The riding in the Cairngorms is the best in the UK
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Yes agreed. There’s nowhere I’d rather ride ( Torridon excepted)

Equally Hegart’s Pure Brewed Loch Lager* is defo the best UK lager, but you wouldnt dream of trying to impress a German alcohol enthusiast by filling him full of Hegart’s as it isn’t a patch on what he can get at home.
You’d fill him full of cider and dark beer and all the other stuff.

Although the gorms are great and a ” Britain’s only sub Arctic wilderness, with cliffs towering over 900ft High, with deer and squirrels and wild ferocious….. erm field mice :-)” is that really going to impress someone from Alaska

No. Take them to a trail centre or two and then spend a chunk of the week in the Lake District.

* replace with whatever your lager of choice is.

Here’s a playlist from youtuber bkxc I came across recently

of a week-long UK visit (skip the first one which is just flights and Hope factory). Includes Highlands, Tweed Valley, Wales, Lakes and, er, Dalby (if I remember right? Surely not. Either way, avoid), and even to my surprise Stainburn. Gives a bit of a US perspective on UK riding, and you could do worse for an itinerary.

Oh yeah, skip to the end of the first vid which is just flights and Hope Factory, riding starts with vid 2.

Heck yeah great find on that video series!

@inflatlight

I’m curious what sort of riding you do in Alaska. Is there actually much mountain bike specific singletrack or, as I suspect, just endless miles of motorized double-track or FSRs?

Either that, or I imagine fat-bike riding along grizzly bear infested shorelines or along frozen rivers/lakes 😉

I can’t imagine there are sufficient volunteers to build many MTB specific trails any distance away from the larger population centres….

is there a preferred map with realistic driving times for UK

Google maps is pretty accurate for driving time, and navigation. I think you’ll find UK roads busier and more intricate than you’re used to. When renting a car, if you want auto, say that, or you’ll get manual gearshift.

I can’t imagine there are sufficient volunteers to build many MTB specific trails any distance away from the larger population centres….

That got me thinking. Maybe there are enough MTBers around the big cities to build trails, etc, so I looked at wikipedia. Alaska’s population is 736k, a density of 1.26/sq mile. Compare that to Wales at 3.3million, 388/sq mile. Juneau has a population of 32,255, Anchorage of just under 300k. So Anchorage’s population is slightly larger than the city I live in, and the state capital is smaller than Neath.

Riding around here will be eye opening, I think, not just because there are great trails everywhere! 😀

Assuming your arriving in to London? Scotland is best part of a days drive from Heathrow so you could spend two of your seven days behind the wheel if you’re not careful.

I know this has been several time before and is generally true however due to the density of spots getting to Scotland particularly the borders is very possible in a week. Ride I. The day, grab some food and drive three hours in the evening will get you a long way.

I live on south coast and in-laws in Fife means I quite often drive up and hit a few places. Last time it was leave home 09:00 -> South Wales , ride, drive to Mofftat sleep drive to Peebles. It’s about using dead time for driving.

If it was me, I’d focus on one country,and it would be Wales due to only having one week.

Heathrow, m4, South Wales, mid Wales (Elan valley), North Wales and back south via Shropshire and the Long Mynd (or Peak). Not spreading too thin and plenty of very varied riding for a week without daft driving times.

I focus on the tweed valley. With bravery you can go incrementally from green to EWS level in a week and never repeat a segment.
GT, inners, Yair, thorny, golfie.

Easy for me to say though it’s an hour to get and 25mins to Yair

@markgraylish you’d be surprised…, we do have some singletrack and established riding areas in various areas of AK. Also some very cool old mining routes, crazy amounts of fat biking in the winter. I am in Juneau…, not great fat biking in winter, which is fine…, skiing is my thing for that time of year!

Check out Trailforks for AK and you’ll get the idea. https://www.trailforks.com/region/alaska/?activitytype=1&z=7.1&lat=58.54347&lon=-134.45560

Bottom line though…, we like to travel for modern purpose built trails for the most part. The amount of riding available all over the UK is overwhelming!

For those pushing Scotland, I am not ruling out Boarders…, going to start in Wales and see how things shape up! Looks like one could spend weeks riding in the UK and not scratch the surface!

Anyone have any info on riding Snowden? Worth it?

Thanks @greaybeard re:Google maps! Appreciate it. I will need a bit to adjust to left-hand drive so hoping to get out of London quickly.

All I can say is bring a good waterproof.
You have officially ended our summer!
We’ve also gone in for roundabouts on our roads in a big way. If you don’t have them in Alaska it might be worth watching a video.

@zippykona yeah I wondered about that. I think Juneau is about the same latitude as the Scottish Highlands and I have heard we have some similarities with precip. Hoping for a bit drier than here though.

We have a couple pf roundabouts here, thanks for the head’s up!

Anyone have any info on riding Snowdon? Worth it?

