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The last walk of our autumn trip and our fourth consecutive day of biking and hiking. As a bit of a cycling novice my quads (and sit bones) were feeling it, especially trying to keep up with recent sub-12 Iron Man Neil.
Reading the walk reports for Carn a' Chlamain we noted one that suggested it was possible to take a bike to the summit, so we (Neil) decided that sounded like a good plan.
So setting off just after 9am we followed the WH route from old Bridge of Tilt car park crossing the river at Gilbert's Bridge and then back again at Gaw's Bridge. About 750 metres after the second crossing we reached the path heading off up the heather - this was certainly not something that could be ridden up, and indeed it was a good work-out just pushing the bikes. Once we completed that section the main path come into view, and whilst it was wide it was very stony and fairly steep. Neil rode a lot of it, but I was continually getting off to push into the thickening mist as we climbed..
Eventually we arrived at the arrived at the rocky summit cone, although the mist prevented us from seeing the top and we walked the last 5 minutes without the bikes. It took 2 hours 45 to get there.
![Carn a' Chlamain 2.jpg]()
- Carn a' Chlamain
Given the cold and damp conditions we decided not to hang around and returned to the bikes and set off down. I followed Neil trying to pick up the same line hoping not to hit a large boulder and burst a tyre. On a number of steeper sections the bikes really picked up speed and I was continually on the brakes, so much so that by the time I reached the last heather section my rear brake had faded completely and my hands and forearms were aching from the effort.
On the plus side it had only taken about 25 minutes to get down
So we took a couple of minutes to eat our lunch and then set off along the good track back to the car - it was not quite as downhill as the return yesterday, but we still managed to spin a big gear most of the way and arrived back at the car park 3 hours 45 after we started. Overall a quite exhilarating trip, and as an added bonus the early finish meant we could complete the drive home to north Wales that day
