Hi,
I am planning riding the hlt 550.
I am from the southest point of israel, eilat.
A desert man..
I am looking for a poi gpx file of the bothies in
Scottland or/and a poi specially made for tis route
Especially for bothies ,shop, bb etc.
I made some by google earth but you are the locals have the best information .
Thanks allot.
Ilan.

Hi Ilan! Hope all's well,

Can't help on the HTR route info sorry, but if anyone else can help out a good guy who showed Paul and I great hospitality after the Israel HLC last year ..

Hi,
I am planning riding the hlt 550.
I am from the southest point of israel, eilat.
A desert man..
I am looking for a poi gpx file of the bothies in
Scottland or/and a poi specially made for tis route
Especially for bothies ,shop, bb etc.
I made some by google earth but you are the locals have the best information .
Thanks allot.
Ilan.

This thread might help: http://bearbonesbikepacking.co.uk/phpBB ... f=7&t=4599

Drop me an email dave@phased.co.uk I can send you a file of POIs

Quick question about drinking "wild water" along the route. Off course there are the general rules off only drinking water from small, cool, clear streams, without dead animals or droppings, but do you use any means of purification, like drops, tables or a small filter?

Bert wrote:Quick question about drinking "wild water" along the route. Off course there are the general rules off only drinking water from small, cool, clear streams, without dead animals or droppings, but do you use any means of purification, like drops, tables or a small filter?

No need. All water in Scotland that passes the dead sheep rule is fine to drink. My general rule of thumb though is if I'm emptying a bottle to refill it in a stream, I drink its contents first just in case that stream water is bad for some reason. It never is.

A word of advice though from personal experience, if you find yourself camping on Loch Linnhe, expecting to fill up from the cool, clear waters, it's often best to remember that it's a sea loch...

Re: Swerving the gate near Contin.

Would that small detour mentioned above be allowed?

Alan has kindly been and had a look on the ground today at ways of avoiding that gate (still locked) and hasn't come up with a better way.

So the 6 fastest riders need to carry a set of bolt cutters and whoever goes through first cuts the lock! Oops did I just say that on an open web forum? how irresponsible of me....

htrider wrote:So the 6 fastest riders need to carry a set of bolt cutters and whoever goes through first cuts the lock! Oops did I just say that on an open web forum? how irresponsible of me....

This is bikepacking, they need to carry lock picks...

Dave Barter wrote:

htrider wrote:So the 6 fastest riders need to carry a set of bolt cutters and whoever goes through first cuts the lock! Oops did I just say that on an open web forum? how irresponsible of me....

This is bikepacking, they need to carry lock picks...

Or do a fence front flip
https://youtu.be/FJ67I8sJ7Qo. Easy.

Over a 6 foot deer fence? with bags? on a fat bike? errr...

Last year I looked at the LH of the two gates which only seemed to be fastened with ~300 cable ties and some wire. Probably 45 mins work with the right equipment.

Depending on the lock, I would expect the whole estate has them all keyed alike. It should be easy enough to get a key to work them all.

Or

I could teach you how to pick the lock.

Last year I stood staring at the fence we're all looking at now, thinking; how the f do I get my bike over there. Then Gary thompsett turned up and because he's 6foot something he helped lift the bikes over. Maybe we should all travel in pairs to that point!

IIRC the gate you're talking about - I have a vague memory of taking my bags off my bike, firing them over the gate, then climbing/dragging myself and bike over it.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

The gate has a padlock and chain but let's have no vandalism please! There are also two rocks either side of the gate that would prevent it opening far enough to get your bike through but they are good to stand on to gain 6 inches of height. I've found the easiest way to get your bike over high fences is to hang it by a pedal from the top bar of the fence then go around to the other side and heave it over. The two possible alternate tracks either side on the map are both muddy, overgrown and with equally problematic gates.

For those interested, this is the Twitter account that will be associated to the Highland Trail.

https://twitter.com/HT_550

I'll try to keep it up to date during the race with what riders are up to - but will mainly be using it to announce finishing times and scratches.

If you're racing, feel free to send a mention at the account and I'll take note of it.

Anyone else planning to do HT550 using maps only? Consider myself a competent navigator (famous last words!) but would appreciate anyone's thoughts as to trickiest parts of the route navigation-wise.

Anyone else planning to do HT550 using maps only? Consider myself a competent navigator (famous last words!) but would appreciate anyone's thoughts as to trickiest parts of the route navigation-wise.

Some of the top section is not easy to see on the ground.

Unless you are a very good navigator, I'd take a GPS, it will save you a lot of time.

Richpips wrote:

Anyone else planning to do HT550 using maps only? Consider myself a competent navigator (famous last words!) but would appreciate anyone's thoughts as to trickiest parts of the route navigation-wise.

Some of the top section is not easy to see on the ground.

Unless you are a very good navigator, I'd take a GPS, it will save you a lot of time.

You'll need a GPS to submit your track to AlanG anyway in case of issues with your Spot trail. I don't remember any tricky navigation as such other than finding the trail after Ullapool.

The turn off the top of Glen Golly towards Bealach Horn could be easily missed.

Navigating at any speed with maps....good luck.

Isn't it something like 18 1:50k maps required for the entire route? I know you could print off sheets but that's still a lot of paper to be carrying and an awful lot of faff. I dread to think of the hours lost navigating without a gps. If you were touring it, then paper maps would be fine but I can't see any advantage to handicapping yourself in a race?

Last year I had to do a master reset on my GPS as it crashed completely just before I came into Poolewe.

From then on I didn't have the route on the GPS, but it was still showing maps so I could see where I was.

I had to use the paper maps that I had brought although they weren't all that easy to use (1:50,000 printed in black and white at half size - about 30 double sided sheets of A5).

GPS is certainly a lot easier but I wouldn't be happy being out there without paper maps as back up unless I knew the route really well!

Do you need maps for all the route? From looking at it there are some bits where it follows roads or there's just one track for many kilometres where there's no need for one - keep on track until farm, take track to left sort of thing.

Get a second GPS. I took one last year as backup.

Make small gpx files. I have 9 for the route. <500 trackpoints each. Set the record frequency to least often.

Happy GPS.