Yes defo. I think it’s excellent. Especially compared to the paucity of decent bridleway riding in the rest of North Wales.

Essentially there are three bridleways on the hill which are radiate out roughly NW, W & S

The easiest route follows the railway from llanberis. The first half is mainly rideable up, and bits of the second half would be if you gave yourself enough breaks in between. It’s not that great as a descent.

The Ranger path has 3 distinct sections: an easy kitty litter, rideable bottom section, a stunningly brilliant rocky gnadgery middle section and then relents before joining the route above just before the summit. The middle section is definitely HaB on the ascent, but superb down.

( the standard day trip goes up 1 and down 2, followed by something called telegraph valley to get back to Llanberis)

The third Bridleway is the hardest and least travelled, Rhyd Ddu. Like the Ranger path it has an easy bottom section, and then brilliant but hard middle section. But unlike the Ranger path the top section is a narrowish scary ridge that a lot of people push.

There are loads of permutations to combine the three. Last time we went up Railway, down Rhyd Ddu, up Ranger then down Ranger. We were supposed to do the second ascent up a different path but opted out of that due to snow and failing light.

I’ve still not done the Cingles, but it’s on the list.

Snowdon has a voluntary cycling restriction on the main bridleways between 10am and 5pm until the end of Sep, but even after then it can be busy with walkers during the day. If you’re not up to speed on access to public rights of way, they are paths where the landowner is legally required to give access to the public & classified by the modes of transport that are allowed. In England and Wales bikes are pretty much treated like horses, so you’re legally permitted to ride bridleways and byways. That does not mean that landowners will automatically take exception to you riding a footpath, but some (eg Snowdon) will be busy with walkers so no fun anyway, and others will have all sorts of styles and stuff to carry your bike over, and some will have tattered signs saying “no cycling”. However, any issues about riding a footpath are between you and the landowner (or their agents), NOT any other random punter who decides that they don’t want you there. If you get into that sort of conversation the best solution is to be massively over pleasant, agree how silly the rights of way system is and maybe explain how confusing it is to a visitor from overseas.

TL;DR – be nice, say hi, if you get “lost” and find yourself on a footpath then don’t worry too much unless the person who owns the land asks you to stop.

In Scotland you can ride anything with consideration, so much simpler!

Just to reiterate in Scotland the right to ride is a qualified right not absolute. Qualified by being responsible. You must give way to walkers and horses. You should avoid boggy bits when its wet etc etc

Looks like one could spend weeks riding in the UK and not scratch the surface!

I’ve been MTBing here for 30 years and still not scratched the surface. There is MTBing nearly everywhere.

Re Snowdon – as above, you are legally allowed to ride most of the main trails up, but there’s a voluntary agreement not to do it before 5pm. The Llanberis path is largely rideable on the way up, but less fun on the way down – for that you want the Ranger’s path. However they start on opposite sides of the mountain so your best bet is to push up the Ranger’s path which you can start before 5pm cos you’re pushing. I’m not sure how much of it is actually rideable on the way up.

Heading to South Wales later today and plan on making my way north. If anyone wants to ride, shoot me a message here and we can exchange contact info. Pretty excited to get to ride in the UK!

Cadair Idris is also good fun if you’re headed up Snowdonia direction, there’s a bridleway the whole way up so it can be ridden all year round at any time of day.

Heading to South Wales later today and plan on making my way north. If anyone wants to ride, shoot me a message here and we can exchange contact info. Pretty excited to get to ride in the UK!

If you’re in the Swansea area and want to be shown some good trails, and beer and ice-cream, give me a shout.

@inflatlight I’m guessing you’re likely to be heading up a bit further west but if you’re coming past Shrewsbury let me know and Ill see if I can sort out an Eastridge and Stiperstones ride.

Interesting time to be a tourist here! Make sure you get into lots of philosophical discussions about the modernisation of the monarchy 😃

Interesting time to be a tourist here! Make sure you get into lots of philosophical discussions about the modernisation of the monarchy

And don’t ride your bike on Monday

Would this really be disrespectful? Or were you kidding?

Really an interesting time to be here. I don’t have a great understanding of all of the issues surrounding the monarchy but I can only imagine what the US would be going through if a sitting President were to pass (obviously not entirely comparable).

Hi inflatlight, I’ve sent a DM for possible mmet up and ride.

Would this really be disrespectful? Or were you kidding?

We’re not (yet) Thailand so the worst that would happen is you encounter a total gammon who sees fit to defend the monarch’s honour. Plenty of sane folk around able to discuss objectively.

Gammon. It’s like bacon. But thicker.

Would this really be disrespectful? Or were you kidding?

I’m kidding with regards to the British cycling advice

Worth stopping at Eastridge if you get the chance.

@Inflatlight
They’re taking the piss with regards to not riding on Monday 👍

However if you end up at Cannock Chase please make sure you buy a pass before riding or you could end up in trouble.