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  • Something for the Fifers. Name that hill?
  • mcmoonter
    Free Member

    We do this as a night ride too. 😀


    glupton1976
    Free Member

    Green Hill?

    Edit: Scratch that – East Lomond.

    mcmoonter
    Free Member

    Cold

    glupton1976
    Free Member

    I only recognised it because I managed to take a couple of photos around that area which got published in a book.

    Bloody good hills though.

    themightysimmonite
    Free Member

    Benarty Hill.
    And I’m no even a Fifer………..

    mcmoonter
    Free Member

    Benarty Hill.
    And I’m no even a Fifer………..

    Give that man the coconut.

    It’s a gem of a hill that has some great routes up and down it. A couple of minutes off the M90.

    maddyutah
    Full Member

    McMoonter

    Never been up Benarty on bike,what route do you suggest.

    cheers

    Bagstard
    Free Member

    Climbed that many a time as a youngster, my gran lived in view of it.
    Always wondered if there was much riding there?!

    mcmoonter
    Free Member

    McMoonter

    Never been up Benarty on bike,what route do you suggest.

    cheers

    We usually combine it with a spin around the trails at the Lochore Meadows country park. From there you join the Pit Road heading west where you pick up the trail up through the woods on Harron Hill. It’s a great rooty and rocky but very rideable climb which in springtime is covered with bluebells through the Beech woods. The trail pops out onto the ‘Avenue’ which is a farm track, turn left on to it to where it crosses the road.

    Immediately in front of you are a flight of stairs. You’ll have to push the first flight and around the first bend, from there on it’s rideable up to where the path meets a track at the viewpoint with the bench.

    Turn left up the track, it turns into single track which if you are fit is rideable as it turns to the right following the fence line up to an obvious point where the track crosses over into the heather towards the top. It’s rideable from there all the way initially to the Peak Stone and over the plateau to the trig point. Go a little further and you can look over Loch Leven where the picture was taken from.

    As a return loop we ride back from the trig point back, over the peak stone and back to the fence. Dont cross the fence. Turn left and you’ll pick up an initially feint single track trail which contours then descends heading east. follow it until you come to a corner in the fence line where it meets the plantation. Cross the fence and descend. Be careful as there is a cliff on your right. You can either drop straight on down to the fire road or you can pick up a trail which runs alongside a dyke back up into the woods to the edge of the forest, where you then descend on the fre road. more work could be done to build a trail back through the woods here to make more of the descent.

    Follow the fire road down until you come to a sharp left hand hairpin bend with a double track heading off uphill to the right. This doubletrack will take you back up to the bench at the top of the stairs you climbed earlier. From there on just retrace your tracks.

    There are another two ways up. The first is a climb which starts nearer the shooting ranges up through the forest. leaving the Kelty to Kinross road signposted for Balingry you pass the shooting range hut and a couple of houses. As you enter the woods the start of the climb is on your left about 200 yards past the last house.

    The path zig zags all the way up through the woods until you pop out over a fence onto the hill proper. There’s a hike a bike of a couple of hundred yards until you reach the Shooting Range flag pole at the top. from there follow the path which contours around the north shoulder. A lot of it is rideable, with one or two pushes. You’ll drop to a saddle where you’ll pick up a much more established path to the trig point.

    There is one other way up. Mid way between the stairs at the end of the ‘Avenue’ and the shooting range climb, there is a lodge on the south side of the road. On the north side there is a gate into a field, which has a grassy road which climbs up to a deer fence, you cross it sticking to a more established ‘road’ until a single track grassy path turns off it to your left towards another deer fence. this will take you to the saddle mentioned above where you’ll turn right up to the trig point.

    It’s not a huge hill, but you get amazing views from the top. The descents are much like those in the Pentlands.

    Maybe we should try and organize a ride up there, perhaps combining it with some of the trails at Blairadam which are only a mile or so further away.

    maddyutah
    Full Member

    Hi Mcmooter

    Thanks for the info.I know blairadam/loch Ore fairly well but would well be up for a show round Benarty

    Cheers
    Maddy

    surroundedbyhills
    Free Member

    Ah! Mc Moonter if you are convening a Scottish STW meet up then post up I don’t know that part too well so would be keen.

    Cheers

    mcmoonter
    Free Member

    Sounds like a plan, we will try and organize something before too long.

    bearGrease
    Full Member

    A meet up sounds great and getting to know some new trails is an added bonus. I think there’s a footbridge across the M90 so maybe an easy link up. Blairadam’s a maze of faint rooty trails though.

    joshvegas
    Free Member

    I’m game.

    rickon
    Free Member

    Chocolate mudslide FTW!

    surroundedbyhills
    Free Member

    Blairadams’ had a fair bit of felling going on the last I passed by.

    mcmoonter
    Free Member

    Blairadam is as good as it has ever been, if you know where to look.

    althepal
    Full Member

    Work/family allowing I’d be up for some tiding out your way McMoonter..
    Edit- riding even.

    mcmoonter
    Free Member

    Here’s something from a little known river crossing at Blairadam. The burn is seldom that deep.

    athgray
    Free Member

    What’s the climbing on Benarty Hill like? Looks good from the M90.

    neallyman
    Free Member

    Mcmoonter was I speaking to you and another rider you were with on the fire road in Blairadam yesterday morning? I was on a grey santa cruz. If not you please ignore this post, just thought I recognised the bike in the photo.

    ps nice post re Benarty Hill…but you’d need some set of legs and lungs to ride up most of that singletrack described on the first route up, it’s a push for the most part even after the steps end 😀

    vorlich
    Free Member

    Mcmoonter is that bit down by the underpass? Haven’t been down that bit for a while as there wasn’t much of interest last time I was, has it improved?

    There’s a thread on trailscotland for the rest of you wanting more detail on the trails at Blairadam. I see someone has been working on the lower section of the old mast trail.

    Blairadam has been great this summer, if only it were always that dry…

    coastkid
    Free Member

    Thing about Fife is everthing is the wrong way round to the rest of us east coast folks! 😆 🙂

    Here in East Lothian we look north to the coast and highlands, east to the sunrise, and west to the sunset.
    It felt real weird over there when i was at Elmwood Collage at Cuper. all back to front 😀
    Do like your “Paps of Fife” great for photos 🙂

    vorlich
    Free Member

    I should probably point out at this point I’m not a proper Fifer. 😉

    mcmoonter
    Free Member

    Mcmoonter was I speaking to you and another rider you were with on the fire road in Blairadam yesterday morning? I was on a grey santa cruz. If not you please ignore this post, just thought I recognised the bike in the photo.

    Aye that was us. Its good to put faces to folks. It was Murr that was with me.

    Mcmoonter is that bit down by the underpass?

    Kind of. If you head down the fire road from the forestry car park there is a junction with a green gate. If you pass the gate there’s a trail to your right, follow it for a hundred yards and come across the burn and the bridges. Cross them and follow the trail up until it hits the gravel road. Murr and I ride up that way from Lochore Meadows.

    Thing about Fife is everthing is the wrong way round to the rest of us east coast folks

    I have the same problem when I come over your way to ride with italspark. I need to get back over and have a ride with you guys.

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