Perfect vacation for mountain biker and non-biking partner in Scotland

Posted on 20 May 2013 by Cat

What do you do if you like mountain biking, but your partner doesn’t? Vacation separately? It’s an option, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could find a vacation that would suit both of you? We think our Tastes and Trails of Scotland mountain biking tour offers the perfect vacation for a mountain biker and non-biking partner, here’s why…

Our Tastes and Trails of Scotland tour offers the ideal mix of fantastic mountain biking and a variety of other activities that don’t involve getting muddy on two wheels! You’ll explore the stunning west coast of Scotland, from Fort William, to the Isle of Skye, to Applecross, then along Loch Ness back to Inverness.

The itinerary for this week-long adventure includes mountain biking, coastal walks, wildlife boat trip, a trip on the Jacobite Express steam train (from the Harry Potter movies), lunch in a Michelin-starred restaurant on Skye, and a distillery tour and tasting, so we’ve built in plenty of opportunities for you to do things together, rather than having two completely different holidays in the same place.

And on the days when one of you is out biking, the other can be taking advantage of the many cultural and historical sites, and beautiful scenery on Scotland’s west coast. There are many spectacular walks, offering endless opportunities for photography enthusiasts, or you can simply read a book and while away the hours sitting in a café enjoying delicious coffee and stunning views. The peace and tranquility of the west coast of Scotland provide one of the best places on earth to just ‘be’. You don’t have to have a plan or an agenda, you can just relish the fact that you are in this magnificent place, away from the crowds and stresses of everyday life.

Your accommodation will be in wonderful, welcoming Highland guest houses, where each morning you’ll be spoiled with a delicious breakfast of local produce, and every evening you can relax in the comfortable lounge and share stories of your day’s adventures. You may also be lucky enough to enjoy an evening of Scottish poetry, recited by our very own mountain bike guide/ poet, Kevin, over a wee dram!

We have availability on August 24th – 31st, so say ‘No’ to separate vacations this year and join us in the Highlands for our Tastes and Trails of Scotland adventure tour!

Top 10 reasons to book a mountain biking holiday with us

Posted on 1 April 2013 by Cat

If you’re spending hours searching the web, comparing trips and operators, and feeling like you’re going round in circles, here’s a very quick overview of the top 10 reasons to book your guided mountain biking holiday with H&I Adventures. (You see, we’re helping you already!)

All the colours of Nepal

1. We do all the hard work for you
We spend years researching and testing the best trails, accommodation, guides, cultural experiences, transport services, and food in the most exciting destinations around the world so that you don’t have to. All you need to do is decide which one of our incredible mountain biking holidays is right for you, book your place via our secure online system, then organise your travel. It’s that simple!

2. Exceptional, professional local guides
Our mountain bike guides are some of the best in their field and local to the areas in which they operate. Not only that, they are genuinely nice and interesting people, with lots of life experiences and plenty to talk about both on and off the bike. For example, one of our guides in Scotland, Kevin, is an accomplished poet, artist and teacher, as well as being a mountain biker. At the end of a superb day on the bike in the Cairngorms National Park you can relax with a ‘wee dram’ and some Scottish poetry recited by Kevin.

3. Safety first
Your safety is our number one priority and when you come on one of our mountain biking holidays you can rest easy and have the time of your life, comfortable in the knowledge that our expert guides have planned and risk assessed every detail of your trip before your arrive, and are managing your safety every step of the way.

Local boy in Oaxaca, checking out our bikes

Local boy in Oaxaca, sizing up our bikes!

4. Responsible travel policy
We operate a responsible travel policy so you can be sure that local people in the communities you’re connecting with are benefitting – in real terms – from your being there. For example, on our mountain biking adventure in Oaxaca, Mexico, you’ll stay in rustic cabanas in the Sierra Norte, run by a sustainble tourism partnership of eight local communities who all benefit equally from tourism monies spent in any one of the villages.

5. Experience new cultures
Exploring an area by bike is one of the best ways of experiencing the local cultures and traditions of that region. You can cover more ground than is possible by foot, and wherever we go in the world, people just love bikes and cyclists! In Nepal we visit the famous Buddhist Stupa of Boudhanath in Kathmandu, thangka artists in Bhaktapur, and stay in family-run tea houses in remote corners of Mustang and the Kali Gandaki Valley.

