Going up to Scotland for a few days next week, going to try and sneak a ride in. I've got the Kenny Wilson book and the VG Guide.

There is a route in the VG guide round Glen Finglas which is not too far to get to. There are also a couple of routes from near Tarbet in the Kenny Wilson book. I will probably be riding along (unless anyone fancies showing me around?) so my gf says I'm not allowed to do anything too remote or extreme. 😉 And I don't fancy having to drive for more than an hour or so really.

I generally like a mix of techy and fast stuff, nice views are always good but I think that's probably a given. 🙂

Anyone got any recommendations?

Menteith Hill Track – which you could start from Aberfoyle.
http://www.stirlingbikeclub.org.uk/ride/mtb/menteith_hills.shtml

From Callander – Glen Finglas / Glen Ample or both together.
http://www.stirlingbikeclub.org.uk/ride/mtb/glen_finglas_240803.shtml

If you do the Glen Finglas loop, do it anti clockwise as the descent is better. Clockwise means a fair bit of pushing the bike as it's very steep for a fair distance.

Not quite Drymen but not a million miles away

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Arrochar-Loop

I'm riding there on Sunday for the 1st time and it looks pretty good.

Thanks folks.

What is the landrover track like on the Glen Finglas route? Is there a bit of technical interest (ie little rocky bits for to jump off :P).

That bikely route looks the same as the Coire Grogan route in Kenny Wilson's book. Looks good – def an option as it's not too far away. If you can be arsed let me know how you get on on Sunday night 🙂

+1 for the Arrochar loop, a frequent after work ride for me. A bit of a slog up the forestry road but you get 2 good fast descents and the singletrack section is some of the best anywhere.

OK thanks for that – roughly how long does it normally take and is the navigation reasonably easy? I'm not too bad with maps etc but don't like to faff about too much if I can avoid it.

the arrochar loop/coire grogan is great fun – pretty short, but as said above the singletrack sections are quite lovely. Another option, albeit a good bit longer is the loop from Ardgarten dwon the loch to Lochgoilhead and back round above the Rest & Be Thankful, but you need about 3hrs to do it

Navigation is easy and it takes about 1.5hrs, if you have Kenny Wilson's book it'll point out the only bit you can go wrong at which is a right hand turn off the road that comes down from the dam to join the start of the singletrack section.

Excellent cheers – the Ardgarten Route looks good but would probably take me more like 4-5 hours by the look of it! Anyone around during the week who fancies slowly mincing round it with me?

If you do go around the Arrochar loop, start at Tarbet train station, as this adds a nice section of trail to what is effectively a 1 1/2" loop

Bit of a hijack here, WackoAK, the arrochar loop is a regular of mine and I agree a nice evening ride…..Where are you based, I am in Helensburgh

Grumm, the landrover track on the Glen Finglas loop is fine and good quality all the way round. Nothing technical though.

EdwardH – Glasgow, takes about an hour for me to get there. I'll need to look into starting at the train station to vary it.

What's the Glen Ample route from the Kenny Wilson book like?

Didn't really rate the Glen Ample loop. It was OK, but I wouldn't travel far to do it.

I did it S to N, which might not have been best. I recall having to push up a v steep bit at the start, then it turning into a nice climb, and then a pleasant enough descent out of the valley. So all a bit bland. Maybe N to S would give a tastier descent.

OK ta.

Hmm thinking now I might be able to bear a little more driving and go and do the Devil's Staircase in Glencoe – love the scenery up there. Is it likely to be spoiled by the number of walkers at this time of year?

I reckon Glen Ample works best south to north.
I suspect that Garry_Lager missed the landy track climb all the way to the start of the glen (from the FC car park)- picking up the signed walking track instead. This then leaves you with gravity helping you out to Lochearnhead.

As an aside – I'm doing Glen Artney tomorrow (as a circuit from Stirling). This makes a fun out and back from Callander.

Anyway – I'd do the Menteith Hills from Aberfoyle. Then any spare energy can be spent riding the GMBC stuff around David Marshall Lodge.

The Arrochar Loop is great, done it loads, but as WackoAK said the fire road at the start is a bit of a slog.

Is it just me or is the map of the route in the link above the wrong way round?

Arrochar routes agood un, but be on your guard on the fire road descent from loch sloy, it's fast and really slate-tastic, you dinna want to tumble on that.

How about Ben Lomond? 🙂

Just back from the Arrochar loop. Maybe it's just me but I thought it was total garbage. Climb for ages on fireroad, descend on fireroad then a tarmac road then onto the "singletrack" that you could have ridden three abreast on. The first part of that section was all torn up with loose football sized boulders everywhere and the second part was a total mudfest. It was also virtually flat for the entire way. Very dissapointed. 🙁

Hmm, well thanks for letting me know. Which way round did you do it?

Ben Lomond descent is fantastic, but do it early in the week to avoid large crowds of walkers. Fast and technical, esp on a hardtail.

A good route from Drymen would be to take the West Highland Way over Conic Hill, then onto Rowardennan. Push/climb up the Ben, leave your bike for the last 40m or so, walk to the top, admire the view, get your bike, put your helmet on and hammer back down. Brilliant fun. Has the advantage of being able to see walkers from a long way off, so no nasty shocks. Have a pint at the hotel, then pootle back to Drymen.

The Mentieth hills mentioned above is also good. If you head to Aberfoyle from Glasgow, go right at the Aberfoyle roundabout and head for the FC car park on the left, at Braeval. The route heads NE up to the south shore of Loch Venachar, then heads west and skirts loch Drunkie before heading back through the forest park.

Grumm, clockwise.

All the way round the fireroad slog I kept telling myself the fantastic singletrack would be worth the effort.

Fail.

