Im looking at riding more trail centers/waymarked trails this year in scotland but as I dont have a car im gonna be reliant on trains. Are there any decent riding spots near a train station? I can only think of fort william!
Cheers

depends on where you are, but Cwm Carn is an easy ride from train station, i used to ride up tow path from Newport but i believe that there is a nearer station now. I also believe that Afan isn’t that far from a train station.

not exactly a trail centre but Swinley’s only 15 minutes from Bracknell or Martins Heron stations

Don’t know if they still do it but a few years ago the busses between Machynlleth and Coed Yr Brenin had special racks on the back to take a bike. I think the busses for Nant Yr Arian had the same

Not exactly Scotland either. 🙄

The racks were taken off the Trawscambria buses a year or so ago as insurance required the owner of the bicycle to load them so Arriva would not be responsible for any damage to the cycle however this could not be done on a public highway due to the risk of passengers getting run over. The only place that loading and unloading was allowed was at Dolgellau depot whilst drivers swapped over. Great if you want to put your bike on the back of the bus for a scenic tour of N Wales finishing back in Dolgellau but not much kop if you actually wanted take your bike for a ride somewhere else. Service buses also now no longer pull into the depot to swap drivers so there is now nowhere that would be suitable even if the racks were still in place.

Laggan is not too far form newtonmore – ten miles or so?

FTD and Monkey are 5 mins from Hednesford train station, and its only 2 mins cycling before you hit the heritage trail which can take you straight to Birches Valley.

Cwmcarn has Crosskeys station 10 mins away, connection from Cardiff.

its not a trail centre but theres plenty of routes near church stretton on the long mynd

mabie is only 4 miles from the train station(dumfries)… drumlanrig(sanquhar) is 10miles, ae is 10mile(dumfries), kirroughtree(barhill) is 20miles, wolfrax(Dalwhinnie) is 7miles.

golspie and balblair

What stu said about the mynd

Also Nant if you get the train to borth you can join the longer route at Nant about 1/2 way round.

Also Mach you can get on teh cycle path and do the Mach trails or the Climachx

CYB is a good ride from Dolgellau but do able.

Stations like Pitlochry or Blair Atholl are superbly placed for riding – an embarrassment of riches really. The routes are not waymarked as such but a lot of them are classics that are very well described online, so you needn’t be taking on proper hairy-arsed wilderness stuff if that’s a concern.
There’s stuff around Dunkeld station that can be made short and loopy, analagous to trailcentre riding. The Beinn a Ghlo circuit from Blair is THE gatekeeper route for highlands riding in that part of the world if you wanted to do something longer.

Dumfries station is 12 miles from Dalbeattie and 10 miles from Ae

train to port talbot, then there’s a cycle path all the way to afan

I know it’s not it the title but he was asking about SCOTLAND!

When I was looking into getting the sleeper train up to Edinburgh I found these lot who do a shuttle from stations to trail centres. Not cheap though;

http://go-where.co.uk/pricing/shuttles/

Why don’t you just post up somewhere and get a lift? Try mtbscotland.net for starters, we do a mix of trail centres and wilderness trudges, a predominantly Edinburgh/East based group.

Ever considered the West Highland Way? It’s waymarked and you can start at Crianlarich to miss out the Loch Lomond stuff and head up to Fort William over a couple of days.

Corrour for some great routes really remote also arrochar and tarbet for routes around loch long again not trail centre but less remote than corrour