6. Go home a better rider
An integral part of all of our mountain biking holidays is on-the-trail skills training, as and when you need it. We don’t run formal skills sessions, we simply work with you as you’re riding and if you come across an obstacle you’re not sure how to tackle we’ll talk you through it and help you to improve your riding technique in a natural, informal manner.

Local chagra at hacienda in Ecuador

7. Great local accommodation
We select the most comfortable, welcoming, interesting accommodation providers in every area we take you to. From traditional working haciendas in Ecuador, to luxury yurts in the Yukon in Canada, you’ll enjoy the best hospitality available, after a big day in the saddle.

8. Food, glorious food!
Food is a very important part of all of our mountain biking tours around the world; after all, why expend all that energy on the bike if you can’t enjoy a good meal afterwards?! We’ve eaten our way around the world to find the best local cafés, restaurants, pubs, and even homes, to make sure that you’re well rewarded for all your efforts and ready to tackle the next ride!

9. Excellent personal service
We pride ourselves in offering excellent, personal customer service at every stage of our relationship with you: from the first time you contact us, to after you have returned home from your trip. Our team will offer as much help and advice as you need to help you plan your mountain biking vacation, but you won’t have to deal with several different people and explain your circumstance anew with every contact. You’ll have one point of contact who will manage your booking from end-to-end.

10. Our customers keep coming back
It’s all very well for us to say how wonderful our tours are, but what do our customers think? Well, one of our coast-to-coast Scotland customers said:

Leg busting climbs and thrilling descents! I’d travel to the ends of the earth with H&I Adventures, dedicated as they are to providing adventure and comfort while safety and competence lead the way.

We’re delighted that so many of our customers keep coming back to us year after year to experience new places and have new adventures with us. You can read more customer reviews of our mountain biking holidays on our Why H&I Adventures page, and if you’d like to discuss any of our trips just drop us an email or give us a call on 0044 (0)1463 239716, or toll-free from the US and Canada 1-888-228-50-35. We’re looking forward to sharing your next mountain bike adventure with you!

Coast-to-coast mountain biking holiday in Scotland

Posted on 27 February 2013 by Cat

“Coast-to-coast” is a term that’s used to cover many different routes and tours, so what’s our coast-to-coast mountain biking holiday in Scotland all about?

Well, it’s not about connecting the most easterly and westerly points in Scotland. Our coast-to-coast mountain biking holiday is about the challenge of riding from one coast to another, yes, but on the most enjoyable off-road trails that lead you through some of the most stunning and remote landscapes in the UK.

Mountain biking in Torridon, coast-to-coast Scotland

A tough, but rewarding ride in Torridon

It’s an adventure and a challenge, but it’s certainly not a race, and your expert guides will be on-hand every step of the way to offer you skills advice on some of the tougher, rockier, more technical sections towards the end of the week, so that everyone makes it to the finish line in Applecross at the same time to celebrate in the famous Applecross Inn (Scotland’s Pub of the Year 2012)!

You’ll spend between six and eight hours on the trails each day, with a rest on day six, and each evening over dinner your guides will brief you on the following day’s adventure and you’ll have the chance to look at the map and ask questions before the ride. You’ll find that the first couple of days of your coast-to-coast mountain biking holiday in Scotland are long, but not overly technical in nature. As the week progresses and your confidence builds, so too does the difficulty of the trails you’ll be riding on your westward journey, but the distance will reduce accordingly.

As with all of our mountain biking vacations, the coast-to-coast Scotland isn’t just about great biking and spectacular landscapes. Each evening you can relax and enjoy delicious local food and drink in small, family-run cafés and pubs, and relive the day’s events over a wee dram. You’ll spend each night in a comfortable local guest house or B&B, where you’ll receive a warm Highland welcome, and set yourself up each morning with a great breakfast. You can read our guide and resident poet Kevin’s account of our coast-to-coast mountain biking holiday to get a feel for the whole adventure.

Your luggage will be transferred in our vehicle each day, so you’ll be free to enjoy the pleasure of riding across the Scottish Highlands, experiencing some of the last wilderness in Scotland that most Scots themselves will never visit.

The coast-to-coast mountain biking holiday is our most popular trip in Scotland and, according to one customer:

“Riding across the Highlands on great mountain bike trails everyday and staying in very comfortable accommodations at night was THE way to do it. The trails were varied with lots of technical, single track fun and the scenery was spectacular. I really felt like I earned that Guinness at the end of each day!”

We have four dates confirmed for 2013 (May, June, July and September), so why not join us for this unforgettable adventure on our coast-to-coast mountain biking holiday in Scotland this year!?

Two-minute tour of Scotland

Posted on 18 January 2013 by Cat

Two-minute tour, mountain biking in Scotland

Pausing to admire the loch, mountain biking in Scotland

Where? Scotland is the northern-most nation in the United Kingdom, on the western edge of Europe, and east of the United States and Canada. The Highlands and Islands are the most northerly region of Scotland, and also the most diverse and beautiful

When? The best times to experience mountain biking in Scotland are between April and October. 2013 is the Year of Natural Scotland, a celebration of Scotland’s wild places

Why? Spectacular scenery, world-class mountain biking, delicious local food, whisky!, castles, history, friendly locals, remote wilderness, real adventure

Best for beginner mountain bikers? If you’re just getting into mountain biking our Tastes and Trails of Scotland tour, or our Cairngorms Adventure, could be just what you’re looking for

Best for intermediate mountain bikers? Our coast-to-coast Scotland tour is a real adventure and ideal for intermediate mountain bikers looking for a challenge and to improve their biking skills

Best for experienced mountain bikers? Our mountain bike tour in Torridon and Skye, on the west coast of Scotland, is our most technically advanced trip and perfect if you’re looking for the best mountain biking in Scotland. This tour is also a ‘must-do trip’ in National Geographic Adventures’ Ultimate Adventure Bucket List 2013!

Find out more about our mountain biking tours in Scotland and book your perfect 2013 adventure!

Reviews of our mountain bike tours in 2012

Posted on 5 December 2012 by Cat

As the end of the year fast approaches, we’ve been reflecting on the past 12 months and the incredible adventures we’ve had, and rather than give you our perspective on it, we thought we’d do a round-up of customer reviews of our mountain bike tours in 2012.

And just for fun, we’ve created this word cloud from comments made by our customers this year!

Coast-to-coast Scotland, September (Dave and Margaret, USA)
…epic, challenging, awesome. A few words to describe our recent holiday with H&I Adventures. This was our first experience with H&I Adventures and we’re already trying to figure out when we can holiday with them again. We were impressed with the resources available to allow individuals of varying abilities to maximize their experience over the course of the week. The skill level rating and description for this tour reflects the scope and scale of all that the Coast-to-Coast Scotland has to offer.

Ecuador, December (Holger, Germany)
Amazing trip and perfect trails in the very beautiful country Ecuador. Unbelievable how different the trails are: from jungle trails to sandy trails in the desert, up to Highlands and downhill on the slopes of Cotopaxi. Perfect bike trip with lots of culture and gorgeous landscape!

Nepal, November (Gavin and Elaine, Scotland)
If you love the idea of riding some awesome trails in the Himalayas then this is a must. If you also love the thought of mixing this with a cultural experience unlike any other then even better. Every day is special in its own different way making this without a doubt one of the best adventure experiences you’ll ever have.

Torridon & Skye Scotland, September (Luke, Canada)
Amazing trip from beginning to end!!! Trails were challenging and fun. The scenery is inspiring and absolutely beautiful. The guides were knowledgeable, helpful, and friendly and I’m a better rider today because of them. Even the food and accommodations were great! Best of all, I now have some new riding buddies to go on future trips with. H&I Adventures took care of everything perfectly!

Mexico, October (Cynthia, USA)
This adventure is a great cultural biking experience. Welcoming and friendly local guides, fantastic food, amazing biking, breathtaking views, and fun company made this trip truly memorable!

