Hi All,

Looking for a bit of advice.

Me and a couple of mates are looking to do a bikepacking/mtb trip in the UK.

So far Ive looked at

Trans Cambrian Way

South Upland Way

West Country Way

Cheers!

try here for some ideas.

http://www.bikepacking.com/locations/western-europe/

Check out the Capital trail: http://www.bikepacking.com/routes/bikepacking-scotland-the-capital-trail/

South Downs way and the Ridgeway both good options too

Many options for different length routes on the Pennine Bridleway – apparenty lots of gates though!

Various cairngorms routes too

Yorkshire Dales 300 would be fine over three days.

The PBW is a bit meh IMO. The section from Gisburn to Long Preston is very poor – I don’t think it gets used much either by bikers or horse riders as it was very overgrown when we last rode it. The Dales part from LP northwards is fine but it’s a day’s ride at most really.

There’s a new ITT route based around Kielder Forest which has suitably located bothies and pubs! 60Km to first bothy, 100Km to second, 40Km back to car lets you do an afternoon, a full day and a morning. Mostly fireroad but the section along the border can be boggy – you also need to check that the Otterburn ranges are open.

There’s two Cairngorms Loops: the original one which goes right round the outside of the range and the ITT which has an inner and outer loop. The latter has some definite hike a bike though!

Coast to coast in Devon – Lynton to Start Point. 2 moors doable in 2 days but maybe more fun in 3 with diversions

Weston Super Mare to Beachy Head (across the west country and past my house 🙂 joing the South Downs way for the end) – can’t rmeember what its called but I have the guide book at home. Keep meaning to do that!

I think the Ridgeway might be a bit short unless you dip in and out – plenty just off route to occupy you, but I’ve done the Streatly > Avebury (and on home) on a single winters day without feeling too pushed – although if its rained a while it would be an epic bike push on the Chiltern side particularly. Good summer 2 dayer maybe?

That bikepacking.com site is class, never heard of it before.
Cheers guys.

If there’s a few of you, i’d recommend the outer Cairngorm loop. I did it in 2.5 days and really enjoyed the wilderness feel to it. Starting in Aviemore means that transport links are good.

Wessex Way – starts in Weston Supermare, to Winchester and then SDW to Eastbourne. Definitely a summer job to let the trails dry out.

Capital Trail is good plus there’s the Central Belter – check out markusstitz.com

The Ennerdale round is good It is usually done in one [ and then its very hard ] or two , but I think it could be extended , some good high level walking in the lakes .

Tour of the Cairngorms for the win, great wilderness feel, some fun singletrack sections, also the option of hostels if the weather is ming.

Trans Cambrian is good fun, did it last year as part of a guided ride.

OP, you didn’t mention what sort of distance you would be looking at or are comfortable with. If your and your mates’ idea of a long day is two laps of the red route at your local trail centre then most of those mentioned so far might be a bit on the tough side. Bikepacking/ITT routes tend not to be overly technical (they can have very technical or even unrideable sections) but you need to be able to keep going for most of a day and then repeat the following day.

Cheers all. Some cracking ideas there 🙂

Cairngorms loop sounds great – anyone have a link?

Or is that the one on bikepacking.com?

There will be 3 of us, were all pretty fit and comfortable riding 6+ hours so I’m not too worried about distance, just the fun factor I guess and Ideally I think we’d prefer bunkhouses/hostels etc

whitestone – thanks for the suggestion – the Kielder loop sounds great.

Do you have any further info on that one?

The Cairngorms Loop on bikepacking.com is the ITT that I linked to earlier. The long one around the outside is in the Scotland The Wild Trails guidebook but it’s a generally well known route.

The Kielder route is very new, the blog report I linked to was the first riding of it. My wife and I tried it between Xmas and New Year but conditions on the tops (deep snow over unfrozen bogs) and roads (sheet ice) weren’t ideal. The GPX is on gpsies.

Kielder VS Cairngorms? you are having a laugh.

One is having a great adventure in the wilds of the Scottish highlands the other is slogging around in a bleak planted forest, it’s meant to be fun right.

So far I have done the Trans Cambrian and the Capital trail.
Both on that site I think.
Enjoyed both of them
Cambrian is 3 days fully loaded, point to point which adds a little to the logistics side.
Capital trail is circular which helps… took 4 days – or 3 and a half. Could have done it in 3 maybe at a push but that wasn’t really the point.

Both were great fun – sleeping on top of Arthurs Seat after an evening of Drinking in Edinburgh was probably the highlight 🙂