Mountain Biking the West Highland Way in 18 hours

From sunnier times where we rode the 96 miles, 3300m elevation West Highland Way route from Milngavie to Fort William in 18 hours 25 minutes - reached our goal of finishing in a day! Leaving at 4:15am from Milngavie and arriving into Fort William at 10:40pm. What an adventure!
The strava route is here for anyone interested: / strava
Music is Brother by Matt Corby

[@bv3bv334]

Top effort. 👍

[@EwanGoesHiking]

Man the section up the side of Loch Lomond must've been nerve wracking on a bike. So many places to fall in. Cracking video. Congrats on rattling through it all in one go. Super impressive. 👍

[@gavallan2020]

Yeah! I did have a pretty spectacular fall down onto the beach off camera but thankfully not the water! Cheers 😁

[@Itsthejourneynotthedestination]

Brutal. Did it a few years back but certainly not in 18 hours, respect. Loch Lomondside still gives me nightmares to this day.

[@cals.9269]

Great content Gav ! Thanks for sharing guys. Very inspirational

[@chris__maltby]

Awesome mate, felt tired just watching it!

[@joshuastebbing7408]

Great video! Just happened to be searching for west highland way bike packing videos not long after you posted this!

[@gavallan2020]

Haha no way! Any questions on the route or anything happy to help

[@benschwabe2504]

If you're going to wake up before 4am you're going to beat me to Loc Lomond no matter which road you take.

[@zaydendawson472]

You probably dont care but does anyone know a way to get back into an Instagram account? I stupidly lost my account password. I appreciate any tips you can give me

[@vanmorgan855]

@Zayden Dawson instablaster :)

[@zaydendawson472]

@Van Morgan thanks for your reply. I got to the site thru google and I'm waiting for the hacking stuff now. Takes a while so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.

[@zaydendawson472]

@Van Morgan It worked and I actually got access to my account again. I am so happy:D Thank you so much, you saved my account :D

[@vanmorgan855]

@Zayden Dawson Happy to help :)

[@mtbfree4914]

I did this over 4 days one April and it snowed! I had a sense of humour failure on the section from Inversnaid to tyndrum - the hike a bike section! It was brutal.

[@gavallan2020]

That's tough going! It'd be a different story in shorter colder days I bet! Yeah... it is fairly relentless -, I found the devils staircase hike to be the hardest. It came so deep into the ride!

[@vortigerncelticrock3100]

Ha ha, I struggled on that bit. Did it on a 180 travel ebike and had to run backwards and forwards giving my wife a lift on the hard bits.....9 hours!

[@Monkey-Magic]

Great video. It looks hard on the bike at some bits. Do you think a hybrid bike would manage it ok or would it have to be a mountain bike?.. 👍

[@gavallan2020]

Cheers! I'd recommend a mountain bike for it. It's not technical but the ground can be quite rough so would be worried about puncturing on the thinner tyres!

[@Monkey-Magic]

@@gavallan2020 thanks for your reply👍. My hybrid weighs 10.4kg where my mountain bike is 13.5kg . Was hoping to take the hybrid , but since you know what your doing,I'll take your advice and go for the mountain bike. We won't be doing it at the ludicrously fast pace you guys took and we will have tents etc, so hoping to do up and back down in 4 (ish) days. Absolutely fantastic video. Thanks again. 🚵‍♂️👍

[@tomekpap]

Great effort! I see you did this in May, what about notorious midges at that time of the year?

[@gavallan2020]

They weren't bad at all! I'd say you're safe until the end of May - they get pretty bad after that!

[@jonathangreenwood9330]

Great video. How long did it take you to get from inversnaid to inverarnan ? Looking at doing this route next year and this appears to be the great unknown part.

[@gavallan2020]

Cheers! That section took about 2 hours all in. Personally I didn't find it as challenging as many made out. For sure, it isn't rideable and you need to push, at times carry, the bike but I didn't find it too physically demanding. Time consuming but it wasn't too bad.

[@jonathangreenwood9330]

MTB Gav thanks Gav, good to know.

[@SODtv]

@@jonathangreenwood9330 How did you get on? I'm currently recce-ing sections of it and rode down from Crainlarich to Rowardenan and back 2 days ago and the Inverarnan to Inversnaid immediately alongside the Loch (Ardleish) was brutal........however in reverse, it felt quicker and easier. I was bang on 2 hours from Inverarnan to Inversnaid on the way down 1hr 30mins from Ardleish to Inversnaid which there was no cycling at all and was 6.5km long.

[@stephenhutchison4448]

Hi thinking of doing this in May if lock down is over. Thinking of trying to do 40 miles first day. How long should I give myself. Cycling mountain bikeing for 30 years. Gonna do it over 3 days.

[@trailscotland4165]

Awesome vid and great effort! Would you do it again?

[@gavallan2020]

Cheers! As much as I loved it, need to find a new challenge next... Eyeing up the Highland 550 for summer!

[@trailscotland4165]

@@gavallan2020 The Highland 550 looks good too! Feel free to post your mtb videos on our website. Hopefully be able to get you some more views etc.

[@gavallan2020]

@@trailscotland4165 Cheers! Will check it out

[@trailscotland4165]

@@gavallan2020 All the vids that get posted on the site get featured on the Facebook page which has over 10k followers.