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Did this route on Fri/Sat as I thought it lent itself well to a 2 day bikepacking trip (Tyndrum - Fort Augustus - Fort William - WHW back to Tyndrum) . 170miles, about 16000ft climbing. Slept in the van in Tyndrum Thurs night to get an early start as wanted to get a good chunk of it done to get back at a decent time (so more of a 1.5 day trip).
Going was good early on, dropped my lunch in one of the many river/ford crossings to had to double back about a mile for that when I realised it was gone. Apart from the gates and rideable river crossings the 1st part along Loch Lyon over bridge of balgie and through Rannoch all good going. Ben Alder path of a thousand puddles wasn't too bad, a decent walk anyway. Struggled with all the water bars up and down Ben Alder, didn't think I'd be walking as much of this as I did. Reached Fort Augustus in about 12 hours, plan was to get past Fort William and get the 1st climb of WHW done before setting up camp. NE wind helped massively from FA to FW along canal, sun even came out and reached FW for about 2145 to restock at coop then up the climb with the lights on.
Now I've run the WHW in 2 ultra races but I never took stock of what the terrain would be like for a bike. Tricky was the answer especially with 125miles done and in the darkness and eventually found good bivvy sport 5 miles out to FW at about 1130.
Day 2 was tough going, misty, rainy, legs felt ok but I just found the terrain an absolute PITA, on and off the bike quite a lot, felt like everything was a draggy uphill on stony path to keep knocking me off line as I was going so slow. Eventually made it down to Kinlochleven for resupply, rode a fair bit of steep fire road out of town before giving up and that was more or less me in terms of being on the bike for the entire devils staircase. After this I bailed onto the road for the 22miles back to Tyndrum.
Is does make me question why WHW is such a big thing in top bikepacking routes and folk wanting to do it etc? My skills and confidence on bike aren't always the best but fitness ok, I understand folk enjoy the technical downhill side more than I do but some of the bits on devils I couldn't imagine most folk doing. Does anyone have similar or different views to me?
I think the rest of WHW from kingshouse might have been ok if I had more time or patience, but I started off on the narrow bit to kinghouse at bottom of devils staircase, had to get off for some walkers, got back on, got off for some rocks, then looked ahead and saw a constant stream of walkers as far as I could see and made the decision to can it!
Tou missed a good bit. Telfords parlimentary road from kingshouse to bridge of orchy. I've cycled that a few times in both directions.
I dont get why folk ride the whole whw tho for sure. Some bits are good as parts of other routes.lack of imagination?
Is does make me question why WHW is such a big thing in top bikepacking routes and folk wanting to do it etc? My skills and confidence on bike aren’t always the best but fitness ok, I understand folk enjoy the technical downhill side more than I do but some of the bits on devils I couldn’t imagine most folk doing. Does anyone have similar or different views to me?
Is it considered a 'big thing' in bikepacking though? I'm aware of it as a neatly packaged one or two day challenge, but I thought bikepacking routes dipped in and out of it. I agree that the sections you rode in the direction you rode them in would make a pretty poor addition to a bikepacking route, hadn't realised HT550 went that way (this is why I love the gravel trend though, there seems to be less of a willingness to incorporate pointless hike-a-bike in routes! 😎 )
Riding south to north most of the Kinlochleven stuff is good, the Devil's Staircase climb is more rideable than you might think, the descent used to be really cool in a sort of haphazard rocky sort of way, I hear it's been sanitised a bit recently. The climb back out towards FW would definitely make a great descent but if you're got a climber's head on you it's a great technical challenge.
In general I don't think riding the WHW in its entirety is a bad thing, nor does it lack imagination, it's a big part of Scottish outdoors 'history' and it's a great social event etc. etc. Granted once you've done it once then there's plenty more out there to explore.
13fm makes a good point. It's always seemed to me that many of the "big" bikepacking routes and events have tried to out-do each other in terms of difficulty - i.e. adding unrideable sections. Usually, when I go out for a bike ride I don't expect to be pushing it for long stretches. Of course, it can be difficult to come up with routes that avoid any of this. The Suilven traverse of the HT550 and the Lairig an Laoigh section of the Cairngorms Loop are essential to make the rest of the route "work".
As for the WHW, the section between Victoria Bridge and Kingshouse is easy enough on a gravel bike. It's the north end of Lomondside that is the major issue. However, I can see why folk still want to tick that box. It's an unscratched itch of mine too.
