Scotland 300 miles

jaworski86

Hi! I just started planning my charity bike ride for this year and I would love to go Scotland. In my mind there's an idea of starting on north coast and go south as far as I can and do about 300 miles in 5 days, mostly off road. I did some research and to my surprise there is not much information available anywhere about good routes in Scotland, especially long off road
Could anybody recommend me a good route or at least some parts that I could put together later on :?: Soemthing challenging but not crazy. I am fit and going to train a lot but I am not a pro. I think the hardest rides I did was Jacobs Ladder and Ladybower in Peak District. Longest ride about 70 miles.
I am planning to wild camp so accommodation not needed.
GPX files would be highly appreciated
Thank you for every advice.

UH DH

The longest off-road I can think of is the West Highland Way.

If you're intent on top to bottom, you could get down as far as Inverness, then down the Great Glen Way to Fort William, then on to the West Highland Way which takes you to just north of Glasgow.

lg18

Look at the Sustrans routes, which are a mix of quiet public roads and some easy offroad.
http://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/routes?region=48&type=72
(there is a map with the routes on, different colours indicate on and off traffic-roads)

Other than that (and the West Highland Way), it is a case of inspecting the maps and planning a route that best links the landrover tracks, of which there are many, although many don't link up.

There are some old Drovers routes that you could try to link up with quiet roads and sustrans too, e.g. the Minigaig Pass etc. I think there will be Drovers roads websites. Many of them will be unrideable at times though.

Hope that helps,
Lucy

jaworski86

Thanks for your advice! I am planning on doing north part of Scotland this year, but I will probably ride West Highland Way next year. I searched through loads of maps and I found that:
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/cape-wrath-trail.shtml
I would start in Thurso, cycle to Rhiconnich, then south this route to Maol Bhuidhe and finish with short Skye loop.
Have anybody ever been there? Is it rideable?

lg18

The Cape Wrath to Fort William trial bumf says: "Although many sections follow paths and tracks, there are also some sections which are pathless and a high degree of navigational skill is required." Without having the OS maps in front of me I can't give you much detail, but the route clearly at times goes very high over really rough and steep mountainous ground for quite some distance. For starters, I have done the Cape Wrath to Sandwood Bay walk a few times (in the 1980s!) and back then it was 100% pathless and 100% unrideable. Nowadays there may be a hint of a path through the heather and bog from more walkers, but probably pretty unrideable. Then from Sandwood Bay to Oldshoremore should be mostly rideable as it is now a wide and maintained path.

You will probably get useful feedback posting this in the Trail Scotland forum
http://www.trailscotland.co.uk/forums/

Lucy

Colinthecop

I'd be tempted to try and fit this route in -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrieyairack_Pass

There's a bothy at either end of it which would give a bit of variety if you're normally camping.