Mountain Bike Leader Courses

As a British Cycling tutor I deliver the Level 2 Mountain Bike Leader Award. At the end of last week I was working with students at West Highland College on a training course. The college has a big and active mountain bike club with lots of bikers who want to move into leading groups of riders. The two day training course covers everything to do this from leading styles and techniques to trail side repairs and navigation. It's great fun learning the core techniques of riding and how to encourage other riders to develop the skills. Navigation on a bike is not something most riders normally do and the skills are quite different from walking navigation down to the speed of travel. You can go quite far wrong in a short period of time

Today, with beautiful snowy peaks all around and with very cold dry conditions, I was assessing on a great ride around Invergarry. We manage to ride a route with forest trails, single tracks and double track fire roads, and open tracks on the moors above the forest. All the time I was thinking it would be a wonderful day up on the peaks! This weekend has been very cold on the tops and we had snow down to 150m above sea level. The coming week looks warmer and more unsettled but I think the crags have started to cool down already, especially with it being cold last week with rime ice growing on the rocks. We're ready for some proper falls of snow and some thaw freeze cycles to hold it in place.