I Tried Putting The 'Mountain' Back Into 'Mountain Biking'

If you want to ride big mountains in the United Kingdom, Scotland is the place to be. That's why I've traveled up from GMBN HQ in the southwest of England to here, the Cairngorm National Park. The Cairngorms are home to five of the six biggest mountains in the UK. Today, I'm planning on summiting the park's highest peak, Ben Macdui. Not only is it the highest peak in the Cairngorms, it's arguably the highest rideable peak in the UK. A special ride requires a special bike. Meet my brand new propane, Eugene. Oh, lovely bit of kit. Here I am then, the edge of Loch Morlick. Up there, that's Cairngorm Mountain Station. The peak of Cairngorms is about 1,200 meters, and then beyond that is Ben Macdui, 1,300 meters. I've been weather-watching for the last couple of days, and it's been looking iffy, but the time has come. We've run out of time, and I have to do it today if I want to do this ride and summit that peak. It looks iffy up there at the moment, but we've got a couple hours until we get there. Hopefully, it will have cleared. It only means one thing for it. Let's get cracking. The route I'm following today sets off from Glenmore Forest Park, up over Cairngorm, the mountain that gives this area its name, and onto Ben Macdui. It then loops back around past what's known as the Green Lock before getting back to the forest park. There are plenty of different route options for summiting Ben Macdui, so I really hope I've chosen wisely. This is it then. We're leaving the road and finally heading into the bushes. Oh, it's a little overgrown. We're currently at an altitude of 400 meters, just so you know. Like I said, we're climbing up to 1321, I think it was. That's a long old way, isn't it? Then we're staying almost at that height for about 10K, basically riding this epic ridgeline. I can't complain on that. This lovely purple Scottish heather is blooming amazing. This is why I love mountain biking. This is in the mountains. We're still on the road, so it's not proper middle of nowhere yet, but that is coming. You can't start in the middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere, so we've got to get there first. I'm excited about that. I'm excited about having to think about what I pack, think about what's stored in the bike, think about what bike I use, and think about my route. It gives that sense of, I don't know, freedom and jeopardy at the same time, intrepidation. Look at this, it's beautiful. It truly is stunning up here. This is the UK's highest railway, the Cairngorm Mountain Railway. That is currently going to the UK's highest restaurant and bar. The train gets you from the base station to the top in under 10 minutes, which is certainly quicker than what I'll do, but once you're at the top, you are restricted to the station, which is why I'm doing it the hard way. We are at 876 meters. I've climbed 554, basically straight up from the bottom. I'm just on one of the drag lifts. It's literally where they drag you up. Could do with a drag lift. E-biker over there just passed me. Up there is where we're going. Oh, heck of a climb. The first peak is nearly in sight, the Cairngorm Mountain Station or the top of it. Let's go for a cup of tea before we do head into the unknown. The track is kicking up a bit now. It seems like a good time to quickly have a chat about the bike a bit. Revised geometry, steepened seat tube means actually climbing is in a delightful position. My weight's not sliding off the back or anything. Obviously, the bike is lighter than the previous one, depending upon your build kit, of course, which is certainly grateful for going up here. Oh, my God. I don't know if you can see the Garmin. Altitude, 720 meters. Temperature. Oh, is that 19? Tropical. The main thing on there, that big red climb, that means exceedingly steep. Oh, wow. This is the perfect cup of tea spot. Behold the Cairngorms. This place is so you can actually see the lock down there where we started from and we've literally climbed from there to here. Quick pit stop and then it is on to the actual summit of Cairngorm. All right, round to the right here. That is the summit up top. I don't know if you can see that, viewers. That is the cloud starting to come in. Never a good sign. There it is, everyone. The summit's in sight. First of three today. It looks like a little weather station and the actual summit over there, a pile of rocks. Not short of rocks around here. The weather's closed in as well. It is grim. Garmin's telling me, climb complete. I can tell you that's true. There we go. The top of Cairngorm. Let's give it a little bink. There she is. 1,246 meters. It's a long old way up here. As you can see, it's grim. If you're wondering where the name Cairngorm came from, well, basically, it's down to the way the mountain looks from the bottom. To get a little bit sciency, it's down to a thing also called Rayleigh scattering. Basically, as sunlight passes through the atmosphere, shorter wavelengths of light blue light get scattered. Hang on. There literally is no sunlight up here. It is foggy as anything. I'm going to let you Google the rest of that one. We're going to crack on, I think. The weather's just closed in. If you can hear me or I sound like I'm shouting, I can only apologize because it's very noisy up here. We're heading up that ridgeline there to our second peak and then on to Ben McDooey, but look at what's blowing in. If Louis just pans, go ahead that way, Louis. Have a look at that. Yes, exactly. That's what's about to blow in. I think let's