Cairngorms Scotland, June (Samantha, England)
A brilliant holiday! The trips out were amazing with beautiful scenery and challenging routes. Being in a small group was ideal as we all got a chance to get to know each other. Also meant that the holiday could be tweaked so it suited everyone. I would definately recommend this holiday… for the cycling, the beautiful Cairngorms and the holiday itself which felt personal and very relaxed.

Nepal, October (Brian, England)
Ride in the shadows of the Himilayas from rainforest to baron wastelands it feels like riding on mars. If you really want to see all that Nepal has to offer and I mean ALL book it! The most amazing trip you will ever do!

Coast-to-coast Scotland, September (Joni, USA)
Leg busting climbs and thrilling descents! I’d travel to the ends of the earth with H&I Adventures, dedicated as they are to providing adventure and comfort while safety and competence lead the way.

Torridon & Skye Scotland, June (Fernando, Spain)
An amazing bike trip. Best way to know awesome landscapes, trails and people. and all of it put together with a fantastic guide. The food and acommodation are really good. The Torridon area is unforgetable and what can I to say of Skye…. uffff. If you are thinking about this trip, no doubt any more, do it!

This is just a selection of the comments that we’ve received from the fantastic people we’ve had the privilege to mountain bike with this year, and if you’d like to experience one of our unforgettable adventures for yourself, join us for the ride in 2013! You can also follow us on Facebook to see more informal, ‘live-from-the-action’ photos and videos of our tours.

National Geographic Adventure puts Torridon & Skye in their bucket list!

Posted on 27 November 2012 by Cat

We’re over the moon to see our mountain bike adventure in Torridon and Skye in National Geographic Adventure’s 2013 ‘Ultimate Adventure Bucket List’!

Mountain biking in Scotland at its best, Torridon and Skye

This magnificent mountain biking experience in Scotland should be on every mountain bike enthusiast’s bucket list, and comes on recommendation from Scotland’s own trials star Danny MacAskill, who rode with us in Torridon and Skye in 2010 (watch the video) and listed this tour as his ‘Must-do Trip’.

Danny says of the jagged peaks that pierce the skyline in this part of Scotland’s west coast:

“They’re like mini-Alps, with a really bare, rugged, lunar-like landscape full of amazing mountain biking trails.”

If the best mountain biking in Scotland is on your bucket list for 2013, join us on one of our three scheduled mountain bike tours in Torridon and Skye next year and find out what all the fuss is about!

Coast-to-coast Scotland tour; through the eyes of a poet

Posted on 7 November 2012 by Cat

Our mountain bike guide and resident poet in Scotland, Kevin, has written an account of our coast-to-coast Scotland mountain bike tour, in his own inimitable style. If Kevin’s words inspire you, you can join him on one of our coast-to-coast trips in Scotland next year, and you may also enjoy some of his poetry readings in the evenings after a big day in the saddle.

Double rainbow on our coast-to-coast Scotland tour

Double rainbow over Torridon

We’re in the East, and on the ground, near the place where the Dornoch Firth, the Carron River and the Kyle of Sutherland flow into each other. This is important: the deceptive stability of the earth flowing next to a broad and dazzling sheet of tidal estuary makes for an immediate and altered sense of time. The porridge (“that will put hairs on your chest” my mother used to say, though I’m not sure that she used the same line with my sister), scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and toast I had for breakfast was important too. And it’s not raining. Boulders, mud, sweet water from high lochans and burns, leaf mulch, bog and sharn, forest road, rivers to wade to singletrack, rainbows, and descents – perhaps into those pots of gold – which once might have been the ancient beds of streams, are all out there waiting for us and our tyres, and I’m on the ground, excited, checking that I’ve everything I need, before ensuring that everyone else does as well (plenty of food and water, warm clothing and water-proofs, spare tubes, sense of humour …) With the sounds and smell of grasses, heather, mosses and silver birch … beginning to rise like a trout to a fly in my mind; water and earth and the sun rising over a Torridonian quartzite top and a billion years of earth’s history fizzing with infant joy … There is little I can say of happiness, other than I’ve been there.

