Product Description

This guide features 25 rides fo all abilities. Areas included are Southern & Central Scotland, North West Scotland and Highlands, North East Scotland & Cairngorms - the guide includes challenging mountain passes, woodland singletrack, Munro peaks and gentle loch-side rides.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46878 in Books
• Brand: Cordee Books
• Published on: 2009-04-20
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• OS 1:50 000 mapping
• easy-to-follow directions
• details of distance
• time and difficulty
• refreshment stops

Review
"Vertebrate Publishing has made a name for itself with a series of glossy, highly polished and well researched guidebooks to some of the UK's favourite riding spots." Mountain Bike Rider (MBR) Magazine "I'd say the best Mountain Bike Guide I've seen to date." Planetfear.com on Yorkshire Dales Mountain Biking - The South Dales"

About the Author
Phil McKane is a Scottish Mountain Bike Leaders Association (SMBLA) qualified trail cycle leader, mountain bike leader and expedition leader, and has over 15 years of experience in all aspects of mountain biking, from cross country racing to epic tours. Phil runs Scottish Mountain Bike Guides (www.scottishmountainbikeguides.com), leading mountain bike holidays and skills courses all over the country, from the 7Stanes to the Western Isles.

Customer Reviews

An Essential Companion on Mountain-Biking Journeys in Scotland
We've used this book in and around the Aviemore area and it proved very helpful. The range of routes and the directions (using an OS map) are quite impressive, though I would recommend anyone to buy the OS map for the region they wish to explore as well.

We also bought the "Bike Scotland Trails Guide: 40 of the Best Mountain Bike Routes in Scotland", the poorer of the two guides.

Its attention to detail is a vast improvement on the latter book - we got lost twice using it. Thus, buy this book and avoid the bike Scotland Trails Guide.

Wild to the heart.....
Another mountain bike guide from the Vertebrate Publishing stable using the same tried and tested format as proven with their guides to the Peak District, the Lakes and the Yorkshire Dales.

To me a guidebook should be more than just a set of instructions on where best to go: It should be a sage that offers advice and encouragement to enable you to push the envelope and to travel far beyond where you would go normally. And that's what has been achieved here. Up until this guidebook became available, the only source of information on mountain bike routes in the Scottish Highlands were either some fairly bland guidebooks, occasional descriptions in the magazines or adaptations gleaned from walking routes, which are frequently unridable. The guidebook itself is small enough to fit in a bum bag, comparable in weight to a map and robust enough to survive being taken out on each ride.

To those who think Scotland is primarily trial centres and man made playgrounds, think again: The highlands are an awesome area of wilderness. To put it all in context: Snowdonia is pretty much fits on 1 Landranger OS map. You would need more than 40 to cover the Highlands alone. The Lake District has 3 mountains over 3000ft, Scotland has in excess of 280.

I've just returned from a short trip with a fellow middle aged, middle capability partner, both of us riding XC hardtails, where we sampled some of the routes up the west coast.

* Glen Finglass: A short, sweet circuit in an area frequently driven
past on the way North. An excellent circuit with a gruelling climb
rewarded by a roller-coaster descent.
* Glen Sligachan: We rode this the opposite way to described: A
fantastic ride through the spectacular mountain scenery of the
Cuillins and Blaven to the sea.
* Torridon Circuit: I'd seen these paths marked on the map but had
never had the confidence to try to ride them. Although describing
the ascent as 'mostly ridable' might have been stretching it a
bit, the single track descent into Torridon was superb.
* West Highlands Tour: I'm not sure if I'd go along with splitting
this into 2 days, we rode it in a day although it was very, very
rough and tough (rocky). An number of other options are available
to take the ride further East, although this would add to the
amount of road, and these weren't mentioned.

We found the descriptions and directions accurate and easy to follow. We finished the rides well within the times given, however we did have the benefit of good weather. The suggested extensions give some good pointers for pushing on a bit further. A gentle word of warning: Although the guide includes sections of OS maps for the route, in some cases you do need the maps themselves to give us a better appreciation of where you are and what our options were.

So all in all: At last a quality guide to help open up the wilderness of the Highlands. 9/10.

More good stuff
Anyone who is familiar with VG's great trailguides for the rest of the UK will know the format of their guides; great trailmaps, inspiring pictures and what I find to be the perfect level of information; enough that you don't get lost, but not so much that feel like an infant being spoon fed.

The guide is divided into 3 logical sections and each of these sections has a range of rides, varying from quick blasts to full day trips and multi-day epics, including an accurate description of the Coast to Coast ride starting in Montrose and finishing in Fort Bill.

Many of the routes described are the "classic" XC circuits of Scotland, usually taking in fantastic scenery, sampling from all the varied and beautiful parts of the country. If you are a "local" you will probably know the trails closer to you, from word of mouth or basic information on a website or forum, but away from your home turf the trails are all here, accurately described, and neatly laid out using OS Style Maps, so all mapping is familiar and easy to follow. If you planned on doing all the routes in this map using the individual OS Maps it would cost a fair few pounds.

This is a great guide for anyone, either local or visitor, who wants a bit more adventure from their mountain biking than following the neatly marked "pistes" at the trail centres scattered across the country. Definitely worthwhile buying for yourself or as a pressie for any friends or family who are mountain bikers.