Sanny and Dene head out on a pre-dawn mission proving that winter shouldn’t be a barrier to fun.
Words & Photography Sanny
Be honest. It’s hard not to feel your heart sink, if only just a little, at the thought of the impending winter. Shorter days, colder temperatures, muddy trails – they don’t exactly entice you in the way that the sun on your skin and the seemingly endless days of summer can. Instead, a routine of endlessly charging lights, drying shoes and heading out in winter slop on dreary grey days and inky black nights awaits. While magazines and the internet do a roaring trade in images of riders blasting down dusty singletrack trails under a canopy of verdant green with the warming sun and azure blue skies above, you would be forgiven in believing that this is the only truly enjoyable type of mountain biking. Tempting as it may be to hang up the wheels and go to (whisper it) the gym, or the pub, let me be the one to open your eyes to the art of the possible. Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration, I give you the dawn raid.
While the days may shorten dramatically as winter sets in, the opportunities to experience something a bit special are in no way diminished. Snow brings out a new set of skills and transforms familiar trails into somewhere fresh and new, the clarity of light makes for views that feel like they go on forever, while you can watch a sunrise from the top of a hill or mountain without having to get up at stupid o’clock.
Like the middle of the night… only later.
And so it was that Dene and I found ourselves suiting up in the car park at the base of Ben Ledi just after 6am on an unseasonably mild February morning. Our plan was simple. We would head up onto the mountain and be at the top for sunrise at 7.12am. The weather gods were on our side. While Kew Gardens in London baked in 21°C, viewers in BBC Scotland were being treated to their own special programming of dry trails, clear skies and a complete lack of snow in the mountains. When we planned the ride, we envisioned hiking up through the snowline with flexible running spikes on our feet and winter tyres on our bikes. But it was not to be. No matter. We had a bluebird day in prospect and weren’t about to waste it.
Switching on our head torches, our lights pierced the inky darkness that enveloped us. Familiar trails felt strangely new. Both having ridden the trail many times, I thought we knew the mountain inside out. But this felt different. We would be going up in the dark, but descending in daylight in the warming glow of a winter sun. Then it struck me. There was no technologically imposed limit on our riding time. We weren’t going to be reliant on our lights to get us back. A puncture, mechanical or an off would not come wrapped in the possibility of an unplanned night on a mountainside. It felt strangely invigorating.
More haste, less speed.
The ascent of the mountain is mostly a push and a carry, which is probably just as well as the hasty rebuild of my bike the day before hadn’t exactly gone to plan. I just couldn’t clip into my pedals, no matter how hard I tried. Neither gentle pressure nor frustrated stamping would get the pedals to yield. Not exactly an auspicious start. Rapidly approaching a Father Jack-esque frenzy of fury when deprived of drink, I realised I’d put the cleats in the wrong way round. What a tool! Oh well, pushing it would have to be.
Recent improvements to the trail have seen flowing singletrack and exposed bedrock replaced with armoured stone pitched steps. It is a not entirely welcome change to the mountain as the descent has lost much of its challenging character. That said, it is still worth the price of admission as the surroundings and vista more than compensate. With each step forward bathed in a small pool of light, I committed the more technical sections to memory as we would soon be retracing our steps at a considerably quicker place. All that pierced the glorious silence was the sound of our breathing. It wasn’t in any way eerie or oppressive. It just felt right. Besides, although the creatures that are awake and hungry during the day are there at night too – they’re asleep.
Reaching for my water bottle, a dawning realisation struck. I had left the bloody thing in the door pocket of the van. So much for my meticulous planning. Why is it that when you have a water bottle, you don’t feel the need to drink, but when you don’t have it, you’re consumed by a raging thirst? Cursing my stupidity, I pushed on, the gentle sound of nearby running water coming off the hillside acting as a soundtrack to my predicament. Too far gone to turn back to get it, I pressed on. While Dene might wait, the dawn wouldn’t and we had an appointment to keep.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the inky blackness was being replaced by a deep shade of blue. Whereas previously we had no real sense of our surroundings, what little light there now was brought the mountains into relief. Far below, the yellow sodium light glow of Callander could be seen, while in the distance, the hulking mass of Ben Vorlich and Stuc a’Chroin loomed large. Switching off our head torches, our pace quickened as we realised that we were now in a race to meet the sun at the summit. Opportunities to ride became more frequent as we rounded the corner of the trail and headed up over the broad shoulder of Ben Ledi. With it came an icy wind serving as a reminder that, all other evidence to the contrary, we were still up a mountain in Scotland in winter. Suddenly Dene’s unusual choice of riding attire, a down jacket, didn’t seem quite so daft. It may not be ‘enduro’ but damn, it was sensible!
