Scotland - looking for info about rideable tracks

[321up]

We are planning a wild camping walking holiday in Scotland and I'm wondering if it is useful to take bikes to haul our stuff to remote areas and to use for trips to restock provisions.  It will also give us another option if the weather is too poor for walking Munroes.

By rideable I mean on a sturdy touring bike loaded with camping gear (e.g. low level tracks).  We don't want to be up to the axles in mud or dragging/carrying them across boulders.  Any suggestions where we can find information about bicycle friendly tracks in Scotland?

One option we are considering is to start at Corrour station.

Cheers.

[Wowbagger]

It sounds as though you are too far north for this to be relevant if you are doing Munroes, but the track through the Forest of Ae, between Thornhill and Moffat is a git. Lots of loose stones that make it very tough in places, but it is quicker to ride it (12 miles) than to walk.

[Mrs Pingu]

Depends where you're going. Many of the Munros in the east of Scotland are reached by land rover track, where a sturdy bike can be helpful in getting rid of the long boring trudge in and out. In the west, not so much.

[eck]

If it's of any interest, I seem to have a book called "Exploring Scottish Hill Tracks" (Ralph Storer) published in the early 90s. Tracks for walking and cycling. I've never actually used it, so I'm happy to pass it on (foc). PM me if you'd like it?

[fuaran]

Ralph Storer's book can be useful, so that's a good offer from eck.
Also Peter Koch-Osborne has a series for the Scottish Glens. These can be very useful, they describe what paths and tracks are like, ie whether they are ridable, or any gates etc. But again, these are from the 1990s/early 2000s, so may be out of date if tracks have deteriorated or new tracks built etc. Don't know if there are newer editions?
Not sure if there are any more useful up to date books. There are plenty of mountain bike guides, but most seem to prefer much tougher routes, so you would struggle on a tourer.

Also can be worth a look at Geograph. http://www.geograph.org.uk/
It has a lot of photos, covering many remote parts of Scotland. So the photos can show you what the tracks are like.

For Corrour, there are tracks along both sides of the loch, going from the station to Corrour Lodge. I think these may be a bit rough, but ridable slowly. Then its a wide, gravel track all of the way from the lodge to the main road in Glen Spean. But its still a fair distance to cycle. And it would be a lot further along the road to actually get to any shops, ie Spean Bridge.
There are also paths and tracks west from Corrour, heading for the top of Glen Nevis or Loch Eilde Mor and Kinlochleven. But these can be extremely rough, wet and boggy, and probably involve fording rivers. So not recommended, unless you want to push or carry your bike for miles.

[321up]

Thanks for the replys and book offer.   It sounds like it could be very hard going cycling the tracks in that area. C. has little off road cycling experience so I think we will leave the bikes at home for this trip.  We'll save off road cycling in Scotland for another time find an area where the tracks are better.  I've cycled a bit of Sustrans route 7 in the Strathyre area which was very good.  I've also ridden a track from Tarbert to Maraig which was ridable, but a bit rough in places.

[Richard Fairhurst]

(Slight plug) My 'umble route-planner over at http://cycle.travel/map takes into account surface information from OpenStreetMap. That can be a bit incomplete, but if you click on any part of the planned route, it will look for photos from Geograph as suggested by fuaran. (I added that feature for exactly this reason - to find out what the going was like before venturing onto a bridleway or similar.)

[αdαmsκι]

I did a great bike / walking trip up Glen Tilt a few years ago, which has a decent land rover track up the valley.

We rode from Blair Atholl and left the bikes at Marble Lodge and did Carn a' Chlamain (963 m). We dropped off the northern side of Carn a' Chlamain and stayed in the Tarf Hotel bothy, which is here: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/idld.srf?X=292715&Y=778945&A=Y&Z=120&lm=1 From there we did An Sgarsoch (1,006 m) and Carn an Fhidhleir (994 m), returned to the bothy and then followed the Tarf downstream to where it joins the Tilt. There was an amazing camp site on the eastern site of the Tilt, about here: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/idld.srf?X=298390&Y=779560&A=Y&Z=120&lm=1

Next day we did Carn Bhac (946 m), return to the campsite to collect the tent and then walked back to Marble Lodge to collect the bikes and ride back to Blair Atholl. Two nights out in the wilds and four Munros .