A forced work shut-down means you have to take holiday when it’s not always convenient, last August was just that for me. I was saving for a trip to Australia so couldn’t afford a proper holiday and my mates were off to Morzine two weeks after the shut-down and I couldn’t get the time off work for that, or afford it.

I had toyed with the idea of a tour of bike parks in the UK but the weather forecast was for rain so I had decided against it……until the first Monday morning of the break, I still couldn’t decide what to do so in a mad fit, mid-morning I bundled Stumpy, Desmond and my camping gear in my Peugeot 207 and set off for Scotland

Monday - Loch Lomond National Park I didn’t stop until I got to Loch Lomond National Park, where I camped by the shore of a Loch for the night. It was a Caravan Club site, so a bit expensive at £21, but a nice enough place with decent facilities. One thing I wasn’t expecting was the mozzies! Which is something that I experienced all my time in Scotland, midges and mozzies, I was bitten, a lot!

It was a fine dry night with a beautiful clear morning. I set off for Fort William first thing. The scenic views just kept coming, and were superb. I’d not visited this area before, and was totally blown away by just how beautiful it was, especially around the Glen Coe area. So we can excuse the midges and mozzies!

I decided to find a campsite before I rode at Fort William, to make sure I got a spot as it was very busy with tourists. The first site I viewed was small, very cluttered and in a town, so I continued looking, settling on a fab site, Glen Nevis Self-Catering Park with the backdrop of Ben Nevis one way and forest and hills in the opposite direction. It was reasonably priced, around £12 and very good facilities and an onsite shop, plus intermittent wifi. I set up camp, then set off for finding Fort William downhill.

Tuesday - Fort William was very busy, mainly with tourists and some mountain bikers. The weather was sunny and dry. I had a chat with a local guy in the car park, funnily enough he was from a town not far from my home town of Banbury, he’d lived in Scotland for about 7 years and had a full on Scottish accent. We chatted about local rides.

You can buy a single ride in the gondola to the top of the mountain, it costs around fifteen quid with the bike, so I opted for that. I don’t like how the bikes hook up to the gondola, you have to have your bike up on end with the rear wheel in the air and it hangs off the gondola by the pointy part of the seat, a bit tricky but anyway it was fine. I stopped at the World Cup start gate, took a photo of Desmond, whilst I was doing that it started to rain.