Well I'm struggling to find a place at a decent price north of the city where I would like one so Ive started looking far south of Glasgow for a place not too far from a decent sprint. Where I am currently allows me to dash out the back door into the hills but I dont think I can afford anything like that to buy, so does anyone know if the waterhead moore/muirshiel country park area has any half-decent riding to be done?

I've been up there a few times, it's not bad. Always been led by a local, up Misty Law and through the country park. Like anywhere as local knowledge grow you'll find more and more trails to thread together I guess.

ck – my folks stay on the edge of the park and I used to ride up there as a kid – pretty poor tbh. If Mugdock is an 8, Muirshiel is a 3

This guy's handiwork is worth checking out if you are looking for an ayrshire/south of glasgow base to live and ride. Probably worth doing some rides then seeing what you stumble across in terms of places to live. North and East Ayrshire's towns aren't high on everybody's desirable list but theres lots of loveliness hidden between them.

You'll generally find that Ayrshire gets less leisure traffic than the area to the north of glasgow, so for a given square of map there'll be few paths and fewer ways of linking them up. But thats not to say there aren't some really good paths or routes. East Ayrshire Woodlands has been doing so fierce amount of path building, all along the length of the River Ayr, form the source to the sea, with little networks off of it around each community it passes through, and there are a lot of new paths around the Irvine Valley too (Galston/Newmilns/Darvel).

http://mtbroutessws.com/home.html
[/url]http://wheehamx.blogspot.com/[/url]

Gleniffer Braes was mentioned on https://www.bbc.co.uk/radioscotland/gallery/outofdoors_270310/#egt

for mtb

Given the terrain out there you'd expect to find some decent trails. I've been up a few times and it's mainly doubletrack stuff. That wheeamx link above is a good resource for riding in the area.