Thursday was Day 5 of our Lochs and Glens North cycle tour, where we planned to cycle from The Struan Inn in Calvine to Aviemore.

We passed the bridge over the bridge, which apparently is quite rare.

We hadn’t gone very far and the climb up the Drumochter Pass began. It was about 13 miles to the summit.

The beginning of the climb had some wonderfully smooth tarmac, making for easy cycling.

The views were again very spectacular.

At times there was quite a wind, often into our heads. We also had a few light showers.

The route follows the valley, along which run the River Garry, the railway line and the A9. Thankfully the cycle path is off the A9, although it does get close at times.

Just before we got to the summit, there was a phone call which changed the rest of the day.

At the summit, Neil decided that he was going to have to leave the tour and go home for family reasons.

Neil set off towards Dalwhinnie Station. We decided that we would go with him, so began a sprint down (thankfully) to Dalwhinnie.

We stopped at Dalwhinnie station but there didn’t appear to be any trains stopping there until quite a lot later in the day. However, we found that if we went to Newtonmore, which was about 10 miles further along our route, then there were some extra options.

We passed Dalwhinnie Distillery, which was going to be the closest we got to a Distillery tour.

Des and I got a bit left behind at times, but managed to hang on in there!

We made really good time to Newtonmore.

Arriving at the station we found that there was a good hour until the train came.

Just before we arrived at the Station we had passed the Newtonmore Grill, so went back there for some lunch.

Neil had time for a quick lunch, ordering his first, and then went back to the station to catch his train. We saw it go past, although we didn’t see him wave!

After we had finished our lunch, it was time for us to continue our tour, although it wasn’t going to be quite the same without Neil to lead us.

We headed along the cycle path through Kingussie.

We then followed the River Spey along towards Aviemore.

We passed Ruthven Barracks or the remains of it.

We continued along, generally following the River Spey.

We passed Loch Insh.

The route generally rolled. I was finding the upward bits hard, having not fully recovered after our earlier sprint.

We entered Aviemore via Inverdruie.

We were staying at the High Range Lodge, which is a motel.

We had to go for the ‘perfect pint’, although it wasn’t quite the same without Neil – we did our best, but it was too cold to sit outside for long! The views though were great.

In the evening we had a good meal at La Taverna restaurant, next to where we were staying, where we had a good meal.

There was a rainbow that appeared whilst we were eating and then came back.

We had cycled about 49 miles, climbed over 2000 feet. My watch told me I have a PR for the fastest 40k!

You can view our Lochs and Glens North Day 5 route from Calvine to Aviemore below: