Planning a trip North of the border in August and with so much choice I can't decide where to go 🙂

Innerleithen – its the best*

*views contained within are purely personal. Other opinion exists.
Its so close to GT that they can be considered as one when visiting.

Glentress for me. Good value climbing for descending – better than innerleithan from that point of view. Huge variety of trails.

Kirroughtree. Or Glentress. Or Innerleithen.

Go with one of those three and I don't think you'll be disappointed with your 7Stanes experience, but come back and ride the rest some time.
Theyz all good innit.

Kirroughtree cause its ace.

Hmm, Sh1t, spunk, or kebab?

Kirroughtree, but GT does have great facilities as well as riding.

Kirroughtree is my new favourite, followed by Dalbeattie then inners/GT, but then i have ridden inner/GT many many times as it's just down the road so maybe the novelty factor needs to be taken into account.

Ktree because the trail has a fantastic mix of fast and swoopy and technical and rocky, everything catered for.

DBT because it is pretty flat but you need to work through all of it and then it throws some really nice stuff at you.

GT red bit of a motorway but fast and fun the black is always entertaining.

Inners xc is just a lot of fun and there's massive opportunity to explore off the top of the Minchmoor and returning to the trail on the return.

Only ridden Glentress (and only ridden the red route) and it wasn't worth the four hour round trip from Newcastle imho. Riding buddies reckon Inners and Kirr. are better, so might be tempted over for those.

Dalbeattie – felt very different to the others, nice to have a skills loop somewhere that isn't a massive distance from the car park, and good use of natural features.

CaptJon, the drive to Kirroughtree is a lot longer than GT from Newcastle, make a weekend of it if your going. But its worth it.

Ralph – he asked which, and WHY, therefore hoping to garner some clues about each of the centres I'd imagine. I'm sure your post was really enlightening though. 😕
FWIW – I'd agree with K'tree – much quieter, less DH/Freeride sort of stuff (more XC with attitude), nicer environment, varied, less eroded.
Dalbeattie, Mabie and Ae are likely to be pretty much on the way.

My fave used to be kirroughtree, but I think it switched to mabie just for sweepie flowingness recently. not done them all yet though.

kirroughtree because it is just so swoopy and fast and if you do the black its exciting although far away so take your time and ride them all kirr is a very fine night ride BUT DAY OR NIGHT TAKE A MIDGE NET
OTHERWISE IF YOU GET A PUNCTURE YOUR EMPTY SHELL WILL BE FOUND SUCKED DRY

Ideally I'd like the best of what Wales has to offer with the best of what Scotland has to offer so that'd be a 'Cwm Stane'…
Boom tish.

Kirroughtree is my current fave, Why well great trail red and black love the singletrack after heartbreak hill, also friendly bike shop and not too bad coffee shop.

Not done GT or Inner's yet so of the 4 Stanes I've done the above is my fave

Dalbeattie. It's got really fast, swoopy singletrack that always brings a smile to my face along with some really nice technical challenges like the twin sisters and the chute before the slab, as well as those cool shore bits on the rocks. Techy stuff all over along with good views and good flow.

I think Laggan, Golspie and Balblair are the best trail centres though. A level beyond the stanes.

I think my favouite is Kirroughtree as it flows really well. The black is nicely varied. It also has some good technical bits to test yourself.

However I also love Dalbeattie. I'm not sure why. The rock is fantastically grippy which encourages you to try stuff you ordinarily wouldn't.

I didn't think a great deal of Mabie and Ae. They weren't bad but I didn't think they had anything special about them.

Glentress and Innerleithen are worth a trip if you have not been there. Glentress is fantastic as it has all the facilities etc (so if you've travelled you can shower etc). Innerleithen has a fantastic descent.

If you are talking a weekend then I'd ride the following:

Day 1 Kirroughtree (lunch at the Cafe) and Dalbeattie
Day 2 Glentress Red (lunch at the Hub) and Innerleithen

Your legs will feel it after but this is manageable

GT for me purely because it's the easiest for me to get to.

I quite like Mabie to…probably because it was a scorcher the last time i was there!

Dalbeattie

Because it has a fantastic long technical XC loop with lots of extra short black test sections to play on, they are dotted all along the route.