Outsiders: Marcus Nicolson

Marcus Nicolson is an adventure cyclist, originally from the Shetland Islands in the middle of the North Sea between Scotland and Norway. He now lives in Bolzano, Italy, where he works as a Postdoctoral Researcher.

This Spring, Marcus has spent time reconnecting with why he loves cycling long distances. From riding across parts of Europe for work, to making the journey back to Scotland this month, we caught up with Marcus on his adventurous road to the Highland Trail.

Words and photos by Marcus Nicolson

In the world of bikepacking racing and ultracycling it’s easy to get caught up in the statistics and numbers that are seen to mark each rider’s progress as we each chart our own journey to whatever big race or event we have lined up in the calendar for the season.

Sometimes it can feel like training to take part in ultras is a never-ending contest to perform, to ride the most, the hardest, and the furthest. All of this can make it easy to lose the perspective of adventure, exploration, and sense of community which initially sparked my interest in this style of cycling. At these moments it can feel like an enormous relief, and an escape from daily stresses to set off on a bikepacking trip; to explore somewhere new, to sleep outside for a night or two, and share a unique experience with your friends.

Over the course of the spring, I’ve been lucky enough to get out on some big bikepacking trips with my friends in Austria, Italy, and Scotland. A scheduled work trip in Budapest gave me the idea to set off on an ultra-commute from my home in Bolzano in the north of Italy to Vienna. I pushed hard for a few days to keep the pace with my long-legged friend in Austria as we crossed the Alps before parting ways in Vienna. Riding with chunky gravel tyres on extended sections of tarmac gave my quads more of a workout than any turbo trainer session could hope to achieve.

Weeks later, on the Isle of Bute in the west of Scotland, water pours down in bucketloads through the light in the hostel’s kitchen ceiling, in a building that is really falling apart. The landlady shrugs it off as she takes the mop to what is more of a lake than a puddle. The rest of the weekend I find myself on extended sections of hike-a-bike with my partner Anna, to whom I had promised a gentle tour of the island. We lug our bikes through a deep bog in the pouring rain, on a ride that our favourite route planning application describes as “easy gravel”. Things take a turn for the better in the evening when we find some respite in a community bar where we join the locals singing Scottish folk tunes into the early hours, soon forgetting the hardships of the day.

In the Asiago region of northern Italy, my small riding group chant out R-I-F-U-G-I-O as we approach a small restaurant open until late at the start of a remote mountain pass. The next few hours we spend walking over snowy mountain passes before the decision is made to share a hotel room in the nearest town. After a freezing cold night spent in a bivacco mountain hut, where we had melted the insoles of our shoes on the fireplace, we are ready to appreciate the warmth and comforts of an indoor establishment. We discretely heat our camping meals on gas stoves in the bathroom and scoff these down in the warm confines of the room. Our group are immensely grateful to be out of the cold and take the opportunity to dry out some very wet and smelly kit. Before descending the mountain top, we had passed around a block of cheese which we each took large bites out of, to keep the energy levels up.

When pieced together, these memories are a somewhat odd selection of experiences taken from riding in different parts of Europe that I’ve been lucky enough to explore. These are the moments that keep me bikepacking, and the experiences that push me to keep exploring by bike. I’m hoping to put some of this experience into my ride at the Highland Trail 550 on the 25th of May. My most recent endurance training was taking the train back to Scotland from Italy last week. It was a 25-hour door to door trip, with some sleep deprivation thrown in for good measure. HT550 organiser Alan Goldsmith is keen to reduce the carbon footprint of the event, and I enjoyed making the slower journey, watching Europe pass by the window as I made my way north.

Almost 70 riders will line up in Tyndrum for the 900km ride, where we will be at the mercy of the Highlands weather, have to drag our bikes over countless river crossings, through knee-deep bogs, and up many sharp and steep climbs. I’m excited, and I’m sure all of us riders will have many tales from the adventure to share in the coming weeks.

You can follow the dots of the Highland Trail 2024 here.