Minirolls Musings

Le Whoop 24hr

My lovely Aimi granted me Friday night away, so I didn’t have such an early morning to deal with. This meant I could get there and have a chilled evening drinking with James and Cerb, Sam and Karolina, smashing down Pringles and Haribo bears.

A View Into Our Future

Another lazy morning was dictated by a phone call booked for 11am. We had our breakfast and packed up the van ready for a walk and then I went over to the beach. Here there are some benches in the sun, with a view of the Loch, and most importantly, cell service. I had a good hour of work done, while Aimi had her phone call.

Real Legal

There is no more putting it off, so today I took 2 hours to do some work in a cafe in Aviemore. It was a fairly typical greasy spoon place that must have been going for years because the prices were nicely un-touristy even tho it was situated right in the centre. Aviemore itself is quite touristy with coaches of old people going in and out all the time and Americans walking around going “oooh” and “ahhh” at anything with vague historical pretences.

A Perfect Day With Coffee & Coos

With no specific plans this morning and drizzle on the horizon, we took the time to enjoy a full cooked breakfast. It’s good fun cooking in the van, but with a stuffed belly, we soon needed to make a move, to make a movement.

We headed back to Laggan, to the 24hr toilets and noticed people in the Coffee Bothy. This wonderful cafe unfortunately closed last year and we were really disappointed because it’s our favourite place to stop up here.

Wriggly Doggy

This morning we discovered the blackout blinds had frozen to the inside of the windscreen. After chiselling it off and scarfing down a haggis and egg sandwich we set off for Dalwhinnie.

Turning Left

We woke this morning without a Scottish view. Then we removed the thermal blinds from the van window and enjoyed small bouncy snow/hail drifting across the valley before us. Our van skeleton remained unimpressed…

Scoping Out Scotland

Through no fault of my own, I find myself without employment over this Christmas and into January. But I’m also waiting to start work, so I’m in a weird limbo state where I can’t really commit to a new project, but also want to do something so I don’t feel useless.

Looking on the bright side, this situation has arisen perfectly in line with the BIRD2023 event I’m running for the Tiny Whoopers! This year is going to be even bigger and better than ever, with a new venue, special guests and lots of pilots from other countries making it really special. I’ll be writing about that event later, but what else do you do when you don’t have any pressing engagements – go on a little trip!

Midges and Mountains

Rise and shine
Milk that tastes like wine

Drive over to Glen Coe
Up Nevis Range we go

To look at Top Chief track
Now there’s no looking back

Over rocks and holes
To reach our MTB goals

Dyfi Bike Park

After a hard days ride uphill yesterday, today we were going to Dyfi bike park and getting an uplift. This is where you pay a chap to drive you and your mates up the hill in the back of a Landover, with the bikes in a trailer. You then spend 20 mins coming down the hill, back to the start, where you catch another Landy to the top again, rinse and repeat. So much easier than pedaling to the top, and before you say it’s cheating, I did enough uphill pedaling yesterday not to feel even slightly guilty about it!

Snowdon Struggle

Well that was equal parts exhilarating and exhausting!

It’s funny how the human mind has the capacity to ignore, and even forget, the suffering of the human body, when the suffering is in pursuit of a goal. For us, it was the summit of Snowdon. This was not the end goal, but actually the start of the reason we had travelled here; to descend on mountain bikes.