Have contributed to a couple of articles on routes from Edinburgh / Peebles.

Down again in Edinburgh, with bike, for first time in over 10 years I think, was thinking of a loop over the Peatlands (which I know well), to Carlops, and then thought of heading over Cloich via Noblehouse – but looping round as you emerge from Cloich forest – at the 297 spot height. Q is, can you navigate South through Cloich (farm)?) and then hit the path – likeable ? – at Courhope – and then onto the – Southern Upland Way? Borders Path? and back to Romano Bridge?

So out over Monks Rig is fine, the back over Borestane.

bump? though Strava heatmap seems to show enough traffic!

* waves * (some of us have to work you know!!!)

http://www.blog.scotroutes.com/p/pentlands-to-peebles.html

and

http://southofscotlandcountrysidetrails.co.uk/maps/central_tweeddale.pdf

should see you right.

The map on that second link shows an accessible track between Cloich Fm and Courhope 🙂

The best route I’ve found is to head up past Noblehouse on the forest road, then take a right at a signposted Cloich Forest Loop, and you can continue on that past Cloich Farm until you hit the signpost for the Borders Drove Road. That’s a lovely wee trail all the way to Peebles and Glentress.

Return route – climb up the black, but after the end of Goat Track continue on the fire road and it eventually reaches a dead end at the end of Glentress Forest. There’s a gap in the trees and another fire road through it, keep going straight along that and you eventually reach a fast descent to the main road. Straight over and you can eventually get back to the Borders Drove Road via Nether Kidston. Follow this all the way back to West Linton, then either over the Cauldstane Slap (lovely long climb and some great descending through the pass) or back road to Carlops and via the Borestane to Balerno.

I’ve been planning on doing a variant of scotroutes Pentlands to Peebles ride for a while. I’ve been trying to keep the biking as interesting as possible through the Cloich hills. I had a recce recently on foot and discovered a slightly more interesting route using some obscure trails in Nether Stewarton forest.

From Courhope, head up to the corner of the fireroad at 208458. From there you can pick up old motocross enduro trails that drop you down into the Harehope burn or just bash straight down the old wall. Once into Nether Stewarton there are some nice walking trails (not shown on the map) to take you back to the road. Some of it is not the most obvious as some of the motocross trails are a little overgrown.

I’d also wondered about going over Whaup Law as there appears to have been a few folk have descended something obscure down Martyr’s Dean. Not checked this one out yet. Anybody been up there?

possibly of interest, i spend a day exploring whether law last autumn. mainly gravel forest tracks with some singletrack and hiking. worth considering adding this into a route as you pass so near… very nice and clearly not visited often.

thanks — Alasdair (apologies for wrong spelling before) – that sounds lovely, I might not have time on Friday but if I’m down again will def look at hitting Glentress using those tips.

Colin — I found the first map – second looks great – really useful.

Bookmarks!

oh, and Cauldstane Slap – seem to recall it being quite vague in places and always wet. Must be 20 years since I went over it though!!

Coming from West Linton, can you head E towards the Borestane at all?

cheers.

balfa- I had a wee venture through the trees and found the enduro trails too, but couldn’t link them up. Next time I’m down I’ll give it another go now that I can see they lead somewhere useful…

We tend to ride the drove road across to Peebles. If you’re looking to get across to the Borestane from West Linton I’d just head up the Loan and then over the old Roman Road to Carlops (I can provide emergency cups of tea if required), you can then head up the road to Carlop Hill Farm, past North Esk Reservoir.

EDIT: Other option from Carlops heading back to Edinburgh is to take the little path up some steps on the left as you leave the village which takes you on the back road to Nine Mile Burn, then either a tough grassy climb up Monks’s rig to the base of West Kip, or just stay on the footpath by the main road until just before Silverburn where you can take the farm track up. Then straightforward track past Harehill to Threipmuir.

cool hb – just wondered if re-explore of Cauldstane was worth a punt.

Been years since was up Borestane. Was a lung busting climb up from Spittal over and down to North Esk, too..

The descent down to North Esk is rubbish now. It used to be lovely singletrack but it’s just a stupidly steep access road.

Cauldstane is fun – I started enjoying the full ride to the main road once I got big tyres as it’s a bit boggy at times. There’s also the possibility of tracking all the way off-road to Balerno on vague paths across the lowlands – loads of hike a bike though.

honeybadger, there also used to be a traverse from bottom of Monks Rig round towards the farm, probably long overgrown..

Al – from top of Spittal ? there was a tight little track down to reservoir end, it’s all been too many years though! Even when I left, Borestane from North Esk side was getting the access treatment, and on the Listonshiels side was even worse IIRC.

In the end I couldn’t manage away until only the Saturday, and didn’t fancy Glentress. Nor did the guys want to travel beyond Carlops (fair enough, I didn’t get down to EDIT until back of 10).

So it was all the usual routes and trails, up Death or Glory, down The Swoop, along to Carlops (lunch + 2 pints) then up to North Esk. See what you mean about that track al – wow! what a shame..

Borestane, then round the quad track (getting late in the afternoon) and down Scaletrix – flipping ace!

Didn’t manage all up to Borestane without dabs – quite a few actually. Fun down to Listonshiels. Some really sour faced walkers / ramblers out! Forgot how many folk go out.