Rich, Martin, Neil, Ryan and I went for a jaunt up to Ben Macdui (second highest lump in the UK) with our bikes on Friday

We set off from Linn of Dee and the weather was great for this time of year, we were all in shorts and t-shirts.  By looking at the maps we knew it was not all going to be rideable and soon turning up right to the Sron Liach ridge the hike a bike began, and it went on, and on, and on

after about and hour and a half of shoudlering our bikes, eating jelly sweats and swearing at each other we finally made it to the top.  Thankfully we had great views all around us and did the now custom ‘Gun Show’ at the top

Now for the fun bit, this was going to be a great descent, a long descent and a testing descent for both us and our bikes

just before we got off the Plateau Martin managed to slice his tyre wall. A great start.  But once fixed we got into the descent proper.  It was all it was rumoured to be, a bit rocky technical mental track down.  Rich was the next victim to fall to the trail, loosing his rear mech to a large pointy rock.  Not to worry we will all help!

it took of rock bashing, sawing and brute strength to fix it but we got his bike back up and running again.  Off we went again, for martin to puncture again.  This became a bit of the theme for the descent!

i think by the time we had finished we totalled 9 punctures, two ripped off rear mechs (both Rich’s who had to resort to single speeding) a slashed tyre wall and a broken rim.  A great hard days riding in the Cairngorms riding.

the beer tasted so good after we arrived home!  All the pictures can be seen by clicking here