THE X FACTOR
The icy water drips slowly off the peak of my Gore-Tex cap. Normally, I’d hope to cover about five metres in the time each drop takes to form and detach but right now it feels like a metre per drip is a major win. The pass of Bealach na Bà (to give it its Gaelic name) rises from sea level to just over 2000 feet to create the steepest average gradient of any mountain pass in the UK. The towering rock buttresses and sharp summit hairpins that we saw as we rounded the first long sweepers into this amazing natural amphitheatre have now been sucked into a wall of cloud and freezing rain that’s advancing down faster than we’re going up. That was the last thing my guide for the day, Ryan Stockton, and I talked about. Since then we’ve both been plugging away silently, ebbing and flowing within a few metres in the road as we rise in and out of the saddle. We’re in our own little worlds and while it might look like a miserable situation to the passengers in the couple of cars that squeeze past between rock face and Armco barrier, I’m actually loving it.
This is what winter riding is about. Projecting yourself into iconic images of
