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I've got a few days off work in August with no other stuff to do, so thinking of a DIY training camp.
I'm looking for recommendations of locations and bike friendly hotels with the following criteria (although some outside the box ideas wont hurt too).
- good mix of terrain - flat rides and some long climbs from the same base.
- 300-400 miles of nice scenic riding - no busy roads, but likewise no gravelly cart paths.
- Comfortable hotel with good food and ideally secure bike store.
- Cheapish (on a budget of ~£100/day inc food)
- Ideally within a 3hr drive from Fife - don't want to waste a whole day on travel
And yes, before anyone says it, I already live in a pretty good location for these requirements, but would like to get away somewhere a bit different if possible and not worry about cooking or washing the dishes.
If it was me I'd go for the Hilton at Coylumbridge.
Tweed valley.
in the spirit of STW I'm going to ignore your requirements and suggest Majorca.
Braemar.
Flat circuits by going out on S Deeside road towards the coast at say Stoney, then north again towards Peterculter, then say Inverurie or Alford, then back via Ballater.
Hard hill reps? Ride along to Crathie, climb and descend to Gairnshiel, same to Strath Don, up and over the Lecht to Tomintoul. Return. That'll burn...
Big day out circuit? Climb up to Glenshee ski centre, go over and down to Glen Isla, Kirriemuir, Cairn o Mount, back on South Deeside.
Are you broken yet....?
in the spirit of STW I'm going to ignore your requirements and suggest [s]Majorca.[/s] [b]wherever i happen to be going even if it's irrelevant [/b]
have you thought about the Algarve?
@Gary, hilton looks good, road network looks a bit lacking though - will try and plot a few routes.
@highlandman, looks a pretty good shout, will check out what accommodation is available. Again, slightly fewer roads than i had in mind, but enough for a 3 day camp
I'll try again.
The borders.
road network looks a bit lacking though - will try and plot a few routes.
I did the Cairngorm 100 a few years ago, cracking route with a mountain top finish. Can't find the route for that online though. The roads are generally quite small round those parts so make sure you zoom in on the map 🙂
I'll try again.The borders.
Done a fair bit of the roads west of selkirk already - in many ways its like further north in that theres very few roads = lots of time on A roads (granted not all A roads are that busy).
A bit further east looks like it has potential though
I did the Cairngorm 100 a few years ago, cracking route with a mountain top finish. Can't find the route for that online though. The roads are generally quite small round those parts so make sure you zoom in on the map
I did follow up on that a bit more - looks to be ~200mi of great riding north of Aviemore. Some spying with google earth looked like it might not be the easiest place in the world to find cafe stops though, and at training pace i've only got a range of ~45mi before cafe/bottle fill stop is mandatory.
On a related note, spent ages searching through hotels in various areas - wtf is up with tendency to serve 'posh' food. I'm sure it tastes nice enough, but not what you want when you are riding bike all day every day.