Planning a long weekend trip to Scotland to ride the 7 Stains trails late Nov, arrive lunchtime-ish Friday, and return home (Cambridge/Northampton) Monday night.

Having never ridden Scotland before looking for suggestions of where to ride and base ourselves.

Cheers

7 Stains,

How about coffee, blood, red wine, chocolate, grass, ketchup and semen?

Don't try and ride them all in that time, it'll be too much driving for to little riding. Base yourself either in or around Peebles and ride Glentress & Innerleithen or in the west to ride the Dumfries trails. Personally I'd ride the stuff in the East rather than the West as I think the trails are better. Also at that time of year bring your lights as you'll probably need them, especially if you want to ride on the Friday when you arrive.

I've not ridden the Tweed trails but the Dumfriesshire batch are well worth a visit. You also avoid the A1 by heading up the west coast. BreakPad in Castle Douglas is central and very friendly place to stay.

Kona_TC ; as Mr Style has hinted, the spelling is 7 Stanes – no doubt many more cleaning suggestions will be forthcoming.

This link might help re accomodation etc.
As gonefishin says, GTress / Inners are virtually next door to each other, & there's probably 2 days riding exploring both (& their various red / black / DH / FR guises). GTress also has all the facilities, while Inners may, if you're lucky, have some upright portaloos. £3 parking at each too (all day).
But the Dumfries area trails are great too & you could easy do 2 in a day, even with reduced daylight.

Duggie well spotted that will be me letting auto correct think for itself

gonefishin – wasn’t planning on riding them all in my first trip, but thanks for the advice of either “Peebles and ride Glentress & Innerleithen” or “in the west to ride the Dumfries trails”. Also top tip about lights

Cheers

Hole up in Dumfries, get a loop or two in at Ae, then you can get an early run at Kirry on saturday (or two, you'll like it), and then either Mabie or Dalbeattie on the way ACROSS to Peebles Hydro (cheap rooms for bikers) so you can do GT and/or inners on the sunday and drive home late.
I've done the very same on several occasions and there was fun for all the riders in our gang from pure DHers to XC whippets.
This is more than doable if you live anywhere north of Brum, IMHO.
I live in Loughborough and made it home in good time (IE not half past stupid).
Alternatively, just stay in Dumf. and do Ae lots…

Ae has some great XC, and some better (scary) DH. Kirroughtree is IMHO the best long XC trail centre there is, and GT has the most variety (XC, bike park, easy trails and plenty of air), while Inners has serious DH and an XC trail with a lot of climbing and a MENTAL final section.

FYI it's "The 7 Satins"

stay at the criffel inn just outside dumfries – well palced for 3 or 4 rides including ae, dalbeattie and mabie

2 options i would suggest is drive up fri am and stop in Moffat for a fry up, onto innerleithan and do that then go to Glentress Hotel. Sat glentress black and skills area taking red route from skills area/car park down the hill to hotel, Sun Glentress red and take blue route from skills area/car park back to hotel. onto somewhere else for the monday.

or

Fri am stop for a fry up in annan (cafe royale) onto mabie or Ae, drive to newton stewart and stop at Bruce hotel, Sat am ride to Kirroughtree and do red/black (best trail i have ridden), sun am drive to dalbeattie then onto somewhere else for monday.

You could always pick up winlatter(keswick) on the monday.

Need to know what sort of riding you like most really, they're all different. But definately don't spread yourself too thin, the time you have isn't really enough to thoroughly ride GT and Innerleithen never mind all 7 + travel time.

Spends your time in the Tweed Valley – Inners and GT. Do both, then have a look at the map and see what else is kicking around.

Being Dumfries based and ridden all the trails, some before they became "trail centres"(inc GT/Inners) I am obviously biased towards the WEST side 😛
Dumfries also has a better night life than Peebles 😯

So this is your best plan

Fri am stop for a fry up in annan (cafe royale) onto mabie or Ae, drive to newton stewart and stop at Bruce hotel, Sat am ride to Kirroughtree and do red/black (best trail i have ridden), sun am drive to dalbeattie then onto somewhere else for monday.

You could always pick up winlatter(keswick) on the monday.

But substitute the Annan cafe for either the Ae or Mabie cafes, although that chippy is good 😆

Hi Kona,

Next week me and Mrs M are travelling to the Lake District. Looking to do Grizedale on Monday.
Winlatter on Tuesday.
Then travel up to New Abbey, near Dumfries and staying at The Criffle Inn.
Kirroughtree all day Wednesday.
Mabie and Ae Thursday.
Lungs and legs replacement on Friday. 🙂
Belgiumbob not to far from you. Long Eaton near J24, M1. Where do you ride out?

I'd do Mabie and Dalbeattie rather than Ae adn whilst you are in the area go to Drumlanrig Castle, some great rooty trails there and a decent facilities. Rather than going the trail centres in the Lakes do the natural stuff, much, much better if you can spare the time to navigate. Failing that skip the Lakes and go to Inners and GT