looking for beta / advice / thought / opinion

thought about doing a hiking trip overland a few years ago (but life and lazyness conspired against me)

is the overland route in realistic on a bike? whats the riding like? best place to start from, finish, stay

everything really!

cheers

I’ve ever done it, but very hikey bikey from what i’ve read.

Lovely place, but don’t bother taking your bike.

It’s on my biking “to do” list but having walked in and out and over, I’m in no doubt as to how much/little riding I’ll be doing. If I was still able to do multi-day walks, I’d be leaving the bike at home.

never ridden there.
but the the walkin’ is top notch and the pub is luvverly…..(most western pub on the uk mainland, apparently…)

ah, that sort or riding (aka walk!)

druid – one for the bivi ride then (which is what i was thinking of)…

Stayed there lots of time and can recommend a few places if you haven’t booked accommodation yet. There is a lot of walking round there but not so much riding as far as I know. Saying that I seem to remember last time that they had planned to build some trails so they may have starting putting something together. The chap that lives next door to the pub rides a Cove Stiffee and may be a good person to ask when you get there on where the best riding is to be found.

The place is full a real local and everyone seems to know everything so my suggestion is get off the ferry go into the pub have a beer and ask the bar man who you should speak to about riding and I am sure you will get enough knowledge to fill more than a few days riding.

I absolutely love the place, you will have a fantastic time even if your get very little riding in. The food in the Old Forge is great and it might worth a night ride over to the restaurant at Doune as the food there is also amazing. Really hoping we can get up there again soon!

great place to spend some time – wilderness, superb views, but not much cycling unless you like carrying the bike. You could do some, but would be basically carrying up some mountains and belting down rough tussocky ground to get down. Probably better places to bike up there, but not many better places to spend time…..

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/bikepacking-knoydart

And I’m sure I saw something in a recent ‘ahem’ WMB or MBR on a trip round Knoydart

Went through Knoydart via the south shore of Loch Nevis on a X-Scotland trip last year. The terrain is *ahem* challenging. With heavy trailers we took 7 hours to travel 9km. Hiking, climbing, wading in the sea etc… Would I do it again – no! Would I recommend anyone else try – no! But I’m proud we didn’t give up! See pics below:

Oh and for those looking at the pics thinking ‘I could ride it’…don’t kid yourself a were-beast born of Hans Rey and Julian Absalon couldn’t. One of our team used to race xc for Scotland, we weren’t lacking in fitness 😳

In no particular order:

[img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7193/7009513227_0bac655795.jpg[/img][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7210/7009516603_8c2769ce29.jpg[/img][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7075/6863410484_7329f47f55.jpg[/img][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7120/7009531413_121a30e5cb.jpg[/img]

Tarbet – Dessary? WTF made you think that was gonna happen 🙂

If you go, make sure you head to Doune dining room.

The best restaurant in the world.

>is the overland route in realistic on a bike? whats the riding like? best place to start from, finish, stay<

Yes, challenging, Hourn > Inverie > Dessary. We rode way more than we pushed but infrequent mtbr’s would struggle with almost all of it if that helps give you some perspective on it. On balance it is probably best explored on foot.

Trailers in and out of Knoydart? Totally and utterly certifiable!!

I spent two weeks walking through Knoydart with a bunch of kids from Brathay. It took a massive amount of planning with a support vehicle and food dumps left at loch ends and road heads, it’s completely deserted and inaccessible and very few people go there, consequently there are very few tracks or roads. I certainly wouldn’t attempt to cycle through; it’s walking territory mostly. There’s also at least one place where you need to pre-arrange with a boatman if you want to avoid a big detour, although nowadays people have cellphones so you don’t need to make and keep appointments.

We did a trip to Knoydart last year and we are just planning one for later this year.

We start with the boat into Inverie then pushed pedalled out to sourlies bothy over Mam medail the climb was rideable to about 300m then it was a push (we did have 4 days worth of food and tents etc…)the descent down the otherside was amazing very alpine singletrack switchback style. it is quite a tricky down though.

