I also don’t drive, and have even considered writing a book or putting together a website about this exact issue. I live in Sheffield, so am already winning when it comes to accessible trails, and my parents live in north Wales, pretty much next to a train station… plus I recently spent 3 months living in Inverness. So I thought I’d share…
Peak district – check out the monkeyspoon website – it doesn’t really seem to be updated anymore, but most of the trails they mention are still very rideable, and easily accessible via the stops on the Hope valley line (Hope, Edale, Grindleford, etc.) which runs hourly between Sheffield and Manchester. I took a friend who’s new to MTBing up from Hope to Potato alley the other day and (I think) he loved it, so that’s worth checking out.
North Wales – the Marin Trails are fun, relatively easy and easily accessible from either Llanrwst or Betws – it’s a trail centre but whatevs. A really fun ride (or I enjoy it, anyway) is to set of from Dolwyddelan and head north over the landrover track to Pont Cyfyng. From there you can either head down to Betws-y-Coed (and the train station) or head over to Llanrwst (and the train station). Alternatively, you can head to Plas y Brenin on the fire roads, and then pick up the by-way that goes up to Tryfan/Cwm Idwal, and then either double back in order to come back to Betws, etc. or keep going down towards Bangor.
Scotland – there’s a couple of books called “The Wild Trails” vol 1&2, which have loads of circuits which are accessible from train stations, although they don’t usually make it terribly clear how to do that. The ones I did were:
– Torridon circuit from Achnashellach station – absolute 5 star classic, but long, hard and technical, so perhaps not for beginners. Also the station is amazing in it’s own way.
– Ben Alder from Dalwhinnie station – not especially hard, but very very isolated.
– Glen Tilt from Blair Athol – fun, quite a long day, with nothing to tricky
– Burma road from Aviemore
– Loch an Eileen and Loch an Einach (sp?) also from Aviemore – fast, fun, easy.
– Glen Feshie from Aviemore – boring, wouldn’t really recommend. Also, there’s a bridge which the book I had says you should cross, which was washed away in 2011. Not sure if that’s been updated in later editions though.
– I also improvised an almost coast-to-coast from Achnashellach back to Inverness via Glenuaig, although that involved a fair amount of riding on the road, so I’m not sure about that one.
Besides the train lines in Scotland, there are also buses that allow you to take your bike, although the only one that I remember that does that is the bus from Inverness to Ullapool. From there you can get onto a coast-to-coast which is described in vol.2 of the books above, IIRC, and will get you back to a train station on the Inverness to Thurso line, although I’ve forgotten which one… Ardgay, I think.
If you do spend some time up there, it’s worth trying to make it over to Skye. I went over in January and again a few months ago, by getting the train to Kyle of Lochalsh and then cycling over the bridge to Broadford. It is a fairly unpleasant cycle ride down an A road to get there, but once you’re there you have access to all sorts of wonderful places, and in particular Glen Sligachan, which is described in one of the books above (vol 1 I think). I really can’t recommend Glen Sligachan highly enough.
