I will be staying at Lochinver (or more specifically Inverkirkaig) for a week with the Mrs and her parents. This is where they used to go on Holiday together. they are walkers but I will definitely be taking the bike – not least because they have a tenancy to do my head in after a short period of time.

Will I find good mountain biking there or do I need to go further afield. Find it hard to believe there is not a wealth of big mountain, technical riding in the vicinity – though I have no experience of riding quite this far north.

Lucky you, my favourite place in the world!

Spent a glorious week there last summer in some of the best weather I’ve ever had up there.

Have to say, its more of a road destination for me these days (the road from Inverkirkaig out to Achiltibuie and the Nedd/Kylesku loop are out of this world) but there is some good MTB riding up there. Trouble is, the mountains tend to just suddenly rise up from a fairly flat landscape – that’s what makes them look so dramatic – so the vast majority of your riding isn’t as high as you’d possibly expect. Its not Aviemore.

From the door, the climb up to Inverkirkaig falls is good, as is the descent, and the coast paths round Achmelvich are fun. The long path out to Suilven is good on a bike, but not technical. Slightly further afield, Quinag is an adventure, although I know the path has been developed in recent years and its a while since I’ve up that. Just beyond that, the path past the Inchnadamph caves up to Conival and Ben More Assynt is brilliant, though not exactly a flowing ride at times!

One of the best things about Assynt is how quiet it is, meaning you’re not always coming across walkers on hill paths. Definitely a good destination for an Explorer map and a compass!

Absolutely beautiful area. Spent many a summer at Achmelvich with my folks. Stunning.

Echo the comments above. Some coastal paths are worth a shot. Footpath from Alltan’abradhan to Lochinver via Achmelvich, Loch Dubh (great for a freshwater swim) and Ardroe is nice techy track. A few gates and stop/starts but mostly rideable. Best going in that direction though. Not a big day though.

Quinag is a good shout as is the path up to the Bone Caves – nice track.

Enjoy!

as above, but by far the most important thing is to go to the Lochinver Larder and try every pie!

Seconded.

We went as walkers a quite a few years ago. It really is truly stunning. We walked up to Suiliven (before right-to-roam) and ever since I have wanted to return and ride it. It might not be technical but it is just a wonderful place to be.
+1 pies.

We also stayed at Achmelvich. I have a great photo of people on the gorgeous sandy beach in the early evening sun.
All wearing down jackets and mountain hats 🙂

the water at achmelvich looks like it should be bath temperature, but is painfully cold!

thanks for the comments – really looking forward to it
The pictures of the coast look stunning as well as the photos of Suilven

would there be any reason whatsoever to take a bike up there…..?

You won’t get your bike to the top of Suiliven it really isn’t rideable. I was talking about the path that runs past the bottom of it.

i’ve never ridden up there. the footpaths I have been on would be challenging to ride but possibly rewarding, I wouldn’t go there with the intention of just riding though, but would take a bike if was going anyway.

I will be walking most days with the other half but will definitely get a couple of days to ride

Looks like some intrepid souls have conquered it….

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I suspect they rode to the bottom, stashed the bikes then climbed up.
Once you get off the path you have a thick bog followed by a steep hard climb with scrambly bits. I guess you could carry your bike up and down. I’m not sure why you would want to.

Eeww… I wouldn’t be following that Strava route unless I REALLY enjoyed pushing my bike everywhere.

That said, we did that route as a hike and probably took 3-4 hours longer than those guys Strava time so maybe the bikes are worth it for the ride up to the Kirkaig falls and back down the quad track on the other side. The middle 10km would be purgatory though unless absolute drought conditions.

Doing a point to point ride from Lochinver to Elphin or vice versa might be more interesting, I did that with all the touring gear on the bike and still managed to ride a fair amount, and the stuff I couldn’t ride could potentially be ridden by someone who didn’t have 15kg of camping gear and 10 days in their legs…

Get dropped off at Elphin and arrange to meet the folks at the pie shop in Lochinver a few hours later, perfect! 8)

Re. Quinag – the path has been restored and a new detour created if you intend to climb the south ridge. The ridge itself is pathless but has lots of slabby rock you could play on. From my experience (1 week last month) you wouldn’t feel cheated if you took the mountain bike but if you take the road bike….yipeee!

I up at Clachtoll for 16 days end of July. I tend to take both MTB and Road. I am planning on a ride up Cul Mor, walked it before and seems would be a good climb. fair bit of singletrack to start with. Quite fancy trying the Suilven path from Inverkirkaig direction. I am also taking he road bike to do the loop to Kylesku, Nedd, then back to Lochinver. Thinks its about 60miles and a little ‘hilly’. Should be interesting on the Garmain/Strava stats.

When you up. Could do with a riding partner if going into hills…

There are several good routes up there if you’re prepared to look at an OS map and follow the dotted black lines. I’m not sure about passing on route info to places like this to people I don’t know because it is remote and needs to be ridden with an attitude to match. But, there’s some decent riding on sheet 9 and on the other side of the road from Quinag. Quinag itself wasn’t worth taking the bike up beyond the slabby bits and glenleireag is utterly missable.

Done a little bit in that area. The track up Glen Canisp starts out OK, certainly as far as Suileag bothy and a little bit further. We turned round about 800 metres past the bothy and took the track northwards Little Assynt. Let’s just say we spent a lot of time pushing – the old track is only just visible in places. The track that continues towards Ledmore is apparently one of the main hike-a-bike sections on the Highland Trail 550 but I’ve not been along it so don’t know just how bad or otherwise it is.

If you don’t mind travelling a little bit (considering how far you’ve already driven) there’s the Foinaven/Bealach Horn loop which is in the second volume of the Scottish Wild Trails book. There’s also a few tracks between Kylesku and Lochstack but the OS black dashed line can be anything from a landrover track to non-existant. Geograph.org is your friend so long as someone’s taken shots.

The coast roads north to Kylesku and south to Achiltibuie are, shall we say, lumpy.

Amazing scenery though.

The track beyond where you turned around Whitestone is indeed a hike a bike on the HTR550. The whole section was about 10k and took four hours – truly horrible but it needed to be done.

In keeping with the HTR course, the Bealach Horn is another epic push but with a great descent to Achfary. A really fast way to lose 400m, something like four hours from the road to the top of the Bealach, then 15 mins back down.

There’s some nice Singletrack that runs into Lochinver along the coast, I remember enjoying that part too. Finally, if you could get to Ullapool there is some nice stuff above it and also you’ve got the Fisherfield traverse which is an epic day out with some big pushes and great descents. I don’t know off hand how you’d turn that into a loop though as I just did it one way.

worldrallyteam

I will be there the last weekend in May. After having ridden on Skye… Company is definitely welcome!