I'm planning on spending a week in Scotland next month to go riding with a few mates.

From reading some of the posts on here I've tried to plan a good week taking in some of the best trails. Any comments/improvements?

18th – Drive up to Dumfries
19th – ride Kirroughtree
20th – ride Dalbeatie & Mabie. Drive to Peebles bunkhouse
21st – ride Glentress
22nd – ride Innerleithen in morning, drive to Fort William bunkhouse
23rd – climb Ben Nevis (day off riding!)
24th – ride Fort William xc loops
25th – drive back.

Also, any comments on places to stay would be appreciated – must have secure bike storage (obvious!) and must be cheap (we are all students!)

Thanks!

Ride some natural stuff? More to Scotland than just trail centres.

Sounds pretty good plan to me, natural stuf is ace when you know the area… but if you're new trail centres are tip-top. I'd go for natural stuff on a second visit… for me anyway 🙂

Laggan? Fantastic trails there,

Am looking forward to my holiday in two weeks time, a week near Fort Bill and a week in the Cairngorms. Which reminds me I need to buy maps.

"24th – ride Fort William xc loops"

There's good riding on the fort william XC loops but not really a day's worth. The world cup descents are ace, as are a couple of bits of the advertised 10 under the ben course * but all combined it'd amount to, oh, maybe half of a typical trail-centre red route at most. You'd have to do laps to make it worthwhile IMO. Basically, they're race routes that happen to have brilliant trails in but also a lot of fireroads just to add distance, some obvious join-the-dots trails, and some really pretty horrible climbs. I think it's a wee bit cheeky that they try to pass them off as 2 proper red routes myself, I was very disappointed.

I'd suggest you get a gondola day-pass and do the nevis red "downhill" til that closes then do the WC course, and use fireroad diversions to link Nessie from the 10 Under course into it.

(* the waymarked 10 under the ben course isn't the actual race course, some of which isn't really sustainable… The route we rode yesterday was far, far superior)

For me, I'd take the bike up Ben Nevis. It's brilliant.

I'd also do Laggan instead of the Fort Bill XC trails- Laggan is the best trail centre in Britain. It and Golspie are just miles ahead of everything else I've ridden.

If you fancy natural stuff, skip GT and just do Inners then move on and do the Devil's Staircase from the fort bill bunkhouse and swap either Kirro or Dalbeattie for Ben Lomond. Ben Lomond is superb fun, but both Kirro and Dalbeattie are excellent.

Mabie's crap, don't bother.

Go to Ae even if its just for 'Omega Man' You will not regret it, and out of Dalb, Kirro, Mabie, Ae was the best for me, a superb trail.

Conversely to spokes cycles I would even bother climbing Ben Nevis and I certainly wouldn't take a bike up. Plenty better riding and walking in the area. Ben Nevis is basically a huge staircase most of the way. Dull and hard on the knees.

One of the classic natural rides as well instead of one of the trailcentre days.

While you're off in the west Drumlanrig is also ace. And possible to do shortened loops on too, if you fancy combining it with another ride.

Go to Ae even if its just for 'Omega Man' You will not regret it, and out of Dalb, Kirro, Mabie, Ae was the best for me, a superb trail.

Haven't done Mabie but I thought Ae was way below the standard of Kirroughtree and Dalbeatie in terms of technical variety and flow, Ae felt disjointed and lacking in comparison – different strokes for different folks I suppose.

+1 rudedog

Myself, and the crowd I was with thought Ae was utter shite. Lots of fireroad climbing, then some bizarre staccato singletrack, then a massive diversion downhill on fireroad, to climb back up to fireroad, then the Omegaman descent… which frankly… i found awful.

I suppose it's all about what you like to ride, I like sweeping fast technical singletrack, rocky descents like at Kirroughtree, and long chutes. Ae just didn't tick any boxes for me.

+1 for Drumlanrig. You've to pay more than normal for 'entry' (parking), but it's a lovely run designed by Rik Alsopp, a lot of fun and a slightly more au naturel than a dedicated trail centre.

Just don't. You're gonna waste so much time driving around. Pick an area and stay there, looking for trails centres and getting recommendations for other rides. It's great up here – you'll want to come back, so why try to pack so much in?

If your coming this far, then you have to do Golspie. Laggan is worth it too, you could ride the reds and black in a few hours then move on.

Oh yeah the trail centres are where it's at you should stick to them

Ae is awful. Definitely to be avoided. I'm not being sarcastic in a "this should stay a secret" way- it's the worst trail centre up here by miles.

trail centres and manicured routes: the very antithesis of what mtbing is meant to be about…

Well, that's wrong.

Why the Ae hatred? Its a great trail its certainly on a par with Mabie and Dalbeattie.

To the OP it sound like a good plan but consider whether you want to go all the way to Fort William, you could spend more time in the Borders and ride Ae and Drumlanrig instead

Ae has no downhills of any length to consider despite large amounts of climbing. It can get very muddy (which is not what trail centres are about), doesn't carry speed and all the jumps on Omegaman are blown to bits.

I've ridden it twice now and just can't like it.

I dont hate Ae myself. I just didnt think it was anywhere near as good as Dalbeattie and Mabie – neither of which can match Kirroughtree.

this IMO… you are free to have your own mind and opinions.

