Highland Trail 550
This will be my third time back to ride the Highland Trail 550 route. It should be the fourth, or not at all, but having fractured my arm three days before the start last year the chapter and chip on my shoulder remained open. As with many events recently, a performance that I’d consider ‘my best’ has eluded me here. I should have come close in 2021, I was in near impeccable form, even carrying the remains of High Hamstring Tendinopathy, an injury that bore witness to my deep work ethic and brutal overtraining that winter. Sadly out on the course it wasn’t to be, the ironic part of bikepacking racing, you can be exceptionally fit, but fitness pails in insignificance to time lost to issues. Fitness buys you a ticket but that’s all. The conditions got the better of me and I took a night out in the race to dry out, having become concerned I’d become hypothermic. I've come a long way since I first rode the event in 2019, it was my first time on a mountain bike and a real baptism of fire; now, I live in the mountains and only ride mountain bikes, I feel at home out there.
The Highland Trail 550 is 550 miles, or 880 kilometres of mostly tough mountain biking around the north coast of Scotland. As inhospitable places to ride a bike go, north Scotland is up there! The route was conceived by Alan Goldsmith and friends in preparation for their ride at the Tour Divide and is now steeped in its own history.
When reflecting on what I’d write for this preview it occurred to me, in the past two years I’ve only managed to race twice. In 2021 I only raced the Highland Trail 550. Rather than racing Silk Road too that year, I spent two weeks in a Kyrgyzstan hotel room. In the days before the start I had close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID. I decided not to race due to the risk of potentially going positive while my body was under severe stress. The easiest hardest decision I made. Then in 2022 my only race was Silk Road. That same year I broke my elbow the week before I was meant to race the Highland Trail. I went back to Kyrgyzstan for some redemption and mostly found it with a second place and a performance very close to my best. Undoubtedly it’s tough to be a professional athlete. I consider myself a performance focused athlete – versus one just there for the ‘gram, and only be able to perform so little – it hurts deeply.
As a result of this, I’ve adapted my life and outlook, to strive more to enjoy the journey, as much as the potential to perform; I LOVE to race my bike. Making the most of my daily athletic movements and worrying less about the rigidity and perfectionism of the training. It’s brutal to train for five months in a monotone manner only to not race.
So, it’s 2023 and it’s time to go racing again. I left writing this to the last moment, perhaps out of fear at a lack of ability to perform, perhaps because I’d just rather leave the talking to the other side, as I don’t feel there is much to say right now, just let the legs say what they want, and that’s enough. I wish I could be writing this blasting off about the epic winter of training, all the hours, the peaks, the meters. Sadly, I can’t. What I can do is require the use of both hands to count the number of illnesses I’ve had and as I write this I am just clearing another chest infection from my lungs -ten days off the bike is a pretty serious taper! My form is a shadow of that I took to Scotland in 2020. There is no point lying about this to myself, it’s just life and life isn’t fair. So, whether I’ll be ‘the best’ I couldn’t care, but I will do my best and that all there is. And while I find comfort in this situation and accept it, I can look back on the fun memories I made while out moving in the mountains this winter. Whether it was learning to ski, going ski mountaineering, making some great new friends, running to peaks around my home, hiking with my family. So many good times have happened to get me to where I am today, and they matter.
Reflecting in good and bad brings me back around to 2020. I was meant to go to Kyrgyzstan to race Silk Road, but Europe was my boundary and so I headed to the Pyrenees to race Further Perseverance, serendipity. An infatuating 800-kilometre race across the forgotten tracks in and around the Ariege; it’s not surprise I now live a stones throw across the border in Catalunya – thanks Camille. As you might guess, I didn’t go to that race in form, I went there having not ridden my bike for six weeks. I’d had something called Ischial bursitis, a huge, horrible swelling on my sitbone; not much precludes me cycling but that one really did. I went to Further pretty fired up, but also with zero expectations. I knew I wasn’t fit, I knew I shouldn’t be able to challenge, I knew I wasn’t the best. Yet I won. I’ve learnt many good life lessons over the past ten years of pushing myself into a dark hole to find light. Never count yourself out until it’s done, you might just surprise yourself.
For the Highland Trail 550 I’ll be riding a prototype Fairlight Holt. I think a hardtail is great for this event. If your rear shock is going to break, it will in Scotland. This frame runs a bit slacker and takes a fun size fork – let’s enjoy the descents! Tailfin custom bags, Beast wheels (by Parallel Handbuilt) with a Son 28 dynamo and K-lite Mtb (works great on the steeps). Cushcore inserts because I ride so bad at 3am in the dark. Hope components, not only do they work the best but they’re completely rebuildable – the brake on our tandem is several years old and goes strong! Sram AXS shifting, and it just always works. Clothing by Rab, Scotland really is known for wild mountains and for me I need a mountain brand to stand the conditions. This build is five years of off-road bikepacking knowledge together, this workman won’t be able to blame his tools – and I like that.
Thank you for your support:
Fairlight Cycles - Ride with GPS - Tailfin - Christopher Ward
Follow the race here.