Spent the first night outside Sourlies when all the rain in the world fell out of the sky! the next morning we pushed up Glen Dessary fording the swollen river at the top then rode down to A chuil bothy, deciding to stay here and dry out (this was a brutal day but an adventure to boot)

Next we set off over to Glen kingie via the Allt na fiethe again the day started as riding slash pushing once reaching the high ground above Kingie the down was rideable picking up the track we rode out to the village of Kingie where we got sandbagged in a windblown forest of devastation and ended up crossing the river Kingie (waist deep grade 2 rapid)our plan was to Tomdoun to the Pub But “No plan survives contact”

We carried on towards Loch Quioch and onto Hourn then followed the coastal path to barrisdale bay (Brutal) reaching the Bay late that night I fell asleep in my dinner and the next morning arrrived.

This one was easy over Mam Barrisdale and down to Inverie the usual ride/push up the hill and then a peach of a down all the way to Inverie.

A bit of bunkhouse action and beer and seafood in the Old Forge action Saw us into Friday. We had time to kill before the boat over to Tarbet so we checked out Inverie’s trail centre!

Boat over to Tarbet thinking we might have to swim ashore with the bikes! but they sorted us out and we stayed dry.

A quick ride over the hill to Loch morar then a scoot to Mallaig.

Overall we rode more than we pushed but the pushing was brutal in places. we carried everything and you could probably do kit drops?

Would we do it again…..Yes but next time were taking packrafts which should cut out some of the more brutal pushes.

With all that said this place is truly stunning and wild and needs to be treated with respect as it would think nothing letting you die in it’s beautiful folds.

But if your after a real adventure this could be the epic for you, keep your eyes peeled for our trip report with the boats and then we may even offer it as a holiday!

Cheers Andy

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzPVQ42EXyc&list=UUPqXOeXWO0f9iINU4Xp7Whg&index=3&feature=plcp[/video]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtUPSzvhLJU&list=UUPqXOeXWO0f9iINU4Xp7Whg&index=8&feature=plcp[/video]
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn6MsGYCZYE&feature=channel[/video]
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOJ6stlhcEE&feature=channel[/video]

Wow – thanks for all the info, sort of confirms my thoughts about the biking, but also how nice it is…

Went through Knoydart via the south shore of Loch Nevis on a X-Scotland trip last year.

I feel your pain. I walked Tarbet – Sourlies and back 30 years ago and I can still remember clearly how hard it was. We made about 1mph in places. It was much faster coming back. We tried staying a couple of hundred feet above sea level to avoid the crags near the shore. The toughest walk I’ve done anywhere. And it rained almost non stop for 3 days.

Getting to Tarbert was interesting. The planned route via Inverie fell through when the ferry was full. We managed instead to hitch a lift on a boat going to an outdoors centre from a bit of a legend – Tom McLean. Didn’t know who he was at the time. Ex SAS first to row the Atlantic solo W -E etc.

He subsequently gained another world record in 1982 by sailing across the Atlantic in the smallest boat to accomplish that crossing. The self built boat measured 9 feet and 9 inches, and because of the weight of the food took an amazing 7 weeks to cross. His record was broken three weeks later by a sailor manning 9 feet and 1 inch long boat. In response McClean, using a chainsaw, cut 2 feet off his own vessel – making it 7 feet and 9 inches in length. During the return trip he lost his mast and the journey took even longer than his first attempt but he regained the record.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_McClean

Definitely worth it at least once and then once more just to check.

very few people go there

Sourlies was full when we walked in a couple of years ago, tents pitched up outside, and we met three different parties on the trails.

I think the magazines have caught on to Knoydart and its actually got quite good transport links, between trains, ferries and buses now.

Suspect its probably busier than some other Munro areas, how many people have made epic exciting plans around the Fannichs for instance? 8)

Doesn’t diminish its appeal (to me anyway) I’ve got plans this year but unfortunately can only go in July, midge-hoy! Still reckon there’s a blinder of a biking route to be found in there somewhere…

Edit: BCB, you hit that first trail centre skinny at a decent lick! 🙂

Yep I stopped on the second one because one of the drops had ripped my seat pack from my seat and it was running on my tyre. 😥

Aye, its not a bad spot… 😉

View from near summit by matt_outandabout, on Flickr