I agree with Druidh

Select an Area and ride there for a week.
2 years ago we stayed at Sandyhills for a week and rode the above trail centres – we missed Drumlanrig which in hindsight would have been a far better choice than Ae.

trail centres and manicured routes: the very antithesis of what mtbing is meant to be about…

Nice troll – what do you feed him on?

Dumfries would be a good base to do the following…

less than 20 mins Ae & Mabie
less than 30 mins from Dalbeattie
50 mins from Kirroughtree and Drumlanrig
less than an hour and a half from Glentress and Innerleithen.

rudedog – Member
Dumfries would be a good base to do the following…

less than 20 mins Ae & Mabie
less than 30 mins from Dalbeattie
50 mins from Kirroughtree and Drumlanrig
less than an hour and a half from Glentress and Innerleithen

+1 and with the aid of OS78 lots of proper "off-road" riding if you follow the black dash(tracks)lines 😆

Off to do some on Wed, over to Same ye Ling from Moffat 😆

You are also driving past some of the best hill rides in the Howgills and Lakes to get here 🙄

SpokesCycles – Member
Ae has no downhills of any length to consider despite large amounts of climbing. It can get very muddy (which is not what trail centres are about)

This'll be the only trail centre in the country where you need downlift then? And you're scared of a little mud> Have you considered road riding?

Something to consider,..depending on where you live, why drive to Scotland to ride trail centres? Have you been to Scotland before? ie, the Highlands (Scotland only starts after Callander IMO)
Pick your area, buy the OS map & get lost!

More natural stuff? Try Stirling on the way up north? There's some awesome stuff halfway to Fort William.

Laggan is a great trail centre if you're into that kind of thing. Don't forget Aviemore – pop into Bothy Bikes, get some maps and some recommendations and do the Lairig Ghru regardless.

I dont like Ae forest either, It lacks any flow and the climbs dont reward you with a good decent,I agree with spokescycles in that the drainage is poor making the surface muddy and draggy to ride,not a feature i enjoy about trail centres. 😥

Kiro on the other hand is exellent 😀

Dont forget the natural stuff though,anywhere north of Callender (A84) is great! 😉

esselgruntfuttock – Member
Highlands (Scotland only starts after Callander IMO)

Holyrood would appear to agree with that 👿

Kiro on the other hand is exellent

True but if there had been any money or time left in the budget/project then Ae may have been a lot better. As it was/is it(AE)was 6mths past the end date of the 7Stanes project/funding time.
Like defaultslipper I have spent some time in the shop and there are more people liking the trail than those not, esp visitors.
Being only 7mls away I ride it as often as possible 😆

Have you been to Scotland before? ie, the Highlands (Scotland only starts after Callander IMO)

Well then you'd be wrong. There is a diagonal line that cuts through Scotland which clearly marks the division of the highlands (and indeed passes through Callander). However, because its a diagonal, it starts roughly on the East coast at Stonehaven and actually finishes up as far south as the Isle of Arran on the West (pretty much divides the island in two)

Golspie 🙂

>True but if there had been any money or time left in the budget/project then Ae may have been a lot better. As it was/is it(AE)was 6mths past the end date of the 7Stanes project/funding time.<

IIRC they spent a fair wad of cash on refurbishing the building down there not to mention the fairly staggering sum (£8m+) going into The Peel up @ GT. Cash doesnt seem to be the problem – it's the distribution of it that seems way out of whack.

Oh I agree with someone above you are spreading yourself too thinly with that itinerary.

If you do base yourselves around one area then Fort William would be pretty good as you have a couple of trail centres nearby as well as some excellent natural trails. Do a search on 'Devil's Staircase', 'Ciaran Path' and routes from Fort William.

I can understand why you would want to climb Ben Nevis but the walk up isn't so great unless you do the CMD arete route which is a very big undertaking for a day out. The usual 'tourist path' up is as already mentioned, a slog over stone steps and boulder field and always very busy. You'd need to be extraordinarily determined to overcome these factors to enjoy taking a bike up (and down) there.

If you want to get a 'wow' day out climbing a mountain in that area then look at doing Bidean Nam Biam (through the 'lost valley') in Glen Coe or the 'Ring of Steall' from Glen Nevis. That route in particular is constantly entertaining and gives you views of the best bits of Ben Nevis
Choose your best weather day for clear summits and comfortable walking.

It's a brilliant part of the world.

If you only have a week, I'd either decide to do southern Scotland or the Highlands.

Personally I've spent many happy weeks and weekends in southern Scotland (and have another coming up next month), but I'm much more excited about the prospect of a week in the Highlands later this year.

I wouldn't do the fort william xc routes, did them both last year and wasn't impressed with either. The world cup route has a couple of nice sections but still wasn't worth it overall for me.

I'd do either Laggan (Golspie is no better than laggan and a very long way) or Drumlanrig and use it to break up the journey home.

Agree with Kunstler … if you climb the Ben don't go up the tourist path. CMD arete is good but a bit more knowledge and navigation ability is required.

And if you're riding trail centres don't miss out on Golspie – it might be far but it's amazing!

Save travel and money. Go to Wrexham. If you must come up then stay on those nice trail centres down south, Fort Bill is a long trek for poor reward. You will be disappointed.