Adventure

Built single track is great. Beautifully formed berms, flowing trails, a few challenging obstacles. They tend to tell a nicely wrapped up story.

Then there is 'back country' rides. There are lots of these in the UK; following bridleways, they involve map reading, linking things together, epic climbs and usually rocky, seat of your pants descents. They tend to be more primitive. You may have to 'hike a bike' on unridable sections. You usually get a little lost. All of these things add up to more of an adventure. No, the riding may not be as flowy as the bike centre stuff, in fact, there may be very few parts that you would contemplate calling flowy at all! But these types of rides are about more than that, they are about exploring, being out there, adventure.

I'm hoping we can spend a few days in the high country over this summer, where I can look to explore a little back country myself.

In the meantime, here's s little teaser from Torridon, in Scotland...