not fanny around and crack on, shall we, because it's turning grim. Well, it wouldn't be a true Rich Payne adventure into the unknown, sort of unknown, without some proper hiker bike. I didn't think I'd be hiker biking already, but this is quite literally unrideable and way too steep. The rocks seem to be just far enough apart all the time for your wheels to fall in them, but this is obviously way too steep that you can't even get up here on an e-bike, but I wouldn't like to ride down it, to be fair. It's pretty wild. In between those massive wheel-grabbing rocks, you've also got pea gravel, the loosest thing known to man. It's a hell of a condition. Things like this are really what make mountain biking mountain biking, I feel, and what give me a solid, we'll call it sense of accomplishment. You've been out on a solid ride. I've summited three mountains, hopefully, by the end of this video. I've done it all. I will do it all because I know I will. Positive thoughts and all that on this new little trail bike that Pro Payne have made. It's more than that, really. It's kind of like the sense of accomplishment. It's sort of the sense of adventure. It's very hard to get that nowadays. We're always connected to our phones, aren't we? We've always got a camera in hand. The irony. That feeling of being completely disconnected from the world is a much harder feeling to get. I feel very lucky that, look, not another human in sight. That, I think, is a pretty rare thing to come across and a special feeling to have. Anyway, enough sort of getting deep. Flipping ox to go. Almost looks like a proper trail ahead. Crikey, as we head into the clouds, the weather has taken a turn for the worse. Let's go somewhere a little bit nicer and check out this new Pro Payne Hugene a little bit more. Long gone are the days when a mountain bike was just a mountain bike. Nowadays, we've got genres left, right, and center. There's cross-country, down-country, trail, enduro, super enduro, freeride, downhill, gravel. The marketing departments have been busy. Over the years, ideas about geometry, travel, suspension, kinematics have all changed. The distinctions between these categories has ended up blurring. This is no more present than in the category of the trail bike. As suspension kept increasing, bikes that were previously nimble, lightweight, 120, 130 mils became more akin to that of an enduro bike. What they were gaining in comfort and rowdiness, they were losing in all-day adventure and epicness. That is why this, the new Hugene, seemed like the perfect bike for me to put the mountain back into mountain biking. Unlike the previous Hugene, this one has had a change in travel amongst other things, but this is now a 130, 140 mil travel bike over the 140, 150 that it used to be. This was a conscious decision by Propain to differentiate basically between their lineup and make it more of a trail-focused bike. They've steepened the seat tube angle for better climbing position, and they've slackened the head angle as well for better confidence and control when going back down. As a guy who likes to travel light, internal frame storage is a bonus these days, which the Hugene now has over the previous. Internal bags as well made by Propain help you stash away any bars, zip ties, gels, tools, God knows whatever you might want to put in there. Lastly, you can absolutely customize your Hugene build and pretty much any of the Propain lineup over on their website when you're specking it. Anyway, that's enough. Let's get back to the riding. We've just come down from our second summit, and I'm not even going to butcher the name of that one. It is on screen now, and you can decide how that one's pronounced, but it's another great one done. It's the second of three. Just refueling because we've been going for a fair while now, and that's just below 1,200 meters still. We basically follow this kind of height or this altitude for quite a while all the way to Ben McDewey, and then it's a big descent. Quick refuel and onto the summit, and let's really get up nice and high up there and really hit that highest peak in the Cairngorms. Weather could be iffy up there. The cloud blows through all the time. We're literally just up there. You can see it's foggy, cloudy, and back up that way, but we're in this little dip at the moment where we've just come down to film. I think up 1,300, it's going to be a different story. Sorry if this is a bit shaky. I'm trying to push up on what can only be described as rocky hell at the same time. This has really slowed our progress and made things slightly concerning time-wise. There's still a massive loop to do after this. I'm a little bit wide. I think we'll be all right, but it's a lot to do, isn't it? This is physically very tough. There it is, what I'm claiming to be the UK's highest rideable peak, Ben McDewey, everybody. Oh my God, we need to properly summit it, don't we? Wow, 1,309 meters. Okay, or if you speak in other money, 4,295 feet. Whilst Ben Nevis is 1,345 meters, to get to the top of that is an absolute mission. Wow. All right, well, yes, we've summited it, but the adventure doesn't stop there. We've got 28K more of this ride to do. It's three o'clock in the afternoon, so we've had a few setbacks. The weather has been a killer. I think let's get a brew on because I bought supplies, and then let's get off this mountain and below this cloud line and warm up. It's currently nine degrees. It's dropped quite a bit. In fact, there's a really good shelter over here. I'll see you in there. This is literally the dream, isn't