Looking at doing a long (4/5 days) weekend in Scotland later this year and, as I’ve never ridden there before, looking for tips on where to ride?
Would like to do some lift assisted/uplift stuff and some trail centre type stuff to keep all of the group happy.
Guessing Ft Bill for DH stuff but anywhere else recommended?

Tweed Valley? You’ve got Glentress (centre and off piste), Innerleithen (centre and off piste), Innerleithen DH uplift, Gypsy Glen, Innerleithen golf side, Yair, Thornilee, Cademuir (forestry work happening there just now, so depends when you’re coming up). Lots to choose from.

http://www.upliftscotland.com for uplift fun @ Ae & Innerlieithen
http://www.7stanesmountainbiking.com
http://www.scotlandmountainbike.co.uk/page2.html

There are some proper hill rides to be had in D&G;
http://s95.photobucket.com/user/bigjohnskona/slideshow/Polybikers%20Sanquhar%201012

Well it depends…

You can do uplift/lift stuff at Innerleithen and Ae through Uplift Scotland most weekends. Glencoe and Fort Bill do lift-assisted most days (weather dependant) as does the Lecht.

Trail centres are scattered all over the place, so you could maybe try to pinpoint one or two big rides you fancy doing, then tack an uplift day or trail centre day around those.

An example would be to do a couple of the big, all-day rides around the Tweed Valley, a day at Glentress or Ae or Innerleithen riding XC stuff, then an uplift day at Ae or Innerleithen. Nice and compact, and you won’t spend too much time driving around.

Alternatively, do a couple of big rides around Glencoe, Kinlochleven, do an uplift day at Glencoe or Fort Bill, then do some trail centre stuff at either Fort Bill or Laggan (about 30 mins from Aonach Mor).

All depends on how much travelling v riding you want to do ❓

Why Scotland? It’s quite a big place, it takes a long time to travel across it and it has all sorts of riding. Narrow down your criteria a little?

What they all said… With 5 days you could spend it in one area and maximise the riding there, or spend quite a lot of time travelling. Your description of the riding you’re after does make it easier though.

Fort William’s obviously iconic and well worth the visit but it’s also another 3 and a half hours or so drive from the tweed valley or the D&G trails. There’s tons of other riding up there too of course, in particular kinlochleven is just down the road and is sensational, or 50 other things but… Basically you’re adding mileage and travel time. And driving past first class riding to do it.

You could easily spend a week in/around glentress and innerleithen, that’d get you your uplift, all the #enduro you can handle, trail centres and big XC. You can’t ride it all in a week, not even close. But… Well, you say “Going to scotland” everyone says “Cool, where” and you say “Uh, basically Peebles” and they say “That’s barely in Scotland!” Likewise down in the western stanes, there’s easily 5 days riding there. But it’s not very roadtrippy/awesome, for all the brilliant riding.

Kind of depends on you.

Tweed Valley looks good, lots of choice there by the looks of it.

All depends on how much travelling v riding you want to do

Happy to use a couple of bases, travelling not really an issue but it we could do a couple of days from 1 base then move on for a couple of days elsewhere would not be a problem.

Why Scotland? Narrow down your criteria a little?

I’ve never ridden there before..
Would like to do some lift assisted/uplift stuff and some trail centre type stuff to keep all of the group happy.. 😉

Tweed valley. You could ride there for a fortnight now, so many trails, and has uplift at Inners too. Sorted.