Story 01
The road around Loch Ness
A quiet tree at the edge of the loch became the still point within a journey built around movement, endurance and a reason to ride.
The tree
At the end of Loch Ness, a leafless tree stood between open grass and still water. The mountains beyond were softened by distance and reflection. It was a quiet frame, but it held the scale of the place more clearly than a grand view could.
That pause became the doorway into a different kind of experience. I had come to the Highlands with a bicycle and a purpose: to take on Etape Loch Ness while helping TrueStory turn endurance into attention for an important cause.
Around the water
Etape Loch Ness follows 106 kilometres of closed roads around the loch. The route starts and finishes in Inverness and includes roughly 900 metres of ascent. Those figures explain the physical shape of the challenge, but not the changes of rhythm that come from riding beside such a large body of water.
Cycling and photography ask for different kinds of attention. One keeps the body moving through distance. The other asks for a moment of stillness. The tree belongs to both parts of the journey: it records a place worth stopping for while the road continues beyond the frame.
A reason to ride
TrueStory grew from long friendship, shared difficulty and the need for more honest conversations. Its first focus is men's mental health, where silence can isolate people precisely when connection matters most.
The ride was one public way to support that work. This Story does not turn the photograph into an event poster or reduce the cause to a result. It keeps the relationship simple: a demanding road, a reason for taking it on and a quiet image that ties the experience back to place.
The journey around Loch Ness belongs to Motion. The tree belongs to Places. Together they show why the boundaries between collections should remain useful, but never rigid.