The Devil's Bypass - 200km in Lochaber. A photo essay.

OR 

'I rode this so you don't have to'

OR 'The Onorio's Chip Shop Challenge' (my original idea for a name when I thought this one might actually catch on as a popular route 🤣)

This route came about from too much time on Strava route planner, combined with a desire to ride Loch Etive and Glen Kinglass again without returning by the west bank (overgrown, hike-a-bike) or Glen Orchy (lovely on road or on gravel, but leaves you with a long slog home on busy roads or trying to catch trains). I'll link the route in a separate post.

I happened upon a track that looped around the back of Beinn A'Chrulaiste, the hill oppostive Buachaille Etive Mor, along whose flanks the West Highland Way traverses before climbing the Devil's Staircase. As I had originally planned this as a gravel route, I didn't fancy the climb/push up the Devil's Staircase OR the rocky/drainage ditch-y descent down the other side, so a gravel bypass looked very appealing, especially since it linked with the Blackwater Dam and the looooooong gravel descent back down to Kinlochleven.

A bit of research confirmed the track existed, but got faint and rubbly towards the Kinlochleven end, not to mention approx 0.5km of obligatory hike-a-bike where the track ends just short and uphill of the dam.

From Oban, the route climbs the steep road up past Glencruitten and descends the lovely Glen Lonan, turning on to an excellent wee gravel track to descend into Taynuilt. In Taynuilt it skirts around the golf course, down to the water across from Bonawe quarry, past the old iron furnace and across a cool wee suspension bridge to Inverawe Smokery.

Loch Etive-side and Glen Kinglass deserves a post all of its own, but consists of a long, scenically stunning ride up the loch-side and turn into the glen, where the going gets gradually rougher until you cross the shoogly wire and plank bridge (I finally rode this no dabs! Possibly the crowning achievement of my year 😎) and hit the rocky/slabby quad tracks. There's a marshy bit near the watershed and a few river crossings before you make it to Rannoch Moor and the WHW.

I stopped at the Glencoe ski station cafe for second breakfast. It's a great wee facility although expensive and the food was disappointing. I'll continue to support it though, I'm glad it's there. Crossing over took me to the very good quality climb up to Black Corries lodge and the start of the track around the back of Chrulaiste (the 'Devil's Bypass'). This track was excellent if sandy, I wonder how quickly it will wash away and become a rutted mess. The descents were very fast and 'whoopy' which I loved, lots of cornerning whilst unweighted over random rollers and humps, great fun.

At the point which the track turns down to the loch-side, I turned left to pick up the quad track, and my elation dipped. I expected this to be loose and rocky, but not quite as faint and overgrown! Thankfully the actual track bed is relatively firm and dry, but you have to trust what is underneath the clumps of grass and reeds. The descent towards the dam was actually quite gnarly! Think loose, blown out quad track with tight turns and steep gradients at times. Very very glad I was on the MTB and not the gravel bike after all. The final hike-a-bike to the dam was standard hike-a-bike stuff really, a few stream crossings, some peat hags to avoid and wet feet.

Descending to Kinlochleven was amazing, I didn't fiddle about too much on the conduit (half an eye on time as I was racing a ferry) so I just blasted down the main track, although there were a few sneaky wee climbs before the descent proper. The view down to the right over the steep, wooded glen was fantastic. I bottled trying to climb the WHW out of Kinlochleven again as I remembered it being steppy, steep and not all rideable, so I winched up the Mamore Lodge road. I was started to feel the heat at this point and was struggling a bit, although it was the halfway point in distance and more like the 2/3rds point in difficulty, so I stayed positive.

The WHW through the Lairig was surprisingly tough. I had mentally catalogued it as slightly rough landrover track, but the surface is incredibly loose with deep, unconsolidate rubbly gravel, several surprisingly steep pitches and lots of big rocks coming through. All lots of fun if you grit your teeth and commit, but I was trying to pace myself so was torn between muscling up stuff (which I think was the best approach) or pacing myself and trying to spin up in a tiny gear (of which I had plenty, 2x chainset and 11-42 cassette!).

Things got tougher over the final section of the West Highland Way into Glen Nevis, which I had never ridden. This was a truly excellent section of mountainbiking but I suffered the ignominy of having to push DOWN stuff in places, I was too tired and cautious to risk any nonsense over some of the bigger wooden steps in sections. And some of the climbs were just pot-luck if you held the right line or span out/stalled. The final descent into Glen Nevis was spectacular though, wide, open loose gravel with great views across to the flanks of Ben Nevis.

I made it down into the Glen and tucked in to a time trial along the road to get into town, grab some food and make it to the Camasnagaul ferry on time.

From here it was a rain soaked at times dash to the Corran Ferry, and once I was back on the 'mainland' I quickly abandoned ideas for the final off-road section from Ballachulish to Glen Creran, which I knew was steep, and would be wet and overgrown in the rain, so I tucked down and enjoyed a tailwind virtually all the way home on the lovely Caledonian Way cycle path, an ex-railway line so almost pan-flat and traffic free the whole way home, coastal at times so some nice sea air, and great views of Castle Aaargh en-route. I enjoyed some new murals on the railway bridges between Benderloch and Connel and the new pedestrian walkway across Connel Bridge is good fun.

As planned, I finished with a wee photo-shoot from McCaig's Tower, dropped into town, made it to Norie's chip shop (I still think of it as Onorio's) stuffed my face and called it a day.