Great weather, great friends, that’s a very short resume from me from the weekend. I was very pleased to see about 40 people lining up on Portobello Beach on Saturday morning, and we couldn’t have hoped for better weather. Having raced the course last year my intention was to ride it socially with my brother Matthias and my good friend Dan, both of them new to bikepacking. We were also joined by Bruce and Dave, who made it to Edinburgh all the way from the Isle of Skye. Bruce had kindly supplied his Pugsley with 29plus wheels, better know as KramPug, for Matthias to ride, which turned out to be a great decision, as the tracks were wet and he would have seriously struggled on his touring bike. My friend Dan turned into the star of our group, as he rode the course on 38mm tyres on his Specialized Awol with mudguards (!), we were at times stunned how he managed to make it up and down the hills. Later on in the ride Lewis joined us, a 23 year old lad who came all the way from Aberdeen. Lewis was also new to the whole bikepacking thing, and it was great to encourage him along the trail to cope with the many hills I had packed into the route. I will write a bit more of a detailed account soon, but the video above will give you a very good idea how scenic bikepacking in Scotland is, and how much fun we had on the weekend. It took us 39.5 hrs to finish the trail, but we had a cracking time, that was much more important than the finish time. And with the right weather and a couple of good mates the Capital Trail is an amazing experience, for me one of the best bikepacking trails I have ridden, but I am biased here. There are pictures here to back up the argument, and if you would like to find out more, please click here to get to the Capital Trail page.