The 5th floor & The  North Race Collaboration video supported by Trakke Bags

Ever since Hame, the last edit I worked on with Angus Sung I have been really keen to bring him back up to Scotland to perhaps try something on a slightly larger scale.  Having chatted to him for many late hours we decided to make it happen.  Next on the agenda was riders.  Having known Tim Puellyn from The North Race and having many mutual friends from Glasgow he was an obvious choice and was super keen from the word go.   Finding the rest of them was easy.  Some of my closest riding mates from all riding backgrounds.  Ross McArthur former Scottish Mountain bike trials champ and all round strong man of anything two wheeled.  Andrew Leitch who runs Glasgow Fixed Gear forum and spends his time in the winter chasing Wiggo around Majorca on his road bike.  Chris Millar another skilled man across the board, smoothest man on a mountain bike ever coupled with some trials skills and many years riding fixed.  All of them with more banter and drinking ability than the army.

As for the road and route this took weeks to decide on and was discussed in great length but we finally settled on Bealach Na Ba. It’s a milestone climb, and we saw the opportunity to be the first brakeless, fixed gear riders to tackle it, up and down.

After hearing what we planned Alec Farmer from Trakke bags was supper keen to support us, let us test some of his quality prototype bags and hats which can be seen in the video and also do the driving for the camera crew.

Bealach na Bà is a historic pass through the mountains of the Applecross peninsula , in Wester Ross in the Scottish highlands.  The road is one of few in the Scottish Highlands that is engineered similarly to roads through the mountain passes of the Alps, with very tight hairpin bends that switch back and forth up the hillside and gradients that. approach 20%.   It is the greatest ascent of any road climb in the UK, rising to 2,054 ft, and is the third highest road in Scotland.  Meaning was also probably the windiest road in Scotland to as I’m sure you will see.

The name is from the Gaelic: Bealach nam Bò for Pass of the cattle

On this trip we also had Szymon Nieborak taking some amazing stills you can look forward to seeing some of his shots in the coming weeks in a few different articles.

Big Thank you to everyone who made this trip possible. I’m sure you will never look at a head wind in the same way again.

James

Over the past few months I have been working hard with our friends Tim Pulleyn and Angus Sung to put together a collaboration project with The 5th Floor, The North Race and Trakke bags.  We looked at locations all over the highlands of Scotland trying to find the best scenery and location we could to really make it something special.  I think you could say we found a lot more than we bargained for.

Stay posted for more on his epic project.