Another year has flown by but I've crammed a lot in bike riding wise, including another successful BAM campaign. If I were to think of a word which sums it all up, it would be 'local' as most of my rides and trips have started from the front door, with a train included from time to time. I didn't particularly set out to do this, it's just the way it happened, usually due to me wanting to minimise faff and get out riding! I would also say my riding memories all seem to revolve around (and descend into) the Bearbones 300, much like interstellar dust falling into a black hole. This seems strange given that I also did a completely dry run round the Highland Trail...
Despite a lot of people moaning about the summer weather the sun has shone on all my trips and a lot of other rides too - something I'm still having difficulty believing. That said, I've been rained on plenty so hopefully my weather karma is fairly well balanced... At the start of the year I wasn't too fussed about doing another BAM campaign. I started more by exception - I'd nothing else better to do and the rest of the year did follow this pattern, outside my 'proper' trips. But at the end of the year I've been out for 19 nights which is pretty good in terms of my previous bivvy history. Also, despite a fair few local destinations, most of my bivvys have been actual proper rides rather than just a means to get to the woods and back, so all in all a fab BAM year.
Anyway, as per, herewith my bivvy a month review and a few other highlights:
Highest bivvy
Summit of Steeles Knowe in the Ochills. Once again I've failed to crack the munro barrier - this one was 500m. But my first bivvy right by a trig point and a fine midsummer sunset.
Lowest Bivvy
On the Fife Coast, pretty much as far East as you can go hereabouts. Plenty of other options along here and one I'll return too. The Fife Coastal path is the key to them all and well worth a look (especially if you have a fat bike!)
Longest Ride to a bivvy
Distance-wise it was day two of the Highland Trail - 200k. But I've plumped for 195k and 18 and a half hours on the BB300 which breaks all records in terms of 'long' as at times it seemed like it would never end! This ride seems to have been the culmination of the year and in a way, the culmination of my bikepacking ITT career. I really can't see me doing anything harder (cue Stuart Wright, BB route setter, trying harder!) and whilst at the time I was a bit wrecked, physically and mentally, by it all, here and now I'm feeling properly proud to have managed it.
Longest ride after a bivvy
OK I'll go with HT day 2 here. A pretty slick ITT day all in - up at 4.30, away by 5, 200k, bivvy at 10pm. Plenty good riding and food in between. This set the pattern for my HT ride, dry bivvies, dry trails, stunning scenery, stunning weather.
Worst weather
March - rain before, during and after. Thank god for the roomy deschutes.
Best Weather
Some stiff competition for this one, for a change. I'll go with this:
In the hills above Donside after a roaster of a day, and just before another roaster. About my only ever completely dry and sunny trip. Frustratingly I do struggle with hot weather, likely as I don't experience it often enough to acclimatise but a bit of careful water and shade management made this one a peach.
Coldest Bivvy
At the other end of the scale, I did another -6 job in January and for longer than last year. It nearly caught me out as I had the quilt with me, not my winter bag, thanks to a -2 forecast and a bit of an inversion going on. Also snow! OK not quite a snow hole but I'm claiming this one as my only really snowy bivvy of the year. That said, the winter was a bit lame after this with only one other snowy ride. I was chatting to Karl Booth about his ride around the Iditarod Trail which saw him dealing with temps of -30 and less. That's a different ball game to my lamer attempts but this trip gave the faintest inkling in terms of the effort you need to go to, to keep warm, eat food and survive.
Most remote bivvy
None really although this one on a hill above Glen Devon is the most off the beaten track.
A good example of the stealth bivvy too!
Best trail ridden on a bivvy
The Suilven path on the HT route may seem a bit of an odd choice for anyone who has done it. But this year the weather was stunning and I blazed though it in fine style. Whilst a lot of walking ensued the stuff on the pedals seemed to be the epitome of hard, technical, nadgery riding that seems to have been forgotten in the modern world of trail centres. If there was ever a reason not to take a gravel bike on the HT, this trail is it.
