Offroad on Islay, Jura and Arran?

is there much or non?

cheers

I believe that there has been a few threads on Aran, seems like there is quite a bit.

Having been there a few times over the years, I must admit I would love to go and explore.

If you’re choosing an island based on whisky ( 😀 ) and riding surely Skye, with a good visit to Talisker, would be top of the list?

And if you’re on sky, take a road touring bike and do the western isles (avoiding Lewis, bit boring) whilst you’re out there?

Hope you’re great tony, Ventana top is still fabulous! 😆

Kev

For Arran try contacting the Arran MTB club. Extremely helpful guys, met us off the ferry once and took us a spin about. Their site has a few route maps on it as well.

The stuff on Arran is OK, I did some of the routes from the Arran MTB site a few years ago, and would say they’re the upper end of average to be honest.

No idea about Islay, but I’d be very surprised if there’s any worthwhile biking to be had off road on Jura from what I’ve seen from the West coast walk

Lots of good off road stuff on Arran

Arran Route map

The little ridge across the Clauchlan Hills is amazing.

Was in Islay last year, not much off road riding. Nice for touring though as its pretty flat. Plus lots of distilleries if that’s your thing.

No idea about Jura. Its a lot hillier than Islay. It has almost no-one living on it though so any routes will have been made by the sheep!

There are bits and pieces of off road on Skye like the Slighahan loop but not a great deal given the size of the island

Arran yes, Islay and Jura I would say no but I may well be wrong. The three can be linked up fairly easily met two cyclists from Manchester on the ferry to Islay once, they had left the car at Ardrossan caught the ferry to Arran cycled over to Lochranza. Ferry over to Claonaig then biked it over to Kennacraig for the Islay/Jura ferry.
Think they did it on a tight schedule 4 days or something but taking your time could easily stretch it out for a week.
Islay is a great Island been a couple of times through work last time was during the Whisky Festival.

looking at a (rough) plan for a tour, road and offroad.
Ardrossan, Brodick, some offroad on Arran, Lochranza to Claonaig, possible bit of offroad to Tarbert, ferry to Islay, explore there and Jura, over to Colonsay, ferry to Oban and a road spin back to the start.

(rough) being the basis of my plan 😆

Just head out to the Isles, if the weather is with you there’s nothing you will regret IMHO…

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Arran. The stuff in the Clauchlands and the Cock of Arran are quite fun.

Also ridden from on Kintyre doing the Tarbert to Clonaig and Cloanaig to Clachan Sections of the Kintyre way. Nice riding but nothing technical. Generally Quad track width with bits of singletrack. Best descent would be coming back down into Tarbert. Coastkid did a Trip report of the whole route a while back.

Ive did the Clauchlands route a couple of times , the wee clifftop run is a superb section of trail, would like to explore the other side of the island though, Arrans well worth a visit 🙂

There is a killer on Islay (and I think that’s about it), now removed from latest OS maps, I was sent there by local Tourist Office – started laughing hysterically about halfway down the “it’s a nice family walk” – I was now unclipped as it was about foot wide sheep track clinging to the edge of a hill with a rather nasty drop to the side and then I had to carry over about a mile of thigh deep bog/tussocks, worth it – to have a golden eagle hovering with you – yes, very indistinct/good map skills/gps reqd – mail in profile, not really recommended unless you want a challenge

Arran is glorious – recommend forestry track from Lamlash to Whiting Bay (via Glenashdale falls and Giants Grave, you can go down edge of coast from Whiting Bay to Kings Cross point (*stiles, nav difficult – I used to live there) and then along to Fish Farm and up or you can deffo walk along beach to lamlash and there was talk of ‘pathing it’