OK thanks – will look into that Mentieth Hills loop.

Very tempted by Ben Lomond but the missus thinks it's not one to do on my own. 🙂

What are the Carron Valley Trails like btw? I see it's only 10.5k, is it still worth a look?

Carron Valley is short and pretty easy but fun. There are 3 singletrack sections linked by short fireroads and it's easy to re-do sections over and over without having to ride around again. A good laugh for a couple of hours.

If you're heading to Carron Valley it's also worth taking in Meikle Bin. Takes 2hrs max and starts from the CV carpark.
Foties and Map

Thanks this is all very useful info.

Just to add balance – I personally think Carron Valley is not very good, the surface is like being on a cobbled street.

Second Ben Lomond and the Conic Hill route though why you would stop just short of taking your bike to the summit baffles me! Riding the West Highland Way as an out and back is mint. Rode it a couple of months ago on my own. Plenty of walkers for company and to encourage me along.

Alternatively ride along the West Highland Way then divert off it to climb up towards Dumgoyne at the Distillery. When you hit the main pipe track, cut back on yourself to head towards Kilearn. Just before you reach the outskirts of Kilearn, there is a Land Rover track that climbs up the hill and takes you eventually to the summit of Earls Seat. From there you can either descend back to Dumgoyne, traverse the base of it on a bit of exposed singletrack or follow quad bike tracks over to Slack Dhu to descend down to Cantywheerys. The OS maps show the start of the climb to Earls Seat but there is a trail all the way to the summit.

Another option is to head up the West Highland Way and go for a play in Mugdock Country Park. Loads of trails worth exploring.

Another option is Ben Venue – either hikey bike up the singletrack from the Loch Ard side or follow the big zig zagging Land Rover track which eventually spits you out near the bealach with a short cross heather hop to join the main footpath up.

All good stuuf and all doable in a ride from Drymen without needing to drive.

If you're heading to Carron Valley it's also worth taking in Meikle Bin. Takes 2hrs max and starts from the CV carpark.

+1. Meikle Bin is a nice descent off the east – south/east side. Once you drop into the tree line hang a left after the big fooking ditch (you cant jump it. Really. Dont even try!). Follow this to the end of the trees. Cross the small stream and then from the clearing follow whats left of a forest access road back to main fire roads. Watch for bogs here!

Just to add balance – I personally think Carron Valley is not very good, the surface is like being on a cobbled street.

CV is where I learned to mountain bike. Its worth a lap just to do Kelpies which frankly scares me more than the Ayrs Rock at Laggan! Some big mental block about kelpies. Also Cannonball run is pretty good fun. Infact its all good! Ignore the OP! Just don't expect it to fully satisfy without something else as well – hence the suggestion for Meikle Bin!

Also on the WHW Balmaha to Rowardennan is pretty sweet.Drymen to Balmaha is okay – mostly dull fireroad.

The Arrochar loop is very nice – all the climb at the start (and its a chewy one) and then some bery nice fast forest track descent (ditches to jump) and a sharp right onto some very very nice singletrack.

In fact in Kennys book I have not hit anything I have not enjoyed. For those looking for copys Tiso in Glasgow (the wee one in the city center – not the big one up by Dales) has a few copies of his book. A mate just got one for £16.

David.

BoardinBob – are you sure you picked up the right singletrack ? Up fireroad, cross the wee river, turn right, fast fireroad descent, some gates, pipetracks, water bars etc, right onto water road (or go left up to the dam), down road for a bit then a sharp right onto the singletrack – you go over a cattlegrid and style and then there are good few miles of lovely stuff, with a few very steep ups and natural tech descents – definately not 2 or 3 abreast stuff. Spits you out on the valley floor where you eventaully come out at the head of the loch……

The singletrack section was marked as a walk which was 5.8km in length. There was a sign at the start giving some information about the area. There were a couple of short climbs but no more than 30 second climbs. Any descents were totally churned up and loose with massive loose rocks everywhere. Further down when in flattened out it was total mud.

The only thing that may have happened is there may have been some motorbikes tearing up and down the trail destroying the surface. On the really muddy section there were some very wide tyre tracks that were far too wide for a bicycle and must have a been a motorbike or quad bike.

but yes, it was very wide at all points.

Hi Bob – sounds like it's been damaged pretty severely since I was last there, which was probably at least 6 months ago. Shame as it used to be a great wee loop…… -(

FYI, a squad of us rode Cathkin tonight – it was a ride organised by the sxc organisers to help bed the trail in for the race this weekend and started off with about 45 riders on the first lap ! dropped to 12 or so of us on the second – quite a nice trail now, about 8km in length, with some great downs and lung bustin ups. Surface very grassy so probably weather sensitive but lovely and dry tonight. Makes a good alternative for us southsiders but I wouldn't go there in a group of any less than 4 seeing as you do drop into the edge of Castlemilk and there were certainly a few locals fuelled by buckie encouraging us to keep on pedalling !!

Nice. I'm going up to Cathkin tonight so it should be interesting!

Nice. I'm going up to Cathkin tonight so it should be interesting!

Just got back, didn't have a lot of time for biking in the end so I just managed a couple of laps of Carron Valley. My brother is moving up to near there though so I will try out everyone's suggestions at some point.

CV was ok, the jumps at the end were fun. I thought the Kelpie Staircase was something and nothing – had to check at the end that I had actually done it. 🙂

Walked some of the WHW over Conic Hill, looked like it would be great for biking, but there was so many walkers on it I think it would have spoiled it slightly. One to do out of the summer holidays I think.

looked like it would be great for biking, but there was so many walkers on it I think it would have spoiled it slightly.

very squeaky brakes help!

I do have a Hope Pro II rear hub! 😉