Wolves In The Glen

- Andy McCandlish

In the corner of Laggan’s car park is the faint ghost of a building. Physically the space has been brushed clean, buffed out, but in my mind I still visualise the old bustling cafe and bike shop, housed, as it was, in temporary wood-clad buildings.

Parked where a significant chapter of his life once stood, is Lindsay Carruthers, off loading his van for a spin round his old home trails. I suddenly realise it has been a long time since my wheels have turned at Laggan. Too long, in fact, and a huge amount has changed in the meantime.

Lindsay had much invested in Laggan’s Wolftrax trails — he founded the Basecamp Bikes shop and cafe business here when the trails opened over a decade ago, answering the call of two wheels to leave a good job and a city life and follow his dream of working with bikes. That was 2004, but after only eight years he made the difficult decision to leave, taking the shop to nearby Grantown on Spey and beginning yet another new life.

This left the trails without a shop or cafe — a rudderless ship — and the consequent lack of feet on the ground, pushing and promoting the trail through events, race teams and demo weekends, soon took effect and numbers quickly dropped off. More importantly, mountain bikers are social Back, Sack and Crack Attack is a rocky rollercoaster ride The final Orange descent’s got whoops and berms aplenty beasts, and if you take away their communal hub — the shop or cafe — the centre loses a chunk of its appeal. Cold and silent car parks just don’t have the same pull, no matter how good the trails are.