Just for fun and to find out about possible new riding location where in scotland do you think would be capable of hosting an enduro. Avoiding any obvious locations that have already hosted races, where do you think has enough quality trails to host a decent race.

There hasn’t been one around Aviemore yet, has there?

Scolty/Hill of Gouach by Banchory Aberdeenshire

I think we’ve mined the trailcentres/well known bike locations pretty well already but you don’t need bike trails at all- the dudes enduro being the perfect example. Any suitable concentration of interesting walkers’ paths, and access, and a town.

Banchory/Scolty is a good call. There are plenty of trails in Aberdeenshire that would work well.

I hear rumours of some mates’ racing going on fairly soon at Echt – that could be expanded to work as a full-on enduro. Base at Raemoir house or something like that.

Dumyat/mine woods/kippenrait in the morning, scoot over to N3/Cambu in the afternoon.

Ideal for a ‘mates race’ not so for something bigger.

So that all the enduro racers can ruin nice singletrack by taking a ‘racing line’ 😀

Echt? Is that the old DH track on the Dunecht estate between Echt and Dunecht by any chance? Last time I rode it around this time last year it was in a pretty sorry and very overgrown state. Good shout with Scolty I’m still finding new stuff every time I head up there.

There are a couple of descents round Torridon which would be achingly perfect as enduro stages.

The long run down to Annat from Lochan Eoin & the bottom section of the Ben Damph descent through the woods are two.

The Achnaschellach descent and the drop from back of Liathach to the car park are more like DH runs, but would provide a bit of contrast.

Never gonna happen though, and probably best that way.

I’m not sure I want to suggest some places and have 300 riders trash the joint….
Having said that…
Pitlochry
Inveraray
David Marshall Lodge

On a more realistic tip – Mabie offers a great mix of fun, flowy trail centre descents and steeper off-piste pine-tree slalom sections.

Has there been one there already?

Aberfoyle? Lot of good stuff being built there. Arran would be great

The problem with finding new venues, is you need suitable trails where you can get landowners permission to use them, and infrastructure.

If you could guarantee dry weather, there are plenty places that could be used. However taking Aberfoyle as an example, some of those trails would simply be destroyed after a couple hundred riders in the wet, and even in the dry you’d have to make some tough track choices if you didn’t want to attempt to damage/scare too many riders.

Then you have infrastructure. Go somewhere where there’s no reasonably sized town nearby, then you’ve got accommodation problems. Not everybody wants to camp, or is willing to drive over an hour to get there each day. That’s before you take into the things like ambulance availability, or general supplies.