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Evening. I'm in the process of building up a trail bike, having needed a change from the DH sled. I've got some time off work to take in the next few weeks and was thinking of bedding it in with a few days bike and camp. My knowledge of trails around Scotland is quite limited outside DH, so was looking for some itinerary suggestions.
I was thinking of heading north of the Central Belt, as the Tweed valley is a normal day trip, as are the south west centres. What type of trail? I'll generally hit up the black run at trail centres without issue(yeah I know, no photos, please), as long as it's black due to the terrain rather than huge distance. I've ridden Comrie and Drumlanrig blacks and liked that kind of stuff. Not too keen on miles of smooth singletrack, or huge wilderness loops (I'll be on my own and the weather could be sketchy), but up for local built stuff, walkers paths etc.
So far I've considered Dunkeld enduro tracks, followed by Laggan. Then across to Fort William for the Witches Trails? Honestly, not sure, so anything in the Central to North Highlands worth hitting, let me know.
Cheers
North Highlands - Golspie and maybe less of what yoga re after at Gelnlivet.
Would you say Golspie is worth a four hour drive? Genuine question, I wouldn't be driving all the way back in a one-er, just wondering if it's worth the extra mile(s).
Not heard about Glenlivet, is it quite new? Much in the way of roots and rocks?
Dunkeld Is ace, aberfoyle too. Aviemore. They've all got loads of unofficial forest trails, best with a guide. Proper steep tech. Fort william has wild trails that are way more interesting than the witches.
Ridden Aberfoyle a few times now Dan, really like that kind of stuff. Had heard Aviemore was all rolling forestry tracjs though, any pointers on where to look on Strava.
Yeah good point about Ft Bill, I saw some nice looking trails on the walk into Ben Nevis north face. If the weather is poor in the West though, find it tends to be a swamp compared to east, trail centre might be better!
Golspie is very good but it's not worth the drive for you, imo. If you've got time to get to Balblair as well, then it's more worth it but either way you're probably trading some ride time for some drive time. It's realistic to do both in a long day, if you're fit but they're both fairly hard work, not places you can really coast round without spoiling... Locally Carbisdale is short and a bit simple, Learnie last time I was there seemed almost abandoned and was missing a lot of signs and one of its major trail sections, shame. Haven't been back, maybe that's improved.
(natural trails are available too o'course, but that's the same everywhere- I don't know that area for natural riding but whenever I've asked I've not had very inspiring responses tbf)
If it were me, I'd stay further down and work the other areas harder. I really like the Witches Trails, can never really put my finger on [i]why[/i] mind, on paper they're not great but they have charm and character. You can also work in the few good bits of the waymarked 10UTB route easily to expand the lap and it's a good jump-off for the offpiste in the forest if you fancy something a bit trickier, anyone can find the blue crane frinstance.
And it's just up the road from Kinlochleven which is just brilliant, and very easy to navigate despite not being a trail centre (though again, trickier, and kind of high consequence since no matter where you crash, you'll land on a bloody rock)
Glenlivet is the lowest form of interchangable trail centre imo, it's not bad at what it does and it's well crafted but you can get the same riding experience in a hundred places. It could make a good low-involvement stop-off point on the way somewhere else, except it's not really on the way to [i]anywhere[/i] else. Good driving though! I hate to slag something that's had so much work but this is genuinely me trying to be positive.
Laggan. Cant believe no one said it. Harder black than comrie and some great off piste over the road...
On the a9 so you can do various from there.
Aviemore burnside trails are some of the best stuff I've ever ridden, most of it is on strava. Jobby Catcher was the highlight for me. Get a map and figure a route up and down Ben MacDui...That's one of Scotlands best technical descents.
Lots of the Ft Bill stuff isn't on strava hence a guide comes in handy, its also superb.
[i]Aviemore burnside trails are some of the best stuff I've ever ridden, most of it is on strava.[/i]
+1
We had brilliant fun there on a warm September morning with really dry trails - no idea what'll be like in the wet though.
Northwind, watched a headcam of Glenlivet, and it does look well made but a bit tame, think I'll leave it as you say.
Definitely had my interest piqued by these Burnside trails, had never considered there to be much riding round Aviemore. I can see them on Strava heatmap, taking it you can make a loop of a couple of hours?
I think Laggan has to be on the list. Can't see much of a network on the off piste side (that's the north side of the road yeah?) Is Laggan black then an off piste loop across the road do-able with reasonable fitness?
Yeah, definitely, Laggan's official trails are fairly short (though they have a lot going on, they just don't have much of that high speed nothing that some trail centres are full of) but also it's a lovely easy climb up. We used to do laps there but I'd do the offpiste instead now. Having said that I've only done it in the dust 😆
I wasn't up for the race but I heard there was a ton of new stuff in place for the scottish enduro series? Maybe some of that is still usable too. Maybe worth looking into anyway.