Race to the sun.
You know that scene in Jaws on the beach where Steven Spielberg does the pull zoom shot onto Roy Schneider as he realises that things have taken a turn for the bitey on Amity Beach? That was how I felt as we approached the summit, except in reverse. With more light in the sky, the pressure to reach the top in time for the sun to break the horizon increased exponentially, making the summit seem further away, the closer we got. We were now on a mission and there was no way we were going to fail this appointment with sunshine.
At 7.09, we reached the summit cross. We had made it! With barely enough time to switch on my camera, the sun peeked its sleepy head from beneath a low bank of cloud far to the east. Standing by the cross, bike held aloft, Dene looked more than a little pleased with himself. We were at the top of a mountain in the middle of winter, watching the sun give us its best dance moves with the promise of a classic descent to follow. The breeze eased as we became more attuned to our surroundings. A crow floated effortlessly overhead, while in the distance the faint song of a skylark could be heard. [Are you sure you’re not getting carried away? Ed]
As that great philosopher of our time, Ferris Bueller, so succinctly put it: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” It happens every day of our lives, yet how many of us actually take the time to embrace the world around us and watch something as simple as the sun rising? We were on top of a mountain, which of course brings its own tunes to the party, but we could have been anywhere. A small rise on a familiar trail five minutes from home would have a similar impact. Same big shiny disc in the sky. Same palette of colours to draw from. Same you.
It’s experiences that count, not stuff.
Sitting beside the summit, watching the day slowly dawn, I was reminded just how little things like the bike you ride, the kit you wear or the phone you are practically welded to actually matter. Truly, they don’t. It’s the experiences that count, ones like this shared with friends and family, not the money you earn or the toys you have in the garage. Beneath the cross is a memorial to Sgt Harry Lawrie of Killin Mountain Rescue Team who was killed in 1987 when an RAF Wessex helicopter he was travelling in on a rescue mission on Ben More clipped the mountain and sent him to his death. Put up by his family and friends, the memorial is a reminder of the dangers of the mountains and the bravery of those men and women of Mountain Rescue who come to the aid of others, often at no small danger to themselves.
For a while, I became lost in my thoughts until the rumble of my stomach unceremoniously reminded me that I had a couple of Belgian buns in my bag which would require our full and undivided attention! Replete, Dene and I set off to ride along the north ridge. Barely a foot wide in places, it is of itself a lovely piece of trail but add in the slowly stirring giants of summits such as Stob Binnein and Ben More looming out of the wispy clouds in the distance and we were in golden-hour heaven. The shutter on my camera went great guns as we rushed to encapsulate the feeling on film while Dene threw his drone up into the air in order to capture our early morning mission for posterity. Watching Dene at play, I couldn’t help but marvel at how technology has progressed in a few short years. Who would have thought that the average punter would now have access to filming technology and be able to achieve shots that would previously be unthinkable without a helicopter and a massive budget? Of course, it was a complete luxury and made no tangible difference to the sheer wonder of the sunrise, but as something to look back on as a reminder of our adventure, I wasn’t going to complain.
Returning to the summit, my bike had an appointment with a mini-tool and a very big rock. In my haste to build the bike, I had opted to use the long Allen Key of Justice™ to tighten down my cleats. That was my second mistake. Only after no small degree of grunting, cursing and applied percussion engineering with said big rock did the shoes finally release their vice-like grip and I was able to remount them the correct way round. Looking at my now somewhat bent mini-tool, I made a mental note to carry a proper sized Allen key in future. And, of course, to put my bike together properly in future! What – a – chump!
