Planning a charity ride for 4 of us next spring/summer. Have previously done England C2C, Wales C2C, Wessex Way, etc.
Looking for some great off-road riding in Scotland, preferably 3 days and staring/ending in a place with trains/planes.
The West Highland Way looks good (which way? what time of year?) or possibly a C2C route.
Any suggestions or advice would be most welcome...
Southern Upland Way is great for MTBing (make sure you go West to East) - with a stop in Glentress/Innerleithen midway?
Are you intending to camp? Want the mountain singletrack or use the estate roads? Ridden in the highlands before?
Plenty of good routes from the West highland line to the East coast main line.
[url= http://www.offroadadventures-online.com/rr014.html ]tour des cairngorms[/url]
Dalwhinnie to Fort William is a fairly safe bet, taking in the Bealach dubh beneath Ben Alder, a slightly squishy section before descending towards Loch Rannoch, then follow the old road to the isles into Loch Treig. From there you could climb up then descend to Kinlochleven (a couple of routes to choose from there) and from Kinlochleven you could follow the WHW to Fort William.
Taking three days over the WHW would mean you were fresh to enjoy the good bits, but also means day 1 would be fairly un-interesting. Doing it over two days means big days (75km approx) but divides it up quite neatly.
I took four days going from Blair Athol (East coast line from Edinburgh) to Fort William (West Coast line back to Glasgow). It was a great trip but would be miserable if the weather wasn't good to you. You could shorten it by going south from Dalwhinnie, heading for the Rannoch train station, but that would still entail three days at about 70km a day
Looks like some great suggestions in there - thanks!
Tandemjeremy - not planning on camping, as this would mean too much gear to carry, especially for technical riding which we'd like some of.
donald - cairngorms route looks awesome - have you done it?
13thfloormonk - sounds interesting - I'll need to get me some maps to see where the hell you're talking about (apologies - southerner who only really knows the main touristy bits up there!). 70km for three days sounds about right, as long as its not too technical - we need something to challenge us, to enable us to get more sponsorship.
Then again, most of us are on the wrong side of 40 with kids, so it doesnt take much to challenge us fitness wise these days!
Any more suggestions/details welcome.
Also - what time of year do the midges come out to 'play'?
The Cairngorms route is awesome.
There's a train station at Blair Athol (but we drove there). We started in Blair Athol, stayed the first night at the Loch Morlich YH, the second at Inverey YH (since closed) which meant that the third day's riding was only really half a day to help with the drive home.
Some photos of Cairngorms day one here: http://gallery126268.fotopic.net/c1575877_1.html
Sadly, my Camelbak drained 3L of water through my camera overnight on day one so no more pics.
Mmmmmm...... Glen Tilt 😆
I would go west to east because of the prevailing wind - start at fort william and head for the A9 corridor perhaps if you want to use trains - the advantage being you don't have to get back to your start point. Most of the stuff I have done is the less techy stuff so I don't have any specific advice but you can go fort william / corrour / laggan / dalwhinnie / glen garry / Kinlochrannoch for example. There is a bunkhouse and a yha at corrour and a bunkhouse at laggan
Midges are worse the later in the spring / summer - so earlier in the year is better - may is usually good.
Google OffRoadAdventures. It's a great website.
Other than that I'd recommend the Cairngorms. There are several great routes possible there. The problem with many other parts of the country (eg Rannoch Moor) is you'll have a lot of pushing to do.
The midges are terrible, but if you're not camping they shouldn't be too much of an issue. Oate April and May is generally best for weather.
The other thing I would suggest is look at different routes in different areas and make the pick based on weather forecast / prevailing wind at the time - ie Southern upland way / cairngorms / speyside
Good point about the prevailing winds! I spent a long three or four hours battling against the wind going down the Great Glen to Ft William, nae fun!
KennyP, are you suggesting there's no pushing in the Cairngorms? 😆
May is good not only for less midgies, but every trip i've done in May has been blessed with decent, if not downright beautiful, weather.
Wouldn't leave the waterproofs at home though...
[i]KennyP, are you suggesting there's no pushing in the Cairngorms?[/i]
Well if you do the Braemar - Glen Feshie - Aviemore - Tomintoul - Braemar loop then it's about 99.5% riding. It's pretty much the only long route with that sort of percentage in the Cairngorms.