it, really? I did forget to bring biscuits, annoyingly, but you can't win them all. I've got other snacks. Nice. Okay, we've done it. Like I said, we made it to the summit. We're relaxing at the moment, but there is a massive descent off the top of it. Now, there are various options on which way you can descend off the top of here. It doesn't look like it, but there are, I promise. We're going to head further southeast because we want to continue the loop. We've got a long way to go, but there is always time for tea and a snack. There's a nice sense of accomplishment being here, no one around, no sign of life at the moment, apart from a few little birds tweeting around. Refuel, stock up on tea, pack up, and I think head on. Yes, downhill, everyone. I feel like I've been going up for flipping ages. It's nice to finally turn it around. At this point, you might be thinking, oh, Rich, I'm not sure a trail bike's quite the one for me. You're wrong. Look at what it just came down from up there and absolutely ate it up. 130, 140 mil, proper mountain bike. That's a proper mountain and it just went down on that proper mountain bike. It's the little bike that can, that's for sure. Yes, big love for it. We're not out of the woods yet or even in them. We have got to go down the edge of this waterfall here, loop around that big mountain you can see there. Not the one in the distance. Luckily, there's a rockier one in the foreground and all the way around where the cloud is over there. Still a heck of a way to go and it is four in the afternoon. Mildly concerning, but I'm loving it. Let's just crack on and do mountain biking. Who is this bike for? What's it for? Well, it's the do-it-all bike. It's the adventure bike. I suppose propane in their thinking, we're going for the less stroke, more stoke kind of approach. It sits between obviously an XC bike and a trail bike. They've shortened or lessened that travel on it, but they have made it lighter, more capable in a way at downhill, certainly in the stability sense when it comes to geometry. Do you know what? It is kind of the Swiss army knife. I've said this before on tracks or on trails, sorry, when riding trail bikes, but trail bikes literally do it all. Well, look, this is proving it. Oh, well, that's narrow. Update then. We have just come down from the very, very top, Ben MacDouie. We got 20k to go though. It's quite a long way. Whilst we've said this is the UK's highest rideable peak, take it with a pinch of salt, people, because it's quite techers riding. There is hiker bike involved and it's challenging stuff. We've got this big climb ahead of us now to get up and over the next peak, if you like, or the next piece of headland. It's a really rocky, really loose climb. Slow progress is what it is, but when you're surrounded by this still, it's beautiful, isn't it? 10 to 5 in the afternoon, time's a little concerned of mine. I'll see you at the top or something. Oh, crikey. We got a river crossing tactic. Well, after what we've just come through, walk straight across it. Normally, I try and ride, but there's kind of a zero Fs given at this point. That looks slippery. That looks slippery. That looks slippery. That looks slippery. Oh, yes, we've run out of stepping stones. Oh, God. Got the coldest, wettest heat now as well. Ta-da. It's an adventure. Let's talk about prep in that moment because this highlights the importance of having a backpack full of the necessary kit, coat, spare parts, tubes, all the spare tools to fix things with, enough water, enough food, potentially a way of obviously contacting the outside world, especially if you're solo. I would never really recommend doing these things solo unless you're very experienced. If I broke a mech now, I've got a very long walk in the dark. Actually, that raises a good question. Sometimes it's worth chucking a very small light in or something just even as backup. I can't really stress the importance of prep on something like this really because you just don't know how long you might be and what adversity you might go into. The adversity we're facing now, midges. Toodles. Oh, dude, I'm spent. The final descent back to the van. Behind me, I leave behind Bunnock Moor and Bunnock Beg. 2,000-meter, or I should say two separate 1,000 or so-meter peaks. We're on the way down now. Oh, this is wicked. It's on trails like this that the poppy, playful nature of trail bikes really shine through. Just hopping all these bits, weaving through the heather, those really quick changes in directions. I just made a lot easier by sort of, whoa, light, nimble bikes. Look at that. What a day. We are done. Back at Loch Morlick. It is 8.09, 10 past 8 basically. We set off at 10 to 9 this morning, 45K, 1,632 meters of climbing, and we summited three mountains, Cairngorm, one that I can't say, and the big one, Ben Macdui. They are now absolutely engulfed in the clouds up there, but it's been an absolute hell of a day. There's been hiker bikes, sunshine, blasting winds. We've been in the clouds. We've been riding epic landscapes. We've been past lakes and the mountains, crossed rivers, and all on the brand new Propain Hugene that truly did put the mountain back into mountain biking today. Thank you, Propain, for sending this one through. It's been an absolute pleasure to ride, but I'm going to need to take a bit of a rest now and maybe a wee dram of whiskey. Also, let's not forget Louis behind the camera there who obviously had to troop it around with me. Thank you very much for watching, everyone. Until the next rich epic, I'll catch you next time.