A great range of options for biking summer ahead

John Davidson’s Guide to Walking and Cycling in Inverness and the Highlands, priced £7.99, is published by Tread Wisely Publications. For a full list of stockists or to buy the book online, visit www.treadwiselypublications.com

BOLTON is no-one’s idea of nature’s paradise. So it’s not surprising that when John Davidson left his home town in darkest Lancashire a few years ago and headed north, his innate enthusiasm for clean, fresh air and the great outdoors was primed to run wild.

Many of us who live here take our surroundings for granted. Outside the main Highland towns there’s a vast surplus of hills, rivers, moors, and mountains, and their grandeur may only register on an occasional car trip to enjoy "the scenery".

But for Davidson our landscape offered highly fertile and quite irressistible opportunities for exploration.

And he has energetically taken advantage of them to the full.

A product of his love for roving and roaming is a new pocket-sized guide to a wealth of cycling and trekking routes across the Highlands, with a significant number in Ross-shire and Inverness-shire.

There are as many different kinds of cyclists as there are spokes on a wheel. Racers, mountain bikers, leisure riders, slow, fast, medium-paced, those who meander along enjoying the scenery, those who want it to pass in a blur, cyclists who like to check out a cafe or restaurant every 10 miles, cyclists (and I’m in this category) who want to keep rolling along, keeping stops to a minimum, but still take time to enjoy the fresh air freedom of a bike on the road.

Davidson’s guide is definitely not one for racers or would-be racers, the colourfully lycra-clad men (and women) who bomb along at maximum revs and don’t have the time or inclination even to acknowledge a friendly wave from a fellow cyclist. Neither is it really for those who aim to clock up only a very few miles and who can’t pass a tree stump without setting up a picnic on it,

It’s aimed primarily at the reasonably fit leisure cyclist, for whom it’s always a ride but never a race.

There are a variety of routes on offer, from around 10 miles and upwards, some very easy and some fairly challenging. But the obvious theme is you can take as long or as little time as you wish to do them. The choice is entirely up to you.

The key consideration regarding a guide book like this is how well it guides. And the answer in Davidson’s case is — very well indeed.

It is thoroughly detailed in joining the dots on how you get from start to finish on every route. And some of these biking trails, whether on or off road, do need careful guidance.

It can be all too easy to miss a turning or take a wrong one and find yourself miles from where you intended to be.

Occasionally I’ve tried to follow verbal directions on how to access an off-road route. "Well, you go right just after the bridge, then take a left at the top of the hill, and then bear left again just after the woodpecker tree . . ."

And you could end up in Tomintoul or Timbuctoo.

But whip Davidson’s guide out of your pocket or pannier, whatever route you’re on and it’ll keep you on the right road or track, literally. It’s invaluable in that respect.

It also opens up and charts a host of bike rides that you might never have tried before, or were entirely unaware of. After thousands of miles I thought I knew the area pretty well but Davidson still manages to uncover enticing new routes that I’d like to tackle, if not on a roadster then on a mountain bike or hybrid. The detail is excellent, the writing flows descriptively and the photographs are easy on the eye.

As for the walking routes — I’ll have to leave these without comment, as I don’t do walking, at least in the nature trail sense. But if that section is as good as its biking partner, this guide should be tops with the trekking brigade as well.

For £7.99 it’s a very modest and worthwhile investment for anyone who wants to make the most of recreation in the Highlands this summer.

I’ve said before in this column that, after traversing much of Ross-shire from Ullapool to Tain to Cromarty and all points in between, it’d be great to find some new routes to try.

This adventurous new guide book will give me that chance.

THE cycling and trekking attractions of Ross-shire are well represented in John Davidson’s book.

Guides include, The Ben Wyvis Epic; Cromarty Sutors; Knockfarrel; The Black Rock Gorge; A Tour of the Black Isle; The Applecross Adventure and others besides. One of the most challenging is his Across Ross adventure, in which he describes "an epic coast to coast traverse for well-prepared mountain bikers with lots of stamina". Covering 50 miles from Ullapool to Alness, he writes, "It’s a serious undertaking which uses mainly rough hill tracks, perfect for mountain bikes, with a little bit of tarmac at either end and a boggy, narrow walking section in the middle. This fantastic outing is a long day outing for the fittest riders."

And then he sets off with a map and extensive detail on how to make it from Ullapool to Alness over hill and moor, and the thrills and spills, and sweat stained appreciation of glorious scenery you can expect to encounter along the way.

It’s an enticing prospect and one I’d definitely like to tackle. Time to sideline the road bike, maybe, and get in gear for a serious mountain biking challenge.