Three years ago I went looking for a cheap hardtail to augment my full suss. The primary use was to be accessing remote Munros via estate tracks so nothing fancy was needed. So I demoed a couple in these fancy new wheel sizes then the shop owner let me have a ride on his Cotic Solaris and I was hooked. I ended up spending nearly three times as much as originally planned.
The bike was, and is, so good that I got rid of the full suss and used it for all my MTB riding, well until the fat bike came along. The one thing I hadn't used it for was accessing remote Munros 
Until this week.
Six years ago my wife and a friend set off to do LEJOG. Unfortunately the friend decided to quit at Carlisle while my wife completed the ride. I was "supporting" during the second week which in reality meant meeting my wife at wherever we were due to stop and then heading off to climb various hills during the day until I met her at the next stop. This meant a rather eclectic series of "ticks". The friend wanted to complete the ride so the plan was to ride from John o' Groats back to Skipton. Looking at various options of getting there involved lots of money so I was persuaded to drive them up there. Might as well make a holiday of it so with the Solaris in semi-chubby mode the car was quite full.
Day one was basically driving to JoG - it's an effing long way!
Day two for me was a pleasant drive along the north coast of Scotland to Durness then down past Kylescu to Inchnadamph (also an effing long way) to tick off one Munro that had escaped my previous visits. (Note to Phil - if you thought the NC500 traffic was bad on the Drumbeg road, it was nothing compared to the numpties on the Laxford Bridge to Durness section, hardly any knew how to use passing places)
Back into Lochinver (pie shop is shut on Sundays
) and restock at the Spar. It now began to rain which meant that my plan of biking in along Strath Mulzie to camp beneath Seana Braigh (the hill with the pointy bit that you see in shots of "the old road to Ullapool" in HT550 reports) wasn't looking too bright. It's over 16Km walk to the foot of the hill. Then I remembered - The Old Schoolhouse bothy! Plan back on so drive round to Oykel Bridge. Those who did the HT550 this year might remember a section of moorland that had caught fire and shut the road between Ledmore and Oykel Bridge during the week before the ride. If you hadn't known that it had happened then it's only a keen eye and knowing what post-fire grass growth looks like that you'd ever know there'd been a fire.
I parked up on the small road just down from the bridge and got changed. Quickly! As the flying teeth were out! Changed, packed, car locked and away, pedalling as quick as I could in the heat and rain(?) to get away from the little blighters. Twenty five minutes later and I'm coasting down the track to the apple white bothy. There's no-one else here. Get inside, get changed and get a brew on. Except ...
In my rush to get away from the midges I'd forgotten to pack any matches. A frantic search of the bothy revealed none. Oh well, I'd enough food that could be eaten cold as well as my hill food. I'd also brought a bottle (small) of wine. I wouldn't starve. I'd also managed to forget my Schnozzle bag so inflating my sleeping mat took quite a bit of effort. Just 2 out of 10 I reckon, school report states: "Robert is easily distracted, if he could only concentrate then his work would be so much better". Wine along with cheese and biscuits made for a decent enough evening snack listening to the rain on the roof.
The morning's clear and with fifty minutes of riding I'm at the river crossing where it's advised to leave your bike. Two ways up: one would mean an out and back, the other a circuit. Go for the circuit. This meant two river crossings - the first, where I'd left my bike had stepping stones so could keep my feet dry. The second didn't. My route was up the afore mentioned pointy bit. This turned out to be trickier than expected, greasy rock in a strong wind made for some exciting moments, possibly the hardest scrambling I've done on the mainland. It's a pity the top of the ridge isn't a few metres higher so it could achieve Munro status itself. Easy to the top then down back to the bike and a blast back down the Strath to my kit in the bothy.
More easy riding back to the car, including stopping to chat to the first person I'd seen for eighteen hours.
The next day's walking on the Beinn Dearg group involved a much shorter bike in but the ride out was brilliant - I didn't pedal once
Interestingly there's an existing hydro scheme in this valley - Inverlael. It was installed in 2009 and while I don't know what the visual impact was like during its installation, it isn't that visually intrusive today. I know that Phil (htrider) expressed his disappointment at the hydro works on the Pattack and Easan Dorcha but I wonder how they will look in ten years' time. From a quick Google it seems that the Pattack development is for a 9MW scheme involving an upper dam and reservoir so might be a bit of an eyesore while the Easan Dorcha is one of five "Run of River" type schemes, like the Inverlael one, which are much lower in capacity and impact. I'm somewhat ambivalent about these schemes - the construction work looks a right mess now but as a society we are addicted to energy which has got to be generated somehow.
Wednesday was another long day in the fells after which my quads were shot! It's not the climbing that's the problem but descending, I haven't done any fell walking in several years so it was a bit of a baptism of fire. I decided to call it a day and drove home yesterday, thirteen hours on the road.
I've seen some mighty flash bikes parked up there....