After a bit more silent contemplation and mid-ride mindfulness, we made the call to head back down. With a peach of a trail devoid of walkers before us, it would have been rude not to take full advantage of our circumstances. With some two and a half miles and some two and half thousand feet of descent to cover, we couldn’t help but realise that our earlier efforts pushing and carrying our bikes up the mountain were about to be paid back many times over… or not. As you are by now probably expecting, the blue chicken of depression had one more ace up its sleeve to torment me with – a faulty front brake. Every time I applied more than gentle pressure on the descent, it howled like a banshee. You know that horrible metallic squeal that sounds like nails dragged down a blackboard? It was like that but much, much louder. All notions of rural idyll and being at one with nature were well and truly shattered.
As Dene floated down the rocky trail, practically bouncing from one rock to the next, mine was a more considered approach. Alternating between steep, exposed bedrock and shallower flowing lines that practically begged to be ridden full tilt, I resigned myself to not being able to give it the beanz. On the plus side, it gave me longer to soak in the emerging day. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.
From darkness to light.
Rounding the shoulder of the mountain, the vista and riding takes on an entirely different aspect. The exposed open hillside is replaced with a steep-sided glaciated valley which draws the eye ever downward to the valley floor far below. What was once a gloriously technical jumble of loose boulders and bedrock has been replaced by a heavily armoured trail. The unpredictable nature of the old path has been lost in favour of an unrelentingly bone-jarring brute of a track. On a hardtail, it would be pretty full-on, to say the least. Dropping down, then climbing out from a shallow stream crossing, the trail continues to descend unabated. Reaching the treeline, the gradient steepens while the trail narrows. The staccato nature of the steps means that tyres can scrabble for grip here, particularly in the wet. As I feathered my by now largely decorative front brake, I suddenly realised just how hard I was having to concentrate to get safely down the hill. I was gripping the bars with a Kung Fu death grip and my shoulders were tenser than the tensest tense thing that has ever been tense. By any normal measure I should have been ruing my misfortune, but the sunrise had clearly worked its magic. I might have been fighting to control my bike, but it seemed like a small price to pay for the treasures we’d been privy too.
Levelling off, we reached an area of clear fell that signified the end of our ride and our return to the van. However, the mountain had one last card to play. A temperature inversion meant that we would ride the last few hundred metres through the morning mist. The clear felled forest contrasted with the beautiful silvery light as the sun shone through the settling moisture to give our surroundings an almost magical, Middle Earth-esque hue. We had cracked it, and all before breakfast too!
Sitting in the comfort of Dene HQ a couple of miles down the road, boiled eggs, toast, tea and peanut butter on the menu, we couldn’t help but bask in the glow of our most excellent adventure. We had borne witness to a truly stunning sunrise and some special riding. My mishaps were forgotten almost as soon as they arose. And to think that this was in the middle of winter. Who knew eh? Clearly I felt no ill effects from my misfortunes as immediately after breakfast I followed the ride up with a loop of the old school classic route around Glen Finglas. Nothing like a good couple of thousand feet of climbing in the Trossachs to round off a dawn adventure.
Epilogue.
Hopefully you are inspired to tackle a similar adventure. While not everyone has the luxury of having mountains on their doorstep, you don’t need to go up a mountain to repeat the experience nor do you need to be miles from civilisation. Anywhere close to home that sits on a rise would suffice. Part of the fun is poring over maps and finding somewhere to experience the dawn that doesn’t require you to get out of bed at uncivilised o’clock. The best time to do it is midwinter. The months of December and January are ideal. A late rising sun, cold and crisp days (hopefully!) and no need to get up any earlier than normal mean that you can. While good as a solo mission, such rides are even better with friends.
As for kit, we travelled light. With no need for full winter lights, we both used Petzl ACTIK CORE head torches. With a maximum of 350 lumens of available light, you wouldn’t use it on its own for a night ride but for a pre-dawn adventure, it’s ideal.
Go on, give it a go, you might just love it.