UKC

So i'm thinking of trying to get an entry for the Ring of Steall this year. What are peoples experiences with it, specifically with what looks like the queues on the scrambles. What's the etiquette for legging it past people/ hopping over them where possible. 

From the two videos i've seen of it, the middle of the pack looks like a lot of walking due to people going slow on the single track sections.

How did you find it?

There might be the odd bottleneck but for the most part it will have thinned out sufficiently by the scrambling sections. At some points there will be safe alternative routes to allow you to pass on scrambling sections but you need to be careful to give plenty of room or any marshals who see it might take issue. Passing outwith the technical shouldn't be an issue.

There’s potential to get stuck in a lot of traffic on the initial climb out of KLL. After that there are a few sections where overtaking is difficult but not many.

I went out too quick to avoid the initial bottleneck and of course blew up later on.

I was worried about the numbers in the race and the weekend as a whole but to be honest it all worked well. 

First bit is the worst, getting out of Kinlochleven and up the 1st climb, although there are sections you can overtake - but save your energy for the 2nd climb! On the scrambly bits I found it very easy to overtake slower runners. 

Thanks everyone for your advice. Now all i need to do is hopefully secure an entry.

Secondary, what shoes did you all use? I'm currently plodding around in a pair of Walsh PB's but they're coming up for renewal as they're a bit tatty.

It's worth having something very grippy like a Mudclaw as some of the final descent and a few other bits are very muddy.

I did it in a pair of mudclaws and they felt good. However there were also a bunch of people in what I would call 'light trail shoes'.

In terms of the queues, same as everyone else has said mainly out of KLL on the first climb and it thins out after that. I found I could run past people on the ridges although looking back if I had tripped it probably wouldn't have ended up well for me, but as long as you're not endangering others..

Also, I pretty much sprinted down the first descent, passed a lot of people, but my quads were on fire, and I felt it on the second climb - quite badly.

I would do it again if that helps your decision

Second this. I did it in Inov8 XTalons the first time as the weather had been dry and was tumbling all over the place. Used Mudclaws the next time and had a much better time of it. Some of the sections (first climb, lead up to river crossing, and final descent) can get very muddy even in a dry spell.

Different race, but this is entirely the opposite to my experiences of the longer Skyline. My running at the time put me around the middle of the race, but as a climber I normally fly up the scrambles on sky races. My race times are in the scramble sections are substantially slower (30-40% more) than going up in similar conditions not during race day - due to having the queue to get up bits. Small fry in the grand scheme, but very frustrating.

I appreciate the RoS may be different due to the course

Having done both* I can confirm that RoS doesn't have the same queueing problems as GCS. As others mentioned it does get busy on the initial climb out of town but the track here is wide and if you want to spend the energy early on it possible to scoot past. By the time you hit the Devil's Ridge the crowd has spread out and you shouldn't be queueing.

* 2018 GCS with abbreviated course