Am planning to ride this with two mates in May to raise money for Macmillan cancer care . can anyone with previous experience offer any advice or tips? thanks for any help

Smidge
Fat tyres
A sense of humour

🙂

I’ve thought about it a few times but not sure the reward would be worth the effort. Be aware that you’ll have to skip the first section along the shore at Portpatrick in any case.

Take yer wellies.

planning to do it in May so hopefully no wellies needed

Do it West to East – wind direction.

I’ve ridden the bit from St Marys through to Abbey St Bathans. All very do-able and mostly on a hardened surface.

Tell us when you are doing it, and hopefully I can join you (I live a couple of miles from it) for some of it.

Good cafes en-route:
St Marys Loch
Melrose
Lauder

A lot of climbing out of Sanquhar 🙄

A flat bit just off the Dalveen Pass heading for the Daer Res.

Easy ride from here on a forest/farm track and then tarmac to the dam. Really hard slog/hike up from the dam, aprox 1hr on peat bog/long grass 🙄

Once you climb out of Wanlockhead up to the radar station(use the tarmac road not the supw)the best option is to ride down Enterkin Glen. Much better than the hike`a bike supw route 😆

Good wee descent down Brattleburn followed by more fields and short sharp climbs. Good blast down the twisted road into Beattock, then Moffat for some good cafes.

More climbing out of Moffat;

As someone has already mentiond it is all good riding from St Marys Loch. The Captains Rd over to St Marys is another matter 😥 Unless it has been upgraded?

The Captains Rd over to St Marys is another matter Unless it has been upgraded?

The Captains Road isn’t the SUW.

We went down the ‘Road’ last year and they’ve put a forestry road in that gets you near to the top now – but then its dire/carry for the last mile or so.

Ah.OK. Not been over that way for a good few yrs.
The SupW is a hike up through some fields?
I think we returned via Capt Rd, so long ago and a bit vague 🙄
I do remember being up to the axles/knees at some point ❗

it will be the week starting 20th May . we are all from innerleithen so are hoping to have a few folks join us for a stretch . we honestly have no clue how long it will take One of the guys has a mad idea to start at 1am on the Wednesday and ride as far as we can on the first day. Can’t see that happening somehow. Anyone have an idea how long it could take ?

10 days?
Problem is if you do too much on first day you could end up knackered?
Another problem is logistics re going off route to acquire supply’s 💡
On one of my trips we ran out of water. When we came to a burn there always seemed to be a dead sheep lying in it upstream ❗
Consider starting at Newton Stewart 💡

You could do a long weekend ride by riding over to Moffat, down to Dumfries via Ae. Then get the train up to Sanquhar and ride back to Moffat and then back to Inners 💡

😯

I’d assumed about half that! (only based on having walked a bit on the West coast and walked/ridden some of the central stuff)

Just a guess based on my lack of fitness 😆
Does it not take something like 12-14 days to walk?
Even on a bike there is a fair bit of hiking over this end?
The only printed account I remember was an article in mbuk many yrs ago.
I know a few people who have tried it and given up!

That doesn’t surprise me in the least. Still – it’s on my Bucket List.

It’s in my bucket to stay 😉
Too old and knackered to even contemplate it nowadays 🙄

spoke to a guy who did it over 2 weekends last year. He reckoned 4 days was comfortable with possibly 3 days at a push . I suppose it’s down to weather and fitness. I can’t imagine what 12 hours in the saddle would be like as my arse usually hurts after 4 !!!

Carrying extra the extra kit required for a full on assault is the bit that would get me, dodgy back 🙄
As above, try a few sections over this side on a weekend, get dropped off at Moffat and ride back to Inners.
You’ll have ridden the SupW over to Gypsy Glen from Inners?

10 days 8O, walking maybe.

Start to Moffet, then Moffet to Inners, then Inners to Lauder and final Lauder to the coast – so probably 4 days with some element of support.