Gravel Culture: Travel Gravel – The An Turas Mor trail
Posted By Gravel Union
On 2 February 2021
As anyone who has ever tried to plot the “perfect” gravel route knows, it takes patience, skill, local knowledge and a vast amount of time to research different alternatives. We talked to guide book author David Wilson about his latest creation – the An Turas Mor trail which runs from Glasgow through the highlands of Scotland to Cape Wrath.
With the arrival of the new year and the prospect of better days ahead, gravel riders the world over are starting to think about future adventures. With the UK Gravel Union office based in the far north of England, we naturally tend to look north to our cousins just over the border in Scotland whenever we’re thinking about big adventures. So, when an email dropped into our inbox from guide book author David Wilson about the launch of Edition 2 of his guide to the An Turas Mor trail, it naturally piqued our interest.
For those of you (which included us until recently), who haven’t heard of the An Turas Mor trail, we thought an introduction was in order. The name is Scottish Gaelic and translates as the Long Trail. It runs northwards from Glasgow as far as Cape Wrath, the very north-western corner of Scotland. It’s 354 miles/570kms long, is broken into 66% off-road tracks (the vast majority of which are described as rideable and non-technical), 31% on quiet back country roads and the final few percent on slightly busier roads. The route is designed to be ridden by someone on a gravel bike with big volume tyres or an XC MTB.
The route is described as “joining together existing backcountry tracks, National Cycle Routes, forest and hill tracks, old drovers’ trails, hunting estate tracks, hydro scheme tracks, 18th century military roads, minor roads and small sections of the West Highland Way and the Rob Roy Trails”. Due to Scotland’s enlightened access rules, cyclists are allowed to ride on the vast majority of rights of way (with a few caveats for areas subject to forestry or military operations), but as anyone who watched ex-pro XC MTB racer Rab Wardell’s recent film about tackling the West Highland Way, a huge proportion of that route would either be pretty unpleasant on a gravel bike or would be simply too busy with walkers to be enjoyable.
This is where David’s hard graft at route research comes in. It would have been pretty easy for him to send everyone trying the An Turas Mor trail along sections of the West Highland Way and while this would perhaps appeal to a proportion of the guide book’s readers, the ethos behind the route is to make it rideable for as much of the time as possible on a gravel bike. This means no huge hike-a-bike sections, no need to pro-skill levels and no need for full-suspension. So, David (and other members of the Obscura Mondo Cycle Club) did vast amounts of research into what other route options existed.
David describes the route as being “born out of frustration”. He goes on to say “The frustration stemmed from the lack of many long distance trails in Scotland that allowed the rider to actually ride the trails in their entirety. It is easy to find long distance trails in Scotland, but often these trails are connected by long busy road sections, require difficult portages of your bike, use popular walkers trails generating the potential for conflict or include highly technical descents which are particularly bad if you are packing a loaded bike.” David and friends from the Obscura Mondo Cycle Club spent nearly two years poring over maps, plotting new variations and then test riding them to find the perfect route.
Back in 2016 when David started researching the route, gravel & adventure bikes were in their infancy and an XC MTB was seen as the perfect tool for long-distance off-road touring type adventures. Now fast-forward four years and gravel & adventure bike sales have gone stratospheric and are just as capable, and arguably even more suited, to this type of bikepacking adventure. It’s one of the reasons the trail was renamed from it’s original An Turas Mor Mountain bike Trail to a slightly less prescriptive An Turas Mor Mountain-Gravel Bike Trail – a bit of a mouthful, but it might help broaden the appeal of the route to non-MTB riders.
The guidebook for the route
In an era of instant gratification and the increasing prevalence of digital technology, an actual printed guidebook might feel slightly anachronistic. In fact, with tech such as GPS units and navigation apps like komoot, is there actually much demand for a guide book at all? David obviously considered this and has the made the book much more readable than merely “go left after 70m, take the gravel track on the right hand side” etc. The tone and style of the writing make the book significantly more entertaining to read than you would imagine. There’s also plenty of useful advice on safety, recommended kit, potential accommodation and a great section on responsible access to upland areas. The first section of the book is an involving discussion of how the route came about – everything from the history of the region to how the trail was researched and plotted – that might sound a little dry, but actually gave a really good insight into the region and the trail itself. The friendly, almost conversational, tone of the writing meant the book feels like significantly more than just a guide book.
Each day of the route is dealt with in turn and contains a mix of background information, practical navigation pointers and where relevant a section of safety, such as the ones shown above for the Cashel Dhu ford – the only potentially dangerous water crossing on the length of the trail.
The first print of the guidebook was published in 2017. The text, updated for the latest version of the book published in 2020, still feels fresh and up-to-date. If we were going to be slightly judgemental, the one area of the book that feels slightly dated is the images. We should caveat this by saying that the landscape shots are stunning – what feels a little jarring is the bikes used in the images of the trails – no gravel/adventure bikes in any of the shots and most of the bikes featured are quite old fashioned looking MTBs. Obviously, this makes no difference to the quality of the content of the guide book and potentially opens up the opportunity for gravel riders trying this route in the future to submit more up-to-date imagery!
The guide book is available in both print and digital formats. David has made all of the GPX files downloadable too – all he asks in return is that you make a small donation via their JustGiving page, which helps fund the website for the trail, pay for updates to the route information and improve the route waymarking. The GPX files are available split into recommended individual sections, with suggestions for accommodation included in the guide book. We’ve uploaded the route to the Gravel Union komoot page, but if you use this komoot file, please give a donation via the JustGiving link to show how much you appreciate the effort that has been made into putting together the route.
Ultimately a good guide book does two things – partly it’s a practical guide to how to actually follow their suggested route. But also, and arguably, as importantly, a good guide book will inspire you to go and ride their trail. It might not be possible right this minute, but a good guide book should fire us up with enthusiasm for that point in the future when we can once more head into hills on our gravel bikes again.