The West Highland Way is Scotland’s most iconic long distance walking route. It runs 95 miles (153 kilometres) from Milngavie, just outside Glasgow in the west central lowlands of Scotland, to Fort William in the Highlands and generally takes walkers seven to eight days to complete. The route passes Loch Lomond before cutting through the mountains of Glen Coe and takes in some of the most spectacular wilderness in the UK. Although 190 miles off road is a formidable distance, the difficulty of this challenge lies in the terrain rather than the distance as the route is very rocky and technical for sustained distances. Cycling it twice in a day sounds like madness but Team Syncros Endurance team manager, Rob Lee, sounds like the (mad)man for the job. More details of this challenge and how to follow it can be found after the break.
Rob Lee is a UK based endurance mountain biker with a lot of experience. He was the first rider to take the South Downs Double record in 2008 and since then he has has been undertaking a series of endurance challenges,of which this latest is his sixth. In a previous challenge, ‘Seven Deadly Spins’, Rob linked all the red routes of Scotland’s 7Stanes mountain bike parks in a day covering around 255 miles with over 22,000ft of ascent.
Reset Films have been filming Rob on his challenges and will be producing a DVD which aims to capture “the emotion and the environment” of these feats of endurance. As Rob says, “whatever happens it’s going to make for some very interesting viewing. The scenery is so good and Mark (from film production company Reset Films) has a real eye for capturing visually stunning, and inspirational footage for the movies he makesâ€.
Rob also had this to say about his upcoming challenge:
“The route is really special, it goes through some amazing countryside and covers some really tough trails. I particularly like the way that it regularly changes and throws up so many variables that kit and bike choice are a really serious consideration. Looking back on the other rides I’ve done of this type this one is by far the toughest. The distance is no higher but the terrain itself is much harder to pass over at any great speed. I’m in fantastic shape at the moment, having worked very hard with my coach over the Winter, but even so I think this challenge is going to take about 32 hours to complete.”
Rob will be riding a carbon Blur.
The ride will start at 11am on Friday the 16th of April from the southern end of the route and you can follow Rob’s progress by following the link on his blog.
