It's difficult to know which branch the seed fell from but when the idea germinated it dug its roots deep. It needed to as the winds of change howled last year and once they settled, the landscape I thought I knew was unrecognisable. The seed though, against the odds, grew tall and strong until all that was left to do was reap its harvest.

Riding the HT550 in winter has been that growing thought this past year. A plan that I have spent countless hours nourishing through carefully researched plans and wistful dreams; romantic visions of stooped silhouettes against bruised skies and lone tyre marks on crisp snowpacks. The idea has excited me and at times scared me but it has brought motivation and direction to a time in my life that has challenged me as much as it has rewarded. 

Perhaps selfishly I have kept this idea to myself this past year. I’m always afraid that once spoken into the world, a challenge that you’ve thought inwardly about for so long can begin to take on a life of its own, shifted by external expectations or simply the realities of logistics.  I much prefer to keep the adventure as a protected ideal, simmering away in my subconscious until I’m sure of my own reasons why and convinced that the efforts will be worthy of the reward, no matter the outcome. These are the most exciting times of an adventure, the dawn of the story, when the seed is new and sprouting tendrils of life that wrap around deepest doubts and long-held fears and feed your dreams with aspiration. The harder the challenge, the longer I wish to hold onto its promise but alas the winter does not wait.

In November I rode Camille’s race in Scotland: Further Elements. It was the first test to see if the fire still burned. In many ways the physical commitment required wasn’t my concern despite the lack of training and young parent physique. T.S Elliot wrote that those thoughts whispered in the desert are most attacked by temptations and I was worried that perhaps this time the temptations to get home, get comfy and to be around my new family far outweighed any morale to pedal lonely onwards when the skies darken and the winds whip. The years' changes had, at least for now, removed any latent energy to prove myself and, however foolish it may sound I was worried that perhaps contentment had eroded the level of stubbornness required to make it round these kinds of races.

As I trudged through frost kissed bogs under clouds of cobalt sleet these fears dissipated quickly. I felt as alive as I ever do with bike shouldered, picking my way through the lose rocks of a landscape aggressively unsuited for bicycles. It was here as the promise of dawn pierced the gloom in Glen Affric that a familiar mindset of sleep deprived contemplation swept through me and I was reminded once again of the purist rewards that such an effort attains. As I rode into the morning light through pulses of golden rains I reflected on the year just been, the changes, the challenges and the chaotic beauty of it all and for the first time took stock from the vantage point the higher ground offered. The view through the efforts of the adventure had indeed changed, they were new, unfamiliar and a little confusing but it was not the weakening of morale I had feared, more a shuffling of priorities and with it an even greater appreciation of the time and opportunity to explore the heart, the mind and the world we occupy.

To ride the Highland Trail this winter might just be the toughest ride yet but I am familiar with the process, have made peace with failure and excited to write my own small story into the bitter winds of the highlands. Perhaps one day, it might give little Stellan the reason to challenge himself in the landscape his great great grandfathers called home.