Having taken fresh delivery of her new Specialized Stumpjumper, Pete joined Hannah Barnes for a big old day in the hills.
Pete had an early start to get to the Scottish west coast to meet up with Hannah Barnes and her pup Lumi for a big day out the hills to see what the new 2021 Specialized Stumpjumper was made of.
The 2021 Stumpjumper has lower frame weight, a pivot-less rear triangle, stiffness and compliance redistributed, a change to kinematics and even more SWAT storage means there’s not much that hasn’t been tweaked.
Read Pete’s first ride of the new Stumpjumper here.
A filthy 4.30am alarm jolted me out of my bed for a four hour gallop to the west coast of Scotland and a lap I’d not done since 2014. Closer to the coast, some rain squalls moving on a fast north easterly wind made me question why I’d bothered as the mountains vanished behind the wall of grey water.
The early start meant that the roads were clear and I’d arrive early and get my faff done with plenty of time to spare before my riding buddies for the day arrived. Hannah Barnes had been keen to get some serious mileage and terrain into her new Specialized Stumpjumper, as well as ride somewhere new. Lumi the pup would be joining in for the lap too.
Talk to anyone about this particular lap of the Highlands and you’ll no doubt start a never-ending debate about which way around to do it. You get a bog hop in the middle, and descents of equal merit on either side of the high point.
It wasn’t long before any dream of the blue sky that hovered over the sea moving inland was dashed as the bands of rain came overhead, only to be replaced by wind or a dry spell. This would set the tone for the weather for the day ahead.
Autumn was in full effect low in the glens, although a few stubborn silver birch trees had yet to give up their chlorophyll. High on the shoulders of the hill, stags approaching full rage could be heard bellowing their challenges across the glen.
It had clearly hosed it down overnight and even the ample drainage bars were struggling to cope as most of the trail for the opening portion was firm, but waterlogged. The rock here is treacherous when wet, and it made the going slow and laboured.
When moraine took over, the going was good and we were soon swinging south and to the one big climb of the day before a long, boggy traverse got us back to harder ground. Through the deer fence and out of the trees, the going was good. Short, clipped grass over rock seemed easy until the ground pitched up and we were heading back into the trees again.
In the summer, this route is a delight. Ample daylight and hard, fast ground with the hills awash with a grass so green it almost looks fake. As we rapidly approached the clocks turning, we knew we’d have to keep pressing on to not be rolling back to the cars in the dark.
The thunder of water and the roar of stags started to fill the air as we rounded the corner to look up a massive glen that seemed far larger than I remembered, the stalker’s path winding its way through the crags and the lurid grass to the high pass at the summit.
It was here that my memory of the route started to deceive me, and I assume Hannah questioned my logic in choosing this route… The climb to the high point on the route had definitely grown in the last six years but we decided even if we had to come back down the same way, we’d still get a cracking descent under our belts.
Much of the vertical of today’s near seventeen-mile bash around the mountains would be gained and lost in one fell swoop. The stalker’s path winding carefully up the shoulder of the glen.
We opted to take some fuel on below yet another impressive waterfall, rather than stopping atop the high pass to get cold and miserable. Lumi showed her other skill, besides herding riders, in that she could win any staring competition as long as you had food in your hand…
The stop gave me a chance to eye over Hannah’s new, fully-tricked-out SWorks Stumpjumper, the top of the range version of the bike I’d ridden a few weeks ago in the Tweed Valley. The British Racing Green paintjob certainly looked the business, and Hannah had the sense to put a Butcher on the back wheel to keep the grip high. Spot the Scot. Keep an eye out for an Industry Whips coming soon.
One sketchy river crossing later, but with mostly dry feet, we’d start gain altitude fast on the final push to the top of the pass. The path here is pretty amazing for such a remote location and made the going pretty easy, as it zig-zagged its way up the front of the mountain.
We were making good ground as more blue sky appeared, and we were happy that we’d make the full lap if we could keep the pace going. Even with the height gained, there was still a large chunk of the distance to cover. There’s the old adage that one mile in the Highlands is three everywhere else… We’d have our work cut out regardless.
High on the hill, a waterfall poured clean out of the ground with the sound of running water crashing through the rocks below your feet without ever seeing a drop. This just shows how much rain pours down these mountainsides all year round.
Hannah took the lead in heading off the pass, clearly very comfortable on her new bike despite it being its first proper run into the wild. The steep crags that gave the high point a claustrophobic feeling opened out into a vast glen with the path ahead being mankind’s only influence visible.
The excellent path continued until we were met, eventually, by a pathless bog. Two good paths almost close the gap, but the ground is too wet and soft in the middle, so we’d have to go freestyle until the built path re-emerged.
I got so caught off guard by a stag’s bellow sounding like a lion roaring that I stopped dead in the mud and dropped my knee and shoulder hard into the bog. Perfect timing… Thankfully, most of our bog-hopping was enjoyed under a warm sun and we were soon drying out.
We picked up the remainder of the Affric-Kintail Way and made haste to the bothy to escape the next squall we could see rolling in over the mountains. It’s mad to think that this bothy was lived in permanently until 1917. It must have been bleak in the winter in this remote part of the World…
We sat out the last of the rain for the day in the deserted bothy. Tea was mooted by we decided that as the skies had stopped leaking temporarily, that we’d motor on as thoughts turned to fish and chips.
The double track to the bothy would eventually fizzle back into rock-heavy singletrack. Now, with the gradient more on our side, the lack of traction seemed less of an issue and we’d be making good time down the many, excellent descents punctuated by some short, sharp climbs.
Rock really started to take over again as we started to lose our height quickly. It took us both a while to engage the descending brains after several hours of climbing and traversing through blanket bog. More time and daylight provided by the summer would have given us the luxury of being able to save the energies for attacking the descent, plus the traction to make it count.
By now, both of us were pretty tired, the clock reading seven hours ride time. Happy to just coast down most sections that varied from the sublime to the ridiculous, but importantly, descending.
My memory evaded me again, and I lost count of the times I said “there’s this massive waterfall around this corner”, only to find that around the corner was yet another corner to go around. Five or six of them in fact…
By now, we were just content descending in our own little Worlds as the floor of the glen got steadily closer and closer, while the rock walls of the sheer glen sides started to close in once more. With the vast glens behind us, the Five Sisters looming on the horizon, we picked our way down through the sharpening rocks, slowly ticking down the height as we went.
The last rattle back to the floor of the glen was deceptively simple. Keep your eyes right as you pass a giant waterfall, the drop to the pool below being a good fifty metres, from there, rock slabs offer no grip at all and the speed slows to allow no brakes to be used whatsoever.
We get to the final river crossing to find a bridge that looks so new that we might be the first people to cross it.
Back along the track to the start point, the sun starts to catch the peaks of the giant mountains all around and we realise that we’ve been moving almost all day. “Chips. Where is the nearest place we can get chips?”
Hannah seems pretty chuffed with her new vessel. The Stumpjumper being more capable with Hannah at the helm that it was under me in Innerleithen. I had my work cut out for me to keep in touch for the eight hour gallop in this most impressive part of the world.
