Day 1 - Aviemore / Burma Road
Burma Road is one of the classic walking / cycling trips on General Wade's Military Roads. From Aviemore it's a single steep climb of about 500m vertical, followed by a quick descent, then basically following a river to Carrbridge, before returning to Aviemore.
It took us about 2hr30 to reach the summit, but we did stop off to find a geocache on the way up, and weren't exactly rushing it on the first day.
Day 2 - Laggan Wolftrax
The Laggan Wolftrax is a Forestry Commission trail centre not too far from Aviemore, with a couple of Red Loops (bot were fun), a Black (didn't do that), and some swoopy/jumpy trail down to the carpark (did bits of that a few times). Phil crashed on the last jump, and somehow ripped the brake lever clean off the bars (but was not damaged), and bent a wheel.
Day 3 - Loch Morlich (walking)
Since Phil's bike needed repairs and the bruises from the day before were a bit sore, we decided to take 1 day out and walk around Loch Morlich. Checked out Bothy Bikes shop, and also the famous Inshriach Nursery Cake Shop. This is highly recommended. The cake is superb, and there's a view of numerous bird feeders, and more species of birds, squirrels, etc. than most people could name.
Day 4 - Innerleithen
Drove south to Innerleithen (the first of the 7 Stanes trail centres on out list), and met Howard there. There's really only 1 red trail (plus lots of normal non-marked paths), which basically goes up-up-up, then down-down-down. Saw lots of death-cap toadstools on the way up. Phil broke mech hanger almost at the summit of Minch Moor, which took a bit of bodging in to a single-speed.
Day 5 - Glentress
Second trail centre. We did the Red loop with the intention of doing Blue or something after lunch, but we had so much cake and a late lunch that we decided to skip the afternoon riding.
Day 6 - Ae
Is there any other town or village in the UK with a shorter name? We drove to the final hostel and met Jez (Howard's friend) to do the Ae Red loop. Weather was amazing, and too hot and sunny to sit outside for lunch (plus there were huge 2inch long wasps, which turned out to be non-stinging wood wasps).
Day 7 - