Hatching a plan for an outing in the gorms, is the ghru really that bad,the masochist in me is saying the suffering will be good for the soul. Will be heading north, i know the lower section is sweet.

Why don’t you let us know? 😉

I have only been through in full on winter conditions, frozen solid, so have little to offer in opinion.

Well the reason i am asking is so i can glean whether it is a possibility, as it will be at the end of quite a long day :wink:.

Basically, Yes its a mare upto Chalamain cut off. Then wonderful.

I tried it via the Chalamain Gap the other weekend, and pretty much wished I hadn’t bothered. The track even at this point is mega rough, meaning lots of on/off the bike. There is rideable stuff above the turn off to the lodge, but not sure it’s worth the journey just for try extra hassle.

From south to north it’s pretty much all rideable until near corrour bothy.

From there its basically 2-3 hours of walking until it becomes rideable again. How far that is will depend on your skill level but it almost certainly won’t be straight away when it starts going downhill.

It was pretty depressing having to push downhill!

Once it is rideable it’s a nice ride down to the bottom.

I wouldn’t recommend it, and I’d also be cautious about assuming up to Corrour bothy is rideable. When I went in July 2012 (coming from Braemar) the ground was pretty boggy from within a mile of the White Bridge turnoff and not very rideable afterwards all the way until the Chalamain turnoff.

I’m certainly not fast, but a look back at my Strava from the day suggests it took:
– About 2 hours 40 to reach Corrour Bothy from White Bridge (6.3 miles)
– 2:25 from there to the highest point of the Ghru (4.7 miles)
– Another 2 hours from there to the Calamain turnoff (3.3 miles) [even the downhill bit is a difficult boulder field]
– And then around 45 minutes for the final 5.2 miles to Aviemore

So that’s 7 hours in the middle at 2 mph average!

Up via white bridge isn’t the traditional start to the Lairig Ghru though.

I rode up to corrour bothy via derry lodge and accross luibeg bridge and then down to white bridge last year. The path to corrour bothy via the luibeg bridge is rideable most of the way.

The path from white bridge is a nightmare, even going down it was unrideable for large parts.

I took 5.5hrs from Linn of Dee to the old bothy bikes when I did the whole thing a few years ago with it taking 1 hour to get to corrour bothy when I did the corrour loop last year.

As with the above comments- you can do it, but why would you want to?
There are plenty of much more interesting and rewarding trails to ride in these mountains.
I can confirm Stumpy’s timing too, as it took me about the same on the one occasion I’ve ridden it. The fun factor increases at first as you head west after Derry Lodge, then begins to reduce again as you approach Corrour Bothy. From there north, the rideable portion drops as the boulders grow and the terrain becomes hard enough just to walk over- basically the top of the pass is a long session of hopping from boulder to boulder in a mess of leg break scenarios. There’s a short rideable segment above the Chalamain junction, but still more off the bike than on. The final bit is great, but much better accessed from the north side via Rothie Lodge or as an out-back.
In summary- don’t bother; go north a different way, like Geldie- Feshie, Builg/Avon/Nethy or Lairig an Laoigh.

Yep have done all the other options, just fancied taking in the mighty ghru, but with the route i had in mind, it really would turn into an epic trail of tears and i’m not sure that it is my cup of tea, to be honest, thanks for the tips.

well at least you have some scenery to look at pushing your bike up the Ghru. The Geldie/Feshie pushfest on the other hand scores a massive 4*s on the Chickenman Narcolepsy Scale!
Other suggestions for epics in the area:
Mar Lodge to Beinn a Bhuird summit; descend by steep grass 100m south of path to Sneck. Up Avon + over plateau to fine descent NE to Bridge of Avon. Return by Builig (hard work E-W)then the cracking path down the NW side of the Quoich river + back to start.
One I did back in May was: Spittal of Glenshee, up Glas Tulaichan, descent N to follow burn to watershed below An Socach, hike up this to good riding all the way to Sgor mor (push up to this summit). Really steep singletrack descent down to Baddoch in Glen Cluny ( path visible heading S down A93). Up the road + up to Loch Callater. Monster climb up to Cairn of Claise and Glas Moal to descend E to Monega Hill. I then rashly took the crazy stalker’s path down its N face (rode most of it; zigs don’t always link to zags!). Spotted the path in an article in Trek-lite called “New heights of laziness: caenlochan high camp” (sorry am too thick to post a link). Rode down Isla to Tulchan Lodge; ride, then a push up W to Black Hill summit; great descent W to happy-clappy camp and the main road 2 miles S of start. 10 hour ride; would be shorter with the Monega Road descent.

Like you, I’d heard all the stories and thought “it can’t be that bad”. So I rode it last year.

http://www.blog.scotroutes.com/2014/06/twa-lairigs.html

Done both ends but not the middle. I wasn’t that enthused by the bit from Derry to the bothy and hated the boy down to the white bridge but the descent accessed from Rothiemurchus was very enjoyable even if the path to the LG was covered in snow