WHW ain’t exactly remote – but then that’s also one of the attractions of it. There are some very good reports/threads over on the http://www.trailscotland.co.uk/ site.

Are there better gems? Definitely. e.g. the Cairngorms Loop is 186 miles with a couple of villages en route. There are lots of modifications possible.

Both are easily accessible by road or rail.

Another vote for trans cambrian. Great scenery and very few people. Just get a minibus back at the end. We did it over a fairly leisurely 3 days.

100k maybe?

Walked all of the WHW and cycled bits. Done lots of the Cairngorm tracks but never joined up like that (both are in plan for early 2014)

I think the Northern loop would be best. Aviemore to Tomintoul, down to Braemar and back via Feshie – but it’s all good.

Lakeland 200 google it, great route with quite a few sort cuts if your struggling would recommend it!

I’ve down the central Gorms route in a day; did it anti clockwise which was a mistake as there were several hours of frustrating hike-a-bike (somebody will come on and tell you it’s all rideable but you’ll need to conserve energy for the whole loop), pinch flats. 11 hours all told.
I think the riding in the eastern Gorms is better.

if you have the gpx file there are several sites that do this – GPSVisualizer, GPSies etc

The bare bones Tour de Cairngorms is an easy three day loop, or a hard single day.
Used to be a site with the basic route, can’t find it at the moment.

Here’s a reasonable loop round the Cairngorms for two days:

A Cairngorm Loop

There’s links to the GPS trace route on endomondo further down the thread. You could easily make it three days by going down Glen Tilt instead of Glen Geldie on the first day, then going up to Aviemore over the Minigaig or Gaick Pass on the second. I can give you any details you need for the routes, as I’ve been round a few times!

Funkystuff : 11 Scotland Roadie Routes in here

following the thread…

+1 for Trans Cambrian c120mls and 12000ft of climbing iirc

Locals are used to the bikers now so taxis will port your bags to the next pub/inn and chap in Mach minibuses you back to your car once you’re done.

Trans Cambrian is fun. Hardly ‘rad’ but surprisingly remote and a good three day ride, with decent connections to return.

The full WHW (with Loch Lomondside hike-a-bike) is (IMHO) AMAZINGLY AWFUL! Far better to start in Crainlarich or Tarbet and do an enjoyable run up to Fort William and back.

Pennine Bridleway might be worth a stab, but you’ve probably done that kind of thing.

There’s a couple of ways around it, my plan is to walk it and get one of the packlite companies to take the bikes from inversnaid to invernan for us while we walk that section.

You could also, get the boat across, if you want to cycle, from inversnaid cycle up the road to ardlui(but is a horrible road for cycling on, so I don’t fancy that even though it’s only 6 miles or so)

Or you can get the boat across from rowardennen, jump on the train at arrochar up to ardlui and boat back across.

option 1 for me in April.

im going to agree with the above poster who said to just do the top half of the whw, i did the whole thing for charity and the bit from fort william to crianlarich is absolutely awesome. but the section at the top of loch lomond is pretty hard and none of the stuff from crianlarich down is actually much fun (apart from conic hill). if youre going through kinlochleven the macdonald hotel is really friendly and very good value, me and my kids stayed in their cabins twice last year. kingshouse is good too, but a bit more expensive. if you do decide to do the whole thing, then id definitely add a +1 on leaving your car in the carpark behind the police station in milngavie (the highland gateway premier inn carpark, they let you park there for a charity donation), get the train to fort william and do it north to south. the train company is great about bikes, but you HAVE to book in advance. Its free to book your bike on, and you dont have to pay for your ticket when you book the bike spot. what else….. oh yeah, alternative routes. torridon. awesome for 2-3 days. get that place in good weather and you will be absolutely blown away. drive up, base yourself in the youth hostel, its the best place ive ever been for just chilling and riding, i came away from there unbelievably relaxed. another one im planning this year is…train to mallaig, wee ferry to inverie, bike over to arnisdale and get the ferry to skye from glenelg, then get the train back. on paper that sounds awesome…has anybody done that and if so, how long did it take to get from inverie to arnisdale, can you do it in a day (no bravado please, i want to enjoy it not set records! if you don`t think it can be done by somebody relatively fit on a bfe then please say!!). wherever you decide to go, i hope you have a great time!

It would be with a full loaded bike, dodging that section and conic hill(as I’ve done that before, and it’s an awful lot of effort for an overly steep downhill.).