Looking for some route advice. A few friends and I are thinking about doing a week long coast to coast from Stonehaven up to the Inverness area and then hooking up with the mbr coast to coast from a couple of years ago. Any thoughts about trails/routes?

Funnily enough we have a group planning the same thing near enough. During xmas eve beers it turned into a c2c distillery tour!

We are forming a committee to organise it and the meeting room will be the pub to help see what distilleries we are going to! WIN!

twice i have rode roughly the route of the southern upland way from portpatrick to co-path near my home about 6 or 7 years ago over a long weekend..got train to stranrar, rode to portpatrick to start of the SUW,..last time 2 nights bothys 2 nights bivvy,usually quiet just a few walkers seldom any cyclists,around 260 miles..

suw for sure- proper ctc
you up for a ride tomorrow, coast kid , im in morham
what do you think ?

Ultimate Scottish C2C would be Mull of Galloway to John O'Groats.

Ullapool – Bonar Bridge – Ullapool

C2C2C!

via how many munroes ?

There's no "e" in Munros

A route I've seen in a few books is Fort William – Montrose. I'd like to do it but Fort William feels like cheating – too far inland. I'm not sure where a better startpoint would be though.

Ardnamurchan?

Why not from Stranraer to Eyemouth via all of the 7 Stanes?

cos the stanes are not mountainbikingeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

My house to Ullapool is a local favourite 😛

has anyone got a gpx file of a scottish c2c route??? would be much appreciated if they do!!!

i met a couple in their 50,s from yorkshire riding lands end to john o,groats last september, off-road on a rigid tandem. when i talked to them they were pushing the tandem up the devils staircase and asked me how rideable the descent was……..hardcore or what ?

kyle of lochalsh to montrose is a popular and ridable route never seen the fortwilliam version of it

How about all the coasts? Fort William to Cape Wrath back to Brora, about 15 days at 50k a day 😀

Scotland has a south coast as well you know.

Oops… basic drunken geography fail on my part! tend to think of scotland as a square with the south 'coast' being the border… 😳

I'm not sure about going anywhere near Montrose!! The second half of the coast to coast is pretty much confirmed as Bonar Bridge to Ullapool but I was thinking about tacking on a ride up the Dee valley before hand to relive one of the best rides of my yoof. Trying to make it up to Bonar Bridge as far offroad as possible. Any ideas (other than taking most of it on the old railway path)?

Ardnamurchan Point to Dunnottar Castle (Stonehaven) – did it back in '99. Went via Glen Shiel, Great Glen, Corrieyarrick Pass, Rothiemurcus etc. 4 days of glorious riding and weather!

Thebikechain, you mentioned distillery to distillery? I have done from Royal Lochnagar to Glenlivet then on to Spayside to Knockando, I work at Royal Lochnagar so give me a shout if you are coming by and if we can manage, some of the bike club might be able to join the ride on the trail near us, that goes for you to Fat-boy-fat, Happy new year to you all http://www.9zerofreewheelers.co.uN

Pistola – Cheers for that. Looks a top route. Any details? My email is in my profile.

Hal – Will defo drop you a line at some point. I've got good memories of Ballater from my yoof.

Train to Mallaig, bike out along Loch Morar, boat over to Knoydart, bike from Inverie over to Barrisdale, on to Kinloch Hourn, over towards Glen Shiel, up towards Glen Affric etc etc, ending up eventually somewhere on the Spey, then switch to canoes and spend a pleasant couple of days paddling down the river to the coast via some distilleries.

It would involve a fair bit of planning and outside help, but could be done.

Fat-boy-fat – can't see your email in profile?

Anyway, our route was as follows:

Day 1 – Start at Ardnamurchan Point. There is singletrack round the north site of the peninsula or you can take the single track road. Headed to Strontian and then turned north up onto the forest track up Glen Shiel. We then chain-ganged it on the road to Ft. William. About 70-odd miles.

Day 2 – Up the Gt. Glen cycleway to Ft. Augustus then over the Corrieyarrick pass to Laggan/Newtonmore. Again baout 70-odd miles.

Day 3 – Newtonmore up through Feshiebridge/Rothiemurcus area to Glenmore, then Ryvoan Pass, Glenmore Forest, over the Braes of Abernethy, Bridge of Brown to Tomintoul. A shorter day at 40-odd miles.

Day 4 – South from Tomintoul down Glen Builig (great singletrack) then east towards Ballater. then followed the old railway line towards Banchory, over Scolty Hill and The Slug to Stonehaven and then up to Dunnottar Castle, which a bit more of a scenic milestone to finish. Was 60-odd miles.

We had a good friend in a car that met us at various points with food and carried our overnight gear. I thouroughly enjoyed it. We did it in Sept 99 and were blessed with good weather. We did it for one of the mags – it was in MTB Pro I think in early 2000.