Recommendations for Scotland

onlytovey

I'm planning a trip up to Scotland late September and I have a 5 day biking itinerary to fill. I'm looking for recommendations on where to go. My ideal trip would be 3 days at trail centres doing XC routes and then 2 days riding downhill with uplifts for the end of the week. I'm going to be camping and living out of the car so places with a shower block and somewhere that does good food would be ideal. Shops selling shiney bike stuff for me to perv at would also be nice.

I am reasonably competent and have ridden black routes and various downhill courses. My bike is a Lapierre Zesty so any totally hardcore DH might be a bit much but anything up to Myndd Mojo at Cwmcarn standard is fine.

Cheers in advance

Miggins

Haven't ridden them yet but there are uplifts at Glenshee and the Lecht:

http://www.ski-glenshee.co.uk/
http://www.lecht.co.uk/101.html

Also, this might be useful: http://www.bikemaps.co.uk/scotland/mtb_maps.htm

And this link too, if you haven't seen it already: http://www.forestry.gov.uk/mtbscotland

I tend to hit Royal Deeside and the Grampians for a day's riding (XC stuff) but I don't think you'd go too far wrong with what's listed on the forestry site.

BoardinBob

Fort William for the uplift stuff. Full on DH track or the red graded downhill track which isn't as tough

Plenty of xc trails in and around the nevis range including the WC trail.


http://bike.nevisrange.co.uk/


Then over to Laggan, about 40 minutes from Fort William for the trails there

http://www.basecampmtb.com/

You could head up to Aviemore and ride some amazing natural stuff or head up to Golspie

http://www.highlandwildcat.com/


Or some more here

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/mtbscotland

altern_8

i know its not much help on camp sites etc,but this might give you a idea on what is further north in scotland,if youre using sat nav to get to places tho,just becarefull,as i went to balblair in march,typed it into sat nav and took me to a town/village called balblair,not the actual forest,lol,the forest is near tain


http://www.mtb-highland.com/index.asp

trailpuppet

http://regonline.activeeurope.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=655722
upliftscotland for Ae and Innerleithen

Foll Zofalot

Kirroughtree near Newton Stewart for proper XC, Nevis Red at Fort Bill for uplift via the gondola. If you don't mind driving go to Golspie it's amazing but ideally you want to keep your driving down so you can ride more

Northwind

Don't spread yourself too thin, you can't "do" scotland in 5 days so don't try. Dumfries gets you Kirroughtree, Drumlanrig and Mabie (oh, and Ae, pff) plus Dalbeattie which I don't know myself. Borders east gets you glentress and innerleithen and you could easily spend 3 days on these. Further north you get Fort WIlliam and Laggan as a fairly sensible pair, 2 days no bother- you could spend 2 days at fort william but the non-uplift XC isn't amazing (it's still good tho) But it's a big country and if you try and do too much you'll just end up browsing it and spending half your time on the move.

Kielder is a good one too btw. laps of Deadwater cutting out the awful top section, black red black red til your legs drop off.