Best Bothy (and most social bivvy)
Greensykes in the Borders on the Scottish Winter Bivvy. Plus a great night's chit chat with the SWB crew. Actually my only bivvy with other people...
Best Shed
Something I've sought out a few times this year but without much success. Top score was the bird hide by Loch Leven in February.
It would be quite nice to have a fall back shed somewhere locally for those fowl(!) weather nights. This is a good one but the racket the swans made overnight meant I didn't sleep that well. Plus there is always the risk of an early morning twitcher turning up.
Worst Bivvy
No contenders this year, thanks to missing out on any kind of midge or mozzie episode or any particular weather induced horrors. That said, I had some very close shaves midgy wise but a bit of careful site selection avoided the worst of them.
No flies on me - in a wood, in the warm, in Perthshire, in September in my bivvy bag. Who would have thought it.
Best Bivvy
All things being equal I'd say my best overall bivvy was this one too, after a fab day of sunny trails and just before another fab day of sunshine, easy pedaling, great views and great food and drink.
Loch Builg in the sun. Actually my only Cairngorms visit of the year. It's somewhere I'm going to head to a lot more next year, all being well.
In fact my September trip should win an honorary 'best trip ever' prize. Obviously the weather was the main reason for this but in terms of the route, the trails, the scenery and the ease of putting it all together; it was an absolute cracker. I'm aware that this may never be repeated (particularly the weather) but I'm happy with that, more or less.
I should probably put this down as the 'Best View' as well!
Aside from the bivvies, it's also been a good riding year all round. It nearly went pear shaped in February when my dodgy knees flared up again but thanks to some focused exercise, a good physio and determination to get it sorted in time for the Highland Trail they have only really provided an odd niggle. The episode did skew my riding somewhat and doing extremely hard, hike a bike, bog and tussock heavy bike rides on a single speed is my top tip for knee recovery and strengthening - not what you may read elsewhere! That said it meant my mileage was well down on previous years come June - barely 2000 miles.
As usual I set a target of 6000 miles for the year but I pretty much wrote off any hope of doing this, post HT. But thereafter the Jones took a bit of a back seat and I bashed out some big rides on the Straggler. No 200 miler this year but a few century plusses.
Straggler on one of my usual jaunts round the Trossachs and another 120 miles done. Add in the NYM 300 and BB300 and things started looking promising....
I'll also bang on about the BB300 again at this point (as I noted above, I can't get it out of my mind, I'm going to try though...) Definitely a key ride for anyone to have bagged (200 included) and a classic of the breed which dispels the gravel bike and hipster path a lot of other events seem to have followed in recent years.
Is it a trail or a river? Or both? Don't care, just get down it and crack on.
And speaking of which, I'm going to dust off my 'West Highland 500' route I put together after HT2015 and maybe do it this May. No tussocks, no bogs, no death marches and nice scenery. Definitely one for a drop bar bike if that's your thing but in my case age is my excuse, not tyre width...
Another highlight of the year was doing 6 nights just with the bivvy bag. I've now realised the way to do this is to use my normal lightweight borah bag and just not pitch the tarp (assuming it's definitely not going to rain). It would be nice to think I get a chance to do this a few times next year...
No tent or tarp to get in the way of the view.
And lo and behold, on the 28th of December at the end of a particularly soggy ride round the trails of West Fife and Clacks, my annual mileometer clicked over the 6000 mile mark. Better still I then bagged a couple of bonus snow rides - always a score at this time of year - on my annual trip to friends in Speyside for hogmanay.
A classic example of the breed - lower slopes easy with some crusty snow, leading you into godawful breakable crust through which me and my mate Rob postholed for around half an hour before giving up and heading out on a trail down the leaward side of the hill.
So I'll set to BAMing again next year, although as we appear to be having a proper winter some interesting early season bivvies could be in the offing. I've had a few chats with various people this year on the lines of "why?" (BAM that is) and having done it 5 times now I've certainly nothing to prove. But it gets me out, gets me thinking of trips and keeps my tarp skills sharp. I can't think of any better reasons than that.
Until next year...Cheers!
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