"2017 was a notoriously hot year for the HT550. Clear blue skies and scorching (for Scotland) temperatures through the second half of May had dried up the bogs and reduced sloppy tracks to dust bowls. The golden forecast looked set to continue right through the race as well — the stage was set for some fast rides and some major tan line development.
As the group rolled through the initial few hours in Glen Lyon and Rannoch Forest things got nice and toasty, and we were all welcome for the chilled snowmelt to fill our bottles on the long climb to the Bealach Dubh, in the shadow of the snowfields on Ben Alder’s summit plateau.
Of course, the ride to Fort Augustus is just the ‘warm-up’, and my goal for the first day was to make it to the town before the petrol station (and kebab shop!) closed, while conserving as much energy as possible. At Laggan café I sneaked a cold can of Coke to see me over the Corrieyairick pass, and met Stu Cowperthwaite outside on a bench. He had set off like a rocket, and looked to be a little worse for wear after all that effort in the heat of the day.
The sugar rush, and the prospect of hitting the resupply in Fort Augustus, saw me fly up the long climb — the longest of the route — with Javi, pausing briefly at the top to take in the panorama ahead of me, with Fort Augustus itself nestled just out of sight. You can’t understand the ‘great’ in Great Glen until you’ve seen it like that, laid out below you like a huge trench, splitting the Highlands in two. A Haar, or sea-fret, had rolled off the North Sea and down the glen from Inverness, with the effect that as we descended we left the blue skies and warm temperatures behind, and dove headlong into thickening mist and the wintry chill of sea air, which was bizarre this far inland. I had to stop more than once, first to add arm and leg warmers, and then a jacket and warm gloves!
Once in town, it was straight down to business: food resupply and a brew in the petrol station, followed by a quick visit to the kebab shop to get a pizza and another Coke. The pizza got rolled up and stuffed into a rear pocket to be enjoyed as a midnight snack on the night-time trek north to Contin. The adventure really begins on the first night of the race, so as I left town into the gathering gloom of an almost autumnal evening, it felt as though Fort Augustus was a door that had to be reached and passed through to allow entry into the great unknown of the adventure beyond."