A monday off allowed me to join up with a friend for the first ‘real mountain’ mountain-bike trip in a very long time. The plan was to head off from Linn O’Dee and do a loop to Corrour bothy and then back via White Bridge.

A quick modification to the start – heading up past the waterfall – most people take the direct route from the car park and miss out on this fabulously scenic stretch of single track

After soaking up the aquamarine wonders of the Lui, it was back on landy track to Derry Lodge and then heading west to Luibeg

The crisp mountain air hadn’t cleared early morning brain fog apparently as took a wrong left turn fording across the Luibeg burn too early which led to dragging the bike across heather as the double-track on the map didn’t really amount to much on the ground.

We regained the correct path below Carn a Mhaim, slabby and rocky. Glad of the full-suspension bike on this.

The track begun to head down getting steeper and lumpier, a few close ‘over the bar’ moments. A big bang on the rear wheel sounded ominous but managed to keep rolling to the River Dee

Bike back in working order we headed south. I’d not done this on bike before but on foot my memory was that it was quite boggy, and certainly there’s a fair bit of that. Not a good place to cycle when wet, today it’s reasonable but my feet still get a soaking pushing through some unrideable sections.

Although these ruins are with a few hundred years old, recent research suggests that this area was fairly active with human settlement many thousands of years ago.

Beyond chest of Dee it’s smooth track back to the start. 30km in total.

Afterwards I looked into other reports of this route: quite a few folk reckon it’s better the other way around: push up from Corrour, but then the long slabby descent to Luibeg.