Grinduro, for anyone who hasn’t heard of it, is a mash-up of all of your favourite cycling events, held somewhere amazing, with an emphasis just as much on the party as it is on the racing and all washed down with a gravel festival type atmosphere. For the second round in the 2025 series, the organisers took the purple party up to the Highlands of Scotland. If you’d like to find out how it went, then read on….
Images courtesy of Andrew Leinster
It’s been six years since the Grinduro franchise last landed in Scotland. It’s last visit was on the Isle of Arran in 2019 before moving south to Wales, where it continued to pave it’s unique recipe of somewhere between gravel and XC MTB, spread over four individual timed stages, for a further three years.
Ever since making its departure from Arran, fans have long lamented the absence of ‘the purple party’ from Scotland. Something about the rough and tumble nature of Grinduro just always seemed better suited to the glens of Scotland than the valleys of Wales.
2025 marks the 10th anniversary of Grinduro and with a return to its birthplace to Quincy, California in September, the organisers also saw the fit to bring Grinduro back to Scotland – the first country to host a Grinduro event outside of the USA in 2017.
In the middle of July, Grinduro arrived in the small town of Kingussie, nestled in the Cairngorms National Park, deep within the Scottish Highlands. The site of the Kingussie Camanachd Club (Shinty is a game played with sticks and a ball – a kind of hybrid hockey but with more violence), played host to the event HQ, delivering a great atmosphere throughout the weekend, rain or shine.
Grinduro Scotland warmed up with a prologue on the Friday, sponsored by Schwalbe, giving riders their first taste of what was to come on Saturday during the main event. Those not distracted by the high-speed gravel descents were able to admire the Cairngorms in all their stunning glory in perfect summer conditions and clear skies. The majestic hills tumbling over each other far over the horizon – tumbling was something riders who were not paying full attention to the trail ahead, were also doing!
Saturday and the main event: 100km and roughly 1,500m of ascent awaited riders (some of whom had come as far away as the USA and Canada, some slightly closer, including Erwin Sikkens of the Shimano Gravel Alliance, who had travelled over from the Netherlands). Departing from Kingussie, riders found themselves hitting the gravel and making their way through glorious Scots pine forest towards the stunning trails of Glen Feshie.
Throughout the day, the course delivered everything from a mix of gravel forest roads, old deer stalker paths, slightly sadistic singletrack trails and never-ending walls of gravel climbs – Stage 3’s 207m climb over Slochd Mor proved to break many souls, and also for many was the point the weather broke also - mediterranean style sunshine replaced by Scotland’s famous mizzle.
As riders returned home, the after-party got into full swing, driven into a frenzy of bass beats by MTB legend, Andrew ‘Doddy’ Dodd’s DJ set and several bottles of complimentary whisky!
Erik van Kooten from event sponsor Shimano Europe, had this to say about the event “I had a great time and really enjoyed the course and riding through the Cairngorms Park. As a roadie, the route was way outside my comfort zone (some of the sections), but I survived!”
Images courtesy of Andrew Leinster