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Has anyone walked or cycled the Scottish National Trail before? Or parts of it?
Stumbled across it as I’m looking for things to do this summer and it looks pretty interesting. I wouldn’t have the time to walk it and I can’t find anyone’s experiences of cycling it - is that cause a daft idea and nobody’s tried it?
Looks like it starts off relatively mellow down south with a lot of river and canal paths and starts to get more remote and difficult as you head north - saw a few walking reports warning about how boggy it gets at points.. maybe not ideal for cycling!
I’ve ordered the guide book, hopefully that’ll spill some more info..
Cheers!
I've not done it, but I thought it was mostly linking existing long distance paths? WHW, Southern Uplands, Union/F&C canal tow path, Rob Roy way etc. Perhaps the bit north of the WHW gets boggy?
I'm not quite sure when I would want to do it - if I had the time would spending twice as long in the nice bits not be more interesting than half the time joining the dots just to say you had travelled one end to the other? I realise other people are more motivated by "completing" something.
Some sections north of the WHW are untracked. I guess it would be possible to come up with a suitable, bikeable diversion but then, as poly says, that might not feel like having done the route.
I am going to be doing it once I have finished my Corbetts,I quite like the idea of just seeing how the land and it's use changes as I head South( I know, wrong way).But yeah; there is an element of "compleating" to it so will be sticking to the route. Might even wash while on the central, heavily populated stretches.It is 864km, how long are you planning on taking to cycle it OP?
Yeh I get what you mean, poly, about focusing on the best bits but i quite enjoy doing planned routes like this as it takes some of the route planning responsibility away from me! Another part of the appeal is the "completed it mate" aspect and seeing the changing landscape as duckman mentions. Maybe eventually I'll get in to planning my own long distance routes. Good point about linking the pre-exisitng routes as well, will probably be easier to find some ride reports from the individual sections
I'm really not sure how long I'd take @duckman , my planning's not yet gone much further than watching a few youtube videos over breakfast! I watched a video of a guy that "fast packed" it on foot in 14 days, averaging around 60km a day which I think would be more than doable on the southern paths up to the WHW but potentially much more difficult further north... I'd be pretty pleased if I managed the full route in 14 days
Still a lot more research and planning to go but it sounds like it could be a pretty interesting replacement for the usual trip out to the Alps during the summer
For cycling, look at the Badger Divide from Glasgow-Inverness:
https://www.komoot.com/collection/909195/lochs-bothies-the-heart-of-the-highlands-the-badger-divide
Looking at the Scottish National Trail website - it's a walking route rather than biking. Many bits are also boggy bastards (I am thinking Glen Banchor, Clunie Inn - Affric YH). I have done them on a bike but progress is not rapid.
Cheers StirlingCrispin, badger divide looks pretty good!
HT 550 and the Hebridean way look pretty interesting as well. Hebridean way is mostly on road I think but sounds amazing as I’ve never been over to any of the islands
The more I read about the Scottish national trail the more I think it’s probably not a good idea but the itch is definitely there now... “how hard can it be?” 😀
