Got the chance to cycle the North Coast 500 in June, just wondering if it’s worth it, given that I have no interest in road cycling…but I do like the Scottish scenery and it’s a free week off work while getting paid, so I can justify the pain and boredom of a loooong week of road riding for those reasons!

Any help or advice much appreciated 🙂

I’ve motorbiked around most of it over the last couple of years and some bits are completely awesome… Applecross, far North stretch from Durness to JOG etc. They’ve got a good website with itineraries etc at North Coast 500.

It was created as a driving route, not a cycling route, so there are bits of it that will be unpleasant to ride due to traffic (mainly the 90 miles of A9 between Wick and Dingwall).

There’s an article about Marc Beaumont’s fast version of it in the current CTC mag, but I’ve not got round to reading it yet though.

I’m doing it in May. Looks mint!

Dalhalvaig on here & myself are planning on doing this in April over 2/3 days in our respective oldish cars with our bikes in the boot. He’s taking his 96′ VW Corrado VR6 & I’m taking my 2000 A4 B5 TQS.

The plan is to do some ‘spirited’ driving…stop…go for a spin…drive a bit more…repeat! Thus far our extended route will include, Laggan, Torridon, Golspie….

I drove some of the NC500 over the weekend with some friends who were over from Belgium for a long weekend. Couldn’t have asked for better weather.

Lunch stop somewhere on the A87
[url=https://flic.kr/p/DYGiyY]Untitled[/url] by Rosscopeco, on Flickr

Eileen Donan family selfie
[url=https://flic.kr/p/Ea9r9P]Untitled[/url] by Rosscopeco, on Flickr

Top of the Bealach na ba looking towards Skye
[url=https://flic.kr/p/DcJuTP]Untitled[/url] by Rosscopeco, on Flickr

Rab Wardell from DirtSchool (tweed valley based) did it last summer with a couple of mates for charity. You’ll get him on Twitter, FB etc. He’s a really helpful guy – former XC racer and extremely fit.

I’m currently putting together a more “cycle-friendly” variant of the route for our website. We’ve had quite a lot of interest in bike hire for it and in providing pick-up/drop-off for those who don’t think they can manage it all in a week and will maybe take two bites at it.
(yes, we’re in communication with the promoters to perhaps come up with one official cycle route)