A group of 5 of us are planning to ride from FW to Iinverness.

Will be doing a route based around but the Great Glen Way but with excursions round Ben Nevis etc.

We will be wild camping to add an additional level of fun.

The main stumbling block is transport.

Options are:

Sleeper from Crewe to FW and then train from Inverness back down south. Pros: No-one has to drive, go point-to-point.
Cons: Have to buy tickets well in advance meaning that there is no flexibility if plans change. Sure that Virgin / whatever their name is today can only take 3 bikes meaning its difficult to get the full team on one train.

Hire a transport of some description and drive.
Pros: Under own steam and can split dirving
Cons: Will have to leave van in FW and get back to it after finishing in Inverness.

Anyone done this route and have found solution to the above?

Looking forward to hearing views!

Thought about this ourselves but it's a pain to make it work.

100% train could work but Scotrail will only let you book 2 bikes per train. The West Highland Line trains will carry at least 6 bikes and Glasgow/ Edinburgh to Inverness at least 4 but you're not allowed to reserve that many spaces. East Coast trains (there are a couple a day from Inverness to Edinburgh) are generally better as they often have a guards van. Virgin and Cross Country are quitehopeless as the Voyager trains have very little bike space. If you wanted to drive part way, the the railway lines only meet in Glasgow (i.e. can go Glasgow to Ft Wm and Glasgow to Inverness – there's nowhere closer that you can do both).

If you're not going to use the train then you either need 2 vehicles and leave one at each end or use one vehicle and the bus (either get the bus back to Ft Wm, or go up the day before and someone takes the van to Inverness and gets the bus back to Fort William ready to ride the next day). It's about an hour or an hour and a half drive from Inverness to Fort William.

Third Way would be to ride back – could go back via Aviemore, Newtonmore and Spean Bridge to make a nice loop.
–

It's a 2 day route – why not make it circular? Long drive up here for 2 days biking!

Can give you some info on a circular you like.

cheers

http://www.highlandbicycletransfers.co.uk/

tiggs – sometimes the easiest solutions are the best!

PLEASE send over some info,

good man!

I didn't think that Virgin ran the sleeper, or am I wrong?

How about drive to Tyndrum, then train up to Spean Bridge (?) then circle up towards Inverness, across to FW and get the train back?

Sleeper is run by Scotrail.

Virgin run West Coast mainline services.

EDIT: Cross Country and Transpennine Express also run some trains from NW England to Glasgow and Edinburgh

I had a similar logistical nightmare a few years ago when doing an off-road ride from Garmouth (start of the Speyside Way, about 30 miles east of Inverness) to Fort William. In the end, I decided to drive to Dalwhinnie (on the Glasgow to Inverness line), leave the car there and get the train to Elgin, ride to Garmouth (about 5 miles), to start the ride. A couple of days later, my ride passed through Dalwhinnie so I picked up my car and drove across to Spean Bridge (on the Glasgow to Fort William line), dropped the car off and got a taxi back to Dalwhinne to continue my ride.
When I eventually got to Fort William, my plan was then to get the train back to Spean Bridge to pick up my car and drive home (though I ended up getting a lift there instead)

Dalwhinnie is about the nearest point in the Highland between the two lines without having to drop too far south. The taxi cost about 40 quid but was still the cheapest & least time consuming option* (Dalwhinnie to Spean Bridge is about 35 miles).

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this because, as others have said, booking that many bikes on trains is the problem. I booked 8 weeks in advance and still they (Scotrail) managed to f88k up the booking. At one point, a guard asked me to get off the train because others bikes had been booked AFTER I had booked mine on…

*Thinking about this again, there is probably a PostBus option between Dalwhinne and Spean Bridge but I was leaving Dalwhinne on a Sunday so no PostBus that day…

I can also help throughout the Highlands

http://www.TicketToRideHighlands.co.uk

and Andy can help further south

http://go-where.co.uk/

This is what is known in the trade as a self-imposed risk, plan a 'circular' route.

It is doable by train, but you need to use the sleeper at the Fort William end and the Highland Chieftain (East Coast Service) at the Inverness end.

The Highland Chieftain leaves London at 12:00 noon and gets into Inverness at around 20:00
It leaves Inverness at around 07:00 and gets back into London around 17:00

Both EastCoast and Sleeper services have guards van areas to store bikes – take a lock.

Google Scotrail Sleeper Bargain Berths for some deals as low as £19 each way (although I've never managed to get one for that price on the dates I wanted 🙁 )

And the Sleeper doesn't run on a Saturday night.

Depending where you are travelling from, you could change from the Highland Chieftain at Edinburgh or any where down the East Coast. The most northerly station you can get on the sleeper is Preston.

HTH

if you are struggling to get bikes on the train..
take the wheels off.. wrap everything up in bin liners.. – its now luggage!

At least you are planning to do it the right way! Inverness to FW is just plain difficult..

I had a very similar conundrum a couple of years ago and came up with this (almost) circular route to solve it

We started in Inverness, GGW to FW (1.5 days), then Spean Bridge, Newtonmore, Rothiemurcus, Granton on Spey, Speyside way to the coast and hopped on the train again at Elgin. 5 easy days in total.