Sanny and Dave take a trip down memory lane revisiting Dave’s first big mountain ride on more modern machines.

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY DAVID ‘SANNY’ GOULD

ADVENTURE

It is indeed a curious truth that given how many of us ride mountain bikes, precious few of them ever see any actual mountains. There is a strange comfort to be taken from the knowledge that you could ride up and down a mountain if you wanted to, even if you never have the inclination to do so. But what if the heart yearns for more? With bikes becoming longer and slacker and with travel increasing, today’s machines are considerably more capable than those that most of us started out on. As such, there has probably never been a better time to go off the beaten trail centre path and broaden your riding horizons.

Scottish trail fashion has peaked.

”Wil, you’re an idiot!”

A plan was hatched with Antipodean Wil, still new to this parish and keen to tackle a proper Scottish mountain. It was all going swimmingly right up to the point at which his skill set proved to be more Ian McCaskill than Danny MacAskill and he managed to dislocate his shoulder on the blue route at Glentress. Doh! Fortunately, my good friend Dave the Bastard (don’t ask me – all I know is that it comes from a case of mistaken identity at university) gamefully stepped in with a bonzer idea. “Why don’t we go up Ben Venue? It was the very first mountain I ever rode in 1993 on my mountain bike.” We were back in business.

Enter the dragon (aka the midge, Scotland’s national bird).

For those who don’t know, Ben Venue is something of a picture postcard, properly pointy mountain located within easy reach of the second city of the Empire, Glasgow, with breathtaking views in all directions (unless you manage to pick the slightly dreich day we did). It’s not enormously high, but what it lacks in scale it more than makes up for in terms of grandeur and that all important element of being close to a bloody good café or two. A recent walk up it with my daughter revealed that the trail fairies had been hard at work and the previous bog-fest ascent from Loch Achray had been greatly improved. Without map in hand (I left it on the coffee table at home like a prize plum), Dave and I set off from the car park keen to see if distance and the passage of time had lent enchantment.