First ride back out - West Lothian

manilow

Hi guys,

Just getting back into MTB after being out of it for 2 years after injury.

I'm looking for a few beginner/green/blue area in West Lothian or near to do some XC and build my skills back up.

Was going to head to Bee Craigs just to have a poke around 0 but any other suggestions?

Also thought about venturing down to Drumlanrig as well.

let me know if you can recommend anything.
Cheers

Northwind

Hi there, depends whereabouts you are but there's loads of nice xc riding to be found in the pentlands by Currie... Rough paths, bits of singletrack, some interesting descents, mostly green and blue-ish with wee patches of red... The Bikefax Southern Scotland and the Seven Stanes book is pretty good, it has 3 useful pentlands routes.

Hang on, here's one of mine,

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=3023

13 miles, nothing breakneck, though you can seek out more challenging bits on the loop if you want. You can ride this either way but I do it clockwise personally, less nasty climbing

Here's another...
http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=4014
This one has the drawback of a fair bit of not very fun climbing, you can do it either way but I'd do it anticlockwise as it'd be a real shame to climb through bonaly instead of descending it. Having said that, some of the descents in bonaly are very red, so you might prefer it the other way round for now?

manilow

Northwind wrote:

Hi there, depends whereabouts you are but there's loads of nice xc riding to be found in the pentlands by Currie... Rough paths, bits of singletrack, some interesting descents, mostly green and blue-ish with wee patches of red... The Bikefax Southern Scotland and the Seven Stanes book is pretty good, it has 3 useful pentlands routes.

Hang on, here's one of mine,

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=3023

13 miles, nothing breakneck, though you can seek out more challenging bits on the loop if you want. You can ride this either way but I do it clockwise personally, less nasty climbing

Here's another...
http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=4014
This one has the drawback of a fair bit of not very fun climbing, you can do it either way but I'd do it anticlockwise as it'd be a real shame to climb through bonaly instead of descending it. Having said that, some of the descents in bonaly are very red, so you might prefer it the other way round for now?

Cheers northwind!

They look good and will attempt this weekend.

thanks for your help.

Northwind

No worries... Oh, both of those routes lead up from near my house, but there's no good reason for you to start there with the big tarmac climb, the car parks at glencorse or harlaw would make more sense if you're driving there.

MrWizard

Beecraigs is good for a mess about if you're local, but there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of trails in the mountain biking specific area. The other option would be Carron Valley, but I think it's graded red (you can still skip the difficult bits though).

mc

There's nothing majorly difficult at Carron Valley.
Only 'technical' section I can think of is the rocky chute bit up near the top, and all the jumps can be rolled.

You'd probably be aswell driving down to Glentress, rather than Carron Valley.

Northwind

How did you get on?