But after racing, they fancied a rest day. Sod that. We climbed Ben Lomond just north of the city, and one of the most Southern Munroes - a 3000 ft mountain. When doing things like this it is important to go prepared. Take some sturdy boots, full waterproofs, a hat, kendal mint cake, first aid kit etc. Dave took his down hill bike and wore SPD shoes. The responses from walkers were the usual cliches like "are you going to ride down there?!", "have you got a first aid kit" and "I thought jumping out of a plane was dangerous". Yes, no and it is without a parachute.

The following down hill was absolutley awesome. The top is steep, rocky, and exposed. The mid section is a flat out puncture alley, then the bottom bit steepens up and gets loads of slabby hairpins. It's a full on DH that requires a few rests to shake your hands out.

Ride time was 3 hours. Although it was more like 2 hours pushing, half an hour descending, and half an hour changing tubes and doing photos. There's another track from the top which needs exploring, we just did the obvious ridge signposted "Ben Lomond" from the hostel at the bottom out and back.