Planning Mountain Bike Rides in Scotland

Scotland is a mountain biker’s paradise. A new purpose built centre seems to open every week following on from the phenomenal success of the 7Stanes project in the Borders. The downhill world cup at Fort William has become a regular fixture in the calendar.

However for me the true joy to biking north of the border is exploring the hundreds of miles of drover’s roads, land rover tracks, old military roads and paths that criss-cross the remotest and best scenery that the UK has to offer.

None of your access laws up here; find a dashed line on the map that looks interesting and go and explore.

Here I try and give some guidelines as to find new rides. There is a wealth of resources and local knowledge out there that help you judge which of those dashed lines are glorious singletrack and which disappear into a bog never to reappear.

Access

As I have already alluded to the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 establishes a statutory right of responsible access to almost all land and water, so long as you behave responsibly.

The exception to this is the stalking season in September and October. During this time contact the estate that you are entering to check where they will be stalking. The Hillphones service covers many of the estates.

There is no stalking on a Sunday.

References - books

There are a number of excellent books about mountain biking in Scotland. These are the ones that I’m aware of.

• 101 Mountain-Bike Routes in Scotland by Harry Henniker. ISBN 1-85158-936-8. A superb guide with routes of all lengths and difficulty although, like me, Heniker favours the long day out in remote hills. He seems to be taunting you to link several of his routes together into one big epic. I often do.
• Exploring Scottish Hill Tracks by Ralph Storer. This book is aimed at both hill walkers and mountain bikers so not all of it is relevant. Another well researched book with the routes leaning towards the lengthy again.
• The Scottish Glens Books by Peter D.Koch-Osborne.. A series of 7 hand written and drawn guide books that detail the condition of every track, path and bridge in Scotland, or so it seems. No complete rides but invaluable if you’re devising your own route into the wilderness.
• The Scotland Trail Mountain Bike Ride by Tim Woodcock. ISBN 1-902891-04-X. The is an account and accompanying set of route cards for a superb coast to coast ride from Kyle of Lochalsh to Montrose. A slightly amateurish and quirky production but a cracking route.

References – websites

There are a proliferation of websites, both amateur and professional, that describe rides in Scotland. Here are the ones that I look at.

• Cycling in Scotland. The official cycling website of the Scottish tourist board has some offroad routes many of which are taken from Harry Henniker's book.
• Forestry Commission. A bit thin on detailed routes and maps but they do list forests suitable for cycling. More useful for a Sunday afternoon pootle with the kids.
• Offroad adventures online. This site has a lot to answer for. The epic rides posted here are inspirational.
• Ecurie Neeps Mountain Bike Club. Based in Aberdeen they have an excellent route section for the surrounding area. They also welcome new riders on their Wednesday evening and Sunday rides.
• Stirling Bike Club. Some excellent routes from around Stirling.
• Mountain biking forums. There are many busy chat rooms populated by mountain bikers. Someone will have been there are tried it. I tend to look at Singletrack world. The best way to glean information is to search older posts or by asking specific questions. General “recommend me somewhere to ride” posts are less likely to be successful. IMHO.
• farm-boy.co.uk. I’ve been on a couple of rides myself and the list is growing.

Maps

I prefer to use the 1:50 000 OS Landranger series of maps (the ones with the purple covers). I find the 1:25 000 Explorer (orange covers) too detailed; paths are hard to make out amongst the mass of contour lines, fences and power lines. In addition you need more sheets which is both expensive and cumbersome when out riding.

It can be useful to refer to the smaller scale Explorer maps when planning a new route as they may give a bit more detail.

On the subject of expense it is now possible to inexpensively buy large areas of maps electronically from companies such as Memory Map, TrackLogs and Fugawi. Combined with the software provided these are excellent for planning trips as they allow you to measure distances and height gained quickly and accurately. With a reasonable quality colour printer you can then produce a disposable map covering your ride.

These products are also compatible with GPS units allowing you to upload and download routes.

Another good tip is if you turn on the lowest level of road in Google Earth many hill tracks are marked. This is especially impressive when you change the tilt to give a 3D impression and when you have it open next to the equivalent OS map.

Harvey produce some cycling maps, such as their Great Glen Way sheet. These maps are waterproof and are very good.

There are two type of offroad roads on Scottish OS maps: tracks and paths.

Tracks, or to give them their full title "Other road, drive or track", are marked as parallel solid or dashed lines. These tracks are often forestry fire roads, estate access roads (whether it be to lodges, grouse butts or deer stalking) or old drovers roads.

Most of these tracks are cycleable. You will only have to push in very rare cases where the gradient is steep and the surface loose. It is also worth being aware that tracks in managed forests regularly change so do not rely on the map in these areas.

With a bit of experience and common sense it is possible to make judgements about the quality of a track just from looking at the map. If there is a large and busy shooting lodge at the end of the track chances are the access road will be good quality. Some are even paved. In contrast a track meandering high up into the hills and ending probably won’t be so well maintained.

In general it is possible to make good progress along tracks although the cycling is rarely technical.

Paths are marked as a single dashed line and are a much more mixed bag. There is some superb singletrack to be ridden. There are also many paths that seem not to exist or end abruptly in a bog. Paths also have potentially much steeper gradients.

I would be reluctant to try and cycle a long stretch of path for the first time with no knowledge of it’s quality. If the path is in a well used area, linking two often visited places or geographical features and appeared fairly flat on the map then it might be worth a go. Otherwise I would be searching the books and websites listed above to see if someone else has been there before. This also comes down to your willingness to get off and push. I accept that some pushing is inevitable but bikes are better ridden.

Times and Distances

How long a route will take is hard to judge and a lot depends on individual speed and fitness. All I can advise is from my own experiences. To give you an idea I am probably of above average fitness and I like big days out in the hills.

As a rough rule of thumb I reckon that 1km offroad takes about as long as a mile on tarmac. However this can vary massively depending on terrain. An hour of pushing and carrying may only cover a kilometre or two and send your average speed plummeting.

10-12 km/hr (not including stops) is a respectable average if there is not too much pushing. 30-40 km is a good distance for a half day ride, 60-80 km for a full day. I once cycled 108 km offroad in a day. This was probably a bit much.

Posted: 03/05/06