The WHW is best avoided when it's busier anyway. I'm not surprised you saw it like this in July.
Have they sanitised the WHW descent from above KLL down to FW, just before it joins the road? Did it 2 years ago, was long rough and huge fun on the loaded fatties; this year all smoothed out.
Bear in mind that the majority of WHW walkers are northbound, so you're going against the flow on that route and therefore meeting many more than you would northbound.
That wee section of trail parallel to the main road from Allt na Feidh to the singletrack Kingshouse access is a royal pain to ride and is where I'd take to the road briefly. Especially if in daytime hours and busy.
The Rannoch Moor section that follows from Glencoe ski centre is a bit of a favourite of mine but some of that is historical connection with many experiences out there on misty midsummer nights while covering ultras. I wouldn't ride the A82 any more than I absolutely had to and would certainly cross the moor in preference.
I'm with you. Never been a big fan of bashing off massive rocks for miles on end. It's actually much better after the Devil's Staircase, plenty of good off-road, ride-able and fast.
I think my idea of the WHW being a "thing" has come from the likes of Gary McDonald, Rab Wardell then 1 of the tour pros (Luke Rowe?) all doing FKT's in the past couple of years. These were supported rides with no kit on bikes going south to north though. But also with the WHW being at the end of the HT550 route, and then on Monday I opened up an MBR article about top 5 UK bike packing routes where the WHW was on the list at no.1.
I certainly have even more admiration for the HT folk doing it at the end of their massive multiday ride, that must be brutal.
I think if doing again I'd probably do FW to KLL again but take the fireroad I've since seen on the map that drops down to KLL rather than the rock slabs and steps of the offical WHW. Then miss out devils staircase for the road to kinghouse and back onto the WHW at Glencoe as suggested, I now can see this is showing as a better track on the OS map.
I’m hiking the WHW at the moment, just done the Loch Lomond section. There’s no way I’d ever want to bike along that bit - it was hard enough walking it! Didn’t see anyone on a bike today.
I think the LL section is renowned for being bad for riding/carrying a bike.
I rode the WHW with a mate as our first bike packing trip together as we’d both thought of walking it in the past. Dipped into a bit of it a few months ago on another route we’d planned. It’s nice to do once so why not. I have absolutely no interest in FKT’s and am very glad I never walked it but hope you’re have a great time supernova.
I personally think you have misunderstood the WHW. I don't really recall anyone recommending it as an excellent bikepacking trip (whatever that is)
It's a mountain bike ride, one that is low on technical interest, but high on challenge ( just doable IAD for a punter) and goes through some amazing places.
I don't think the bikepacking element has ever been strongly espoused. And tbh your experience 100% shows why.
"Most feared section of classic Scottish footpath in unrideable-on-a-fully-loaded-bike-after-already-having-done-170km -shocker."
I mean... really. What were you expecting?
OK. The LL section is more feared by bikers, but you didn't make it that far so my point still stands.
When I did it IAD it was mostly about completing it. I portaged loads of technical bits, and actually abandoned the bike for the nasty 7km section. Of course I pushed up Devil's Staircase. It was 1 o'clock in the morning.
Likewise descending to Kinloch was a bit sketchy, but still great.
My rucksack probably weighed 2 kg at most.
When I did it over 4 days with my kid, it was a different goal. The whole IAD challenge sufferfest was replaced by fun, quality riding and chilled awesome time with my kid. We loved the bit after BoO and the staircase, although the time I had to carry both bikes up it.
However, the key thing is that our rucksacks were still around 2kg each. We had the good sense to send all our kit along in a van each day.
The idea of carrying all sorts of camping shit along repels me. Why would you ruin a good ride by doing that?
Clearly you've come to exactly the same conclusion. What puzzles me is why it took you so long and that you actually tried it before coming to this conclusion, then moaned about it in a surprised way afterwards...
I appreciate my tone is quite sharp. Sorry about that.
That wee section of trail parallel to the main road from Allt na Feidh to the singletrack Kingshouse access is a royal pain to ride
What!
https://flic.kr/p/VTxD4a
OK, this one does look a tad rocky, I'll give you that
https://flic.kr/p/WUZAJT
I broke a pair of forks trying to ride some of the LL section.
Riding, or just smacking them off rocks in sheer frustration at the awfulness of it all 😉