild scenery strewn with mouth-watering singletrack.
This guided mountain bike vacation runs various dates through the year, with the first full day spent at the Laggan Wolftrax bike park, followed by five days of the finest mountain biking that Scotland has to offer. From the ‘best trail in the UK’ (according to MBR magazine) at Applecross, to the rocky, technical climbs and grin-inducing descents of Torridon, following in the tracks of Peaty, Danny and Hans, to the dramatic landscapes and sweet, flowing singletrack of Skye.
Each day you will bike between 9-28 miles (15-45 km), as the daily routes are very flexible.
This week-long mountain bike adventure will challenge your skills and leave you wanting more!
Highlights: Guided Daily Program: Guided Day 1: Arrival day and bike preparation; local trails near Invergarry We don’t have far to travel to our fabulously comfortable and welcoming hotel for the night, where great home-made food and local ales are on the menu! Day 2: Riding in Fort William Your cheeks and legs will both be hurting from a great day on the bike, riding around the foot of the highest mountain in Britain. We’ll stay in a lovely B&B in Fort William, looking out onto Loch Linnhe. Day 3: Beaches, fishing boats and wilderness singletrack Upon arriving back at Mallaig we will get the ferry across to Skye and your accommodation for the night. Day 4: Skye If we have time and energy we can also tackle Sligachan, where the trail carves its way through the valley between the Cuillin mountains with a combination of mouth-watering technical climbs and hair-raising descents.The terrain is pretty rocky and be prepared to work your arms lifting both wheels over obstacles! Day 5: The secrets of Morvich After all that we’ll need a beer, so we’ll drive round to Torridon and our home for the next two nights. Day 6: Torridon Day 7: Torridon The last part of this descent is one you rode yesterday, so now that you know it, you can ride it smoother and enjoy your final descent of the tour! After a couple of celebratory beers in the pub, we’ll head back to Inverness for our last supper together in a local restaurant, and your final night’s accommodation. Day 8: Departure day Included Services: Guided Bike Rentals: Guided Equipment provided free with rentals include: All bikes are of superior quality and come with hydraulic disk brakes, Fox or Rockshox suspension, Maxxis tyres and high end finishing kit. Pedals: Seats: Helmets:
Your guide will meet you at Inverness train station at noon and transfer you to H&I Adventures HQ, just outside the town, for a welcome briefing, soup and sandwich lunch, and bike building/ tuning session. Once everyone is suitably fed and bikes are ready to roll, we’ll drive south-west, climbing high above Loch Ness, to Invergarry where we’ll enjoy some real local-knowledge trails through the forests on the banks of the River Garry.
After a hearty breakfast we continue our way down to the end of the Great Glen, and Fort William, the Outdoor Capital of the UK. Once there we’ll set about riding a five-hour loop consisting of hidden local trails, a singletrack stretch of the west Highland way, man-made flow-trails and perfect riverside singletrack.
From Fort William we will head to the far west coast and the end of the road to the white sand beaches of Mallaig and Arisaig. From here we’ll take you on a mesmerising ride along the shores of Loch Morar, that will see you snaking on some true wilderness singletrack, to a secluded bay, where you will have lunch waiting for your boat to pick you up! We’ll enjoy lunch in a real wilderness location, in the middle of the Scottish Highlands, waiting for a small fishing boat to appear on the horizon to pick us up and take us back to Mallaig.
Our full day on Skye will see us heading to the north of the island and into the Lord of the Rings landscape of the Quiraing. Whilst not a particularly long trail, the Quiraing requires nerves of steel to negotiate your way along the pencil-thin trail etched into the side of the hill, with a steep drop to one side – eyes forward!
We are leaving the views of Skye behind today and heading inland for the first of your two biggest days of the week. Today we have a new epic! We will venture in to the Morvich area of the Highlands and to a very challenging climb, that will lead onto a singletrack that will tease you deeper into the wilderness, before turning back on yourself and winching you higher up to a hike-a-bike and onto an 9km singletrack descent made in heaven! Enough said, you will need to come and ride it for yourself…
Our second day of mountain biking in the Torridon area will blow your mind! As far as mountain biking in Scotland goes, the area is a fairly well-kept secret. You’ll ride some challenging, but enjoyable climbs, and then be rewarded with a superb descent that seems to go on forever! You’ll also have plenty of opportunities to take some spectacular photos across the hills and sea.
After two days of big wilderness rides, it is time to tame the best four-hour loop in Scotland. We’ll leave from our accommodation and head along the valley to what has become know as ‘The Climb.’ This one-hour climb is a singletrack feast, that will have the best of the group challenged, but we have one hour of hard work for three hours of the best rocky singletrack descent, dropping us back down to the pub, where we started four hours earlier!
Sadly, this is the end of your Torridon and Skye mountain biking vacation in Scotland. We will load the vehicle and transfer you back to Inverness train station for 10am at the latest, where we will say our farewells.
Bikes available to be rented on this tour (reserved in advance at the time of booking):
The bikes will have FLAT pedals. If you want to bring your own pedals, please bring your own shoes and also the necessary equipment to change the pedals.
If you plan to bring your own seat, please ensure that it has a universal seat post.
Helmet rental is not available on this tour. We recommend that you bring your own helmet for safety and hygiene purposes.