Fresh local produce is the fuel for our coast-to-coast tour

After the transfer vehicle has dropped riders at the start of the first day’s riding this is the last they see of the inside of it until Applecross six days later and the return journey to Inverness. This is more often the case but sometimes the weather requires us to make changes to the intended route for safety reasons, and this occasionally requires us to transfer riders to an alternative start point, but on the whole, from this point on we’re on bikes, and we have in our ride packs everything we need for long days in the saddle. The group’s main luggage is taken forward to that night’s accommodation, and this too is important. Good Highland accommodation in family-run hotels and bed and breakfasts, with hot showers, great breakfasts, and great food in the evenings are essential on this tour because days out in the mountains, sometimes in heavy weather, can be tough on the mind and body. And also because quite simply, we have it: fish and shellfish straight out of the sea to be turned into a Cullen skink or creamy fish pie; artisan potato breads; dark, succulent venison casserole; haggis, neeps and tatties that transcend this mortal realm with the aid of a slug of whisky, or that unassuming salad of fresh green leaves, mozzarella and tomato which your body has been craving all day … sparkling and fresh and smelling of the soil it grew in – the real fuel of this coast-to-coast adventure, not gels and power bars.

A tough, but rewarding ride in Torridon

By mid-week during the last tour, despite cold and wet weather, three H&I Adventures mountain bike guides and eight American riders had worked their way, past Loch Clare into the Coulin forest, then climbed a trail by the side of Fionn Abhainn to the Bealach na Lice – above Glen Torridon and Torridon village itself which can be seen nestled, tight and blithe into the base of Liathach – before eventually dropping, six hard-worn but rewarding hours later, into Annat at the end of a fast, grin-inducing 9km descent. At dinner that evening I read aloud poetry by John Burnside, John Glenday, Kathleen Jamie, Hugh MacDiarmid, Sorley MacLean and Kevin Williamson … poetry which amplified our journey thus far, from east to west; from an economy of the farm, to the sea, and the croft, from wheat to sheep, from John Burnside’s reflections on kinship, and the subtle interplay, transmigration and interdependence of living things, of ideas and creatures ‘…we wonder about those legends / of women transformed into deer, / or a cold daughter, lost in the hills / and hidden in the caught breath of a fawn …’ to Kevin Williamson’s first collection ‘In A Room Darkened’, published by Two Raven’s Press, who have their publishing house in Ullapool. Along with other poems on language and landscape, on flowers, Scotland and its people, and humour … lots of laughter …And all the while the body ached just a little, remembering the lungs working hard, the heart pounding in its cage, calf muscles searing near the top of a stiff climb, everything then that tells us we are “embodied”, in culture, in life, now, in this place.

If you’d like to experience the poetic beauty of Scotland and take on our coast-to-coast adventure, book your place online for 2013!

Last chance to book your mountain bike tour for 2013 at 2012 prices!

Posted on 18 October 2012 by Cat

Mountain biking in the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland

Stopping for photos of the castle on Loch an Eilean in the Cairngorms

We’re currently reviewing the price of all our mountain bike tours in Scotland and will be making increases in November for next year, so this is your last chance to book your mountain bike vacation for 2013 at current 2012 prices!

Perhaps you’ve been spending too many hours watching the spell-binding video for our mountain bike tour in Torridon and Skye with Danny MacAskill, Hans Rey and Steve Peat? Or reading the increasing number of great reviews for our epic coast-to-coast challenge?

Maybe you like to enjoy fine local food and drink as much as you like biking, and have been dreaming of our Tastes and Trails of Scotland adventure? Or fancy a mountain bike vacation that also includes canoeing and wildlife, like our Cairngorms Adventure tour?

Whatever your mountain biking style or passion for adventure, if you’re planning to take a mountain bike vacation next year you’ve only got a few weeks to secure your place and save a little money by avoiding the price increase on our mountain bike tours for 2013.

So, what are you waiting for?! Stop dreaming and start booking that unforgettable mountain bike tour with us!

Call us! +44 (0)1463 239716
US / Canada (toll free) 1-888-228-50-35

Tag Archives: Mountain biking Scotland