The HTC Desire

Take a look around the internet or the Android marketplace and you will find many applications for GPS tracking your walking, running or cycling activities. Some of these include Cardio Trainer, Trek Buddy, Buddy Runner, Maverick and AlpineQuest. Some of them have slightly different niches, but I settled on Google MyTracks. Using it is dead easy – click menu->record track and you’re away. If you have an internet connection available at the time, you will be able to see your position on a Google map or satellite view. If not, you’ll just see an arrow marking your position on a blank background. After you’ve completed your ride just click menu->stop recording and you’re done. Tap the screen to see icons for your ride stats or an elevation profile / speed graph – you’ll probably want to change the stats setting from the default  ‘pace’ to ’speed’ if you’re biking. You can save the recorded file in GPX or KML format to the SD card or leave it (by default) in the phone’s internal storage. If you have a Google account, one click will upload the file to your account where you can later view and share it online. Click the end point on the map to see the stats. Here’s a short example.

The Good: GPS tracking hammers your phone’s battery, so it is important to be able to configure the frequency at which your phone takes a GPS reading. MyTracks, unlike some of the other apps, makes this easy. One of the first things you should do is change this setting from the default ‘every 1 second’ to every 5 or 10, depending how long your ride is. I could run my phone for in excess of 9 hours continuously on the 10 second setting, and the results were perfectly adequate accuracy-wise. You can put your phone into Aircraft mode too if you really want to squeeze every last minute out of it. I put my phone in my Camelback and it seemed to hold GPS reception with no problems.

The Bad: As a mountain biker you’ll often be without phone or data reception when you’re out in the wilds. In Spain there was no way I was paying data roaming charges even if I had reception. This means you’ll mostly be without a map which somewhat limits the navigational aid side of things. There are a few apps that will store maps offline, but I’m yet to find any that will work with Google satellite maps – the most useful for the region of Spain I was in. I tried using Mobile Atlas Creator to download and store offline the area I was interested in (for use with Maverick) but I couldn’t get it to work – it only seemed to want to download one map tile for each level of zoom rather than all those needed to cover the area. There are also commercial products (eg. Viewranger) for buying offline OS maps if you’re in the UK, but they’re pretty pricey. Dedicated hardware units like SatMap will also do the job.

MyTracks is now open-source. There has been one noticeable cock-up on app updates whereby the stats data was lost on upload to your Google account, so quality control and testing could obviously be improved. The app version number is out of date on the website too. However, for free it’s a smashing little application that’s very easy to use and gives useful insight into your day’s riding.

Strathpuffer Course

What a lot of people don’t realise is that this is one of the driest areas in the UK and doesn’t suffer from the dreaded midges. The access is also easy, either by plane to Inverness airport or, my personal favourite, on the Sleeper where you can board at London, have a nice bottle of wine and wake up to the clean air of the HIghlands. Booking through Bargain Berths can secure you a real bargain too. Inverness is a great city, with a great choice of pubs, live music and cheap accommodation options, it’s a great location for a weeks riding. Importantly it also happens to be within 45-minutes of all the routes in this article and the fantastic riding at Aviemore.

So, to the riding. I’ve picked my favourite 4 days riding and am listing them in order of my preference. There are also heaps of more natural unmarked routes which I’ll touch on at the end.

Contin in the snow

Number 1: Contin and Strathpeffer. (Intermediate – Advanced, 30 minutes north of Inverness)
The best place to start here is in the main square in Strathpeffer. You need to follow the A9 north, then branch off for Dingwall and Ullapool before taking the turning after Dingwall for Strathpeffer. There are two main courses here, there is the Contin XC race track which is at an intermediate to advanced level. The riding is on natural woody singletrack which is littered with tricky roots and rocks and is linked together by the main fireroad which climbs from the forestry car park at Contin. It takes between 1 and 2 hours to complete a lap of this course but without a doubt you will want to do it two or three times. This is my favourite bit of singletrack anywhere in the UK! The second main course here is the trail that is used for the Strathpuffer 24 hour race. It’s more intermediate in level but to ride it fast takes skills and nerves. A lap will take you about between 1 and 2 hours again but it can be combined with the XC race course to form a bigger loop. The trail is quite rooty and rocky in places but also has some great sections of surfaced singletrack which have been purpose built for mountain bikers. Some of the trails are marked but a lot of them aren’t and it’s impossible to describe a route. If you visit SquareWheels bike shop in the centre of Strathpeffer they will sort you out with a map and directions. The shop is also an Aladins cave and there’s a good workshop there. See here for contact details: Square Wheels Bike Shop

Golspie Trails

Number 2: Golspie Wildcat Trails. (Intermediate – Advanced, 45 minutes north of Inverness).
It’s easy to find these trails, just follow the A9 north until you get to Golspie and the trails are marked from there. Ben Bhraggie used to be famous for supporting a hugely unpopular statue to one of the most ruthless landowners of the highland clearances, now it is gathering a rightful reputation for being home to what is probably the best man-made singletrack in the country. If you haven’t ridden here then you need to; it’s as simple as that. If you’re up to the whole black route then you’re treated to a 7km singletrack climb with plenty of challenges to distract you from the pain and a 7km descent as a reward! Starting off fast with lots of berms and jumps, it changes character many times on the way down; from rocky and technical to swoopy and fast, never disappointing for a second. It’s really worth the trip north for this trail alone. Less experienced riders can use the same climb and descent as the black but not go to the very top of the hill, where the hardest sections are.

Number 3: Balblair and Carbisdale. (Intermediate – Advanced, 45 minutes north of Inverness).
Heading north of Inverness on the A9 again, towards Bonar Bridge and Carbisdale castle where you will see signs for the trails. There are two new trails here. There’s a red trail at Carbisdale castle, which is fun and swoopy, but nothing too technical. The trail at Balblair is a black and can be very intimidating. Made up mainly of natural bedrock linked by woodwork sections it’s a real challenge to put together into a clean run. The youth hostel at Carbisdale is a great place to spend a night if you don’t fancy the drive back to Inverness.

Learnie Trails

Number 4: Learnie Red Rocks. (Beginner – Advanced, 15 minutes north of Inverness).
Follow the A9 north of Inverness, cross the Kessock bridge and follow the dual carriage way until the roundabout. Take a right towards Cromarty and you will come to the Learnie car park. Learnie used to be my favourite trail in the area. Then the forestry did some clear felling which removed one of the very technical black sections. There’s still plenty to keep intermediate riders happy with a good red and blue trail, set of doubles, and a fun, rocky black section. The old black section will apparently be rebuilt but I don’t know when that is planned. It’s a real pity. Other trails: There are lots of other trails for bikes in the area, however they aren’t marked and are very difficult to find or to describe. The best bet would be to speak to some of the local bike shops or clubs. Fyrish Bikes is a great local club who sometimes organise club runs.

Doug McDonald is a mountain biker from Ross-shire, now running a bike holiday company in the Basque region of Spain. Check out BasqueMTB: Mountain bike holidays in the Spanish Pyrenees for further details.