Hi,

Going to scotland soon for two weeks of MTB touring and trail riding, and some specific advice would be greatly appreciated (rather than a link to 'just ******* google it').

basically we want to do a mix of trail centres and natural riding. We are getting the train to the most northerly stop of our journey first (probably inverness), then riding to or splitting the train journey back to see bits further south.

The trailcentres ive picked out so far are :

Laggan
learnie
moray
pitfichie
strathpeffer
Abriachan
Balbair
Balnain
fortwilliam

So it would be good to join some of these up with MTB touring, partically in the perthshire-trossachs area as i have quite a few OS maps od round here.

Does anyone have any advice on the above trailcentres?
And any good natural trails to ride? (pitlochry, dunkeld)
or suggested routes around?

I would like a few days to pick my skills up before tackling anything particulary 'fun

If you're going as far as Learnie then I'd definitely include Golspie, I'd rate it as far better than Learnie and Moray: although they are good, Moray especially is more of a waymarked trail as the surface is very natural. We didn;t ride the Ordiequish side though, just the other two areas.

Scotland has some of the best natural trails and some of the most stunning scenery in Europe/the world, so why waste it by doing so many trail centres?. I'm not saying don't do any – just do a couple and spend the rest of the time riding the real stuff.

1) Buy Kenny Wilson's book
2) Stay a few days around Aviemore – you can do Ft William and Laggan easily from there in a day and it has more big trail riding than you could do in a week
3) Go to the west coast – Torridon is the most spectacular but lots of other good areas

Personally I'd get the train to Bridge of Orchy, then ride the West Highland Way to Kinlochleven. Stay over, then ride the Ciaran Path / Blackwater Dam the following day. Stay over then ride to Fort William the next day.

Ride Nevis Range, then stay over in either Fort William or Spean Bridge. Then either head by road to Laggan or up the Great Glen Way to Fort Augustus and over the Corrieyairack Pass to Laggan. You can then join the Inverness railway and take it to Aviemore for some more natural riding, or all the way up to Golspie for the best trail centre descent in the UK.

Just my tuppence

Golspie,Balblair and Laggan are a must.

Balnain is a bike park that you would need serious trials skills to get the most out of although there are drops etc on the funbox if you like that kind of stuff. Pitfichie XC is nice but most go there for the DH. Abriachan isn't really up to much. Agree with Hal, Learnie good too. Moray are my local trails and often underrated. If you do the Moray freeride and most of the ring coupled with the Gulley Monster on the Ordiequish side and don't come out smiling you are a very hard person to please. Ben Aigan is woth a visit too but I'm not sure it is worth doing the link via bike, probably better driving between them. Scotland is rubbish thoughcompared to Wales. Have you thought about maybe going to Wrexham instead?

Captain's right – buy Kenny Wilson's book (and some OS maps as backup) and enjoy. Loads of stuff near Aviemore, do Laggan, Strathpeffer is great and you can get maps from Square Wheels (although still tricky to navigate I found!). Fort William is a good base and Stirling area is amazing if you know where you're going. Give me a shout if you need a helping hand.

Cheers guys! Your help is much appreciated. I have finish packing and trailer loading/building (so much stuff!). I reckon i will sleep for 8hrs on the train tommorrow rather than route plan. Ill see if i can get some pics up after we get back.