Sitting at work on Friday morning, I decided I wanted to have a go at what I call real mountain biking.  The hint is in the title.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the man made centres, they give awesome bang for the buck and they do exactly what it says on the tin.  But, they do lack a certain raw feeling of proper mountain biking in the mountains.

I had recently read a bike forum of a guy who had been up Ben Lomond.  It is the most southerly Munro and is 974m (3196ft in old money) tall and lies in the Trussachs National Park.  Wondering who I could convince to come riding with me than no other than Scott rings me saying he is back from offshore.  Told him to pack his bags and come and pick me up from work as we have some biking to do!

Three and a half hours later we are in the car park of Ben Lomond, it was 6pm and we got changed and started to make our way up quick smart.  The route was up and down the main walkers route,  we had arrived late on purpose as this path can be very busy with walkers and it is best to ride it early or late to miss scary the  bejesus out of walkers and have them wave their walking sticks and throwing their map carriers at you as you hurtle past them.

The cloud level was slightly rising as we climbed up, but I think we were climbing too fast (yeah right) and by the time we got to the top we were well in the cloud. 

 It was a true Scottish summit, IE couldn’t see jack!  But still managed to get the now classic ‘hero mtber on top of moutnain bike over head’ picture.

Soon the stupid rain came.  Oh well, what can one do – apart from slip slide down the hill.

The descent is mental!  Up there with some of the best I have done in the UK, Big rock fest made that little bit more interesting with the wet rock.

The inevitable happened and one of us got a puncture.  Thankfully it was Scott (nasty friend I am).  A little further down I think Scott was starting to get tired.  The poor sod had been offshore for 3 weeks, and he had been on night shift for the last week!  He had a momentary lack of concentration and got thrown over his handle bars.  Made a small yelp and got up straight away and swore loudly in a way only a true Scotsman in pain could.  It was obvious it was more than a small knock.  Poor bugger then limped his way down the hill, he did it 3/4 of the way down so wasn’t too bad.

He braved on through some pretty miserable weather to get down. 

 I was still having a great time and loving the route, but a little conscious of poor sick note behind so didn’t go too far in front so that I couldn’t see him.  We got down alright.  Got changed quickly as it was a midge fest and drove to find the nearest pub that would feed us.  We found one that even did pizza.  Three weeks offshore, night shift, biking a Munro form sea level and having a huge crash meant that Scott was going cross eyed after half a pint and was looking at me in a way that made me feel unconfortable.  Time for bed – alone!

Woke up the next morning and it was clear that scott was not going to ride today and that he probably should go to hospital and get it check out.  Back to aberdeen A&E and straight through!  he came out with a nurse looking at him like he was glue sniffer ” biking up a Munro at 8pm on a Friday night?!?!?!?!?”and a diagnose of just deep tissue bruising.  a couple of days of icing and anti inflammatories and he should be fixed to come out biking again!  He can’t wait!