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Thought I might post a mini personal opinion/review of this Highland trail today after doing a few laps round the Black today, as not that many people seem to talk about it as it is a bit overshadowed by the more popular Golspie nearby.
From Inverness it takes about an hour to get there by car. I decided to give it a go in order to finish my visit list of highland trail centres. Generally I have found the Highland centres to be a little bit more "gnarly" and certainly much less crowded than those of the Seven Staines or Wales. On my ride today (Friday) I saw no other riders on the trail.
The black route heads out of the car park on a fairly long fire road at takes a fair bit of climbing to get into the proper trail. The Black route is dominated by big rock slabs with roll offs and small gullies etc. It needs a some skills to navigate smoothly but still manages to flow quite well. There are few if any of the "death spikes" or "wheel pits" that you get at Laggan Wolftrax black run. The rocks are fairly smooth and fun to ride over, although line choice is still very important. I found some of the climbs very hard. There is a rock step climb that I found harder than the rock climb at Golspie as it goes straight up and I'm not fit enough. On the black trail there are extension options that I took , also allowing another lap of the fun bits without car park return. The final descent is a real classic and very long. Zooming down over rocks round berms and a number of small Jumps.
Overall this is a not to miss trail. I was too tired to try the blue after spending a hard couple of hours on the black. One tip if you are doing this is to take your lunch with you in the back pack to save having to ride back to the car park. I took my Santa Cruz Nomad today and felt a bit over biked in parts, although it was still a scream and I did give it a bit of extra boost on some of the jumps. This trail would be fine on a hardtail, or most comfy on a mid travel machine I think. It could be described as a "tamer" more "fun" version of Laggan black, but I guess for some the Laggan black is tame enough and fun! I do like Laggan but prefer the red there!
Thanks for taking the time to write this down. Work in Inverness often so might be worth a trip on up the road to try!
I've only ever been round there once. It was a crap day so I bailed out at one point. I was on the fatbike though and really appreciated the grip - especially going up some of the rocks. Your wee review makes me want to go back!
I have very fond memories of my visit to Balblair, loved the bedrock sections. We did Fort Bill, Golspie x3, Balblair & Learnie pre child... A reet gud road trip, camped at Loch Levin & Dornach for those that care. I wish Golspie was my local trail.
Cheers. Was lovely today. Sun came out and I sat on the picnic tables at the end and enjoyed a lovely lunch... there is a picnic table half way round too. Sorry sounds like I'm saying lunch was best bit 🙂 ...it certainly wasn't. The downhill from the extended black loop is as much fun as Golspie's downhill(in my opinion). The shame is that it doesn't go straight into the car park with a high speed finish... after you have done it you have to climb for a few minutes up the fire road the go left down the green/blue that ends in the car park. Overall I rate it highly, and it really gives a rider confidence going over rock slabs...
The only time I have done it was earlier this year when a lot of the trails were still blocked by storm damage so didn't particularly enjoy it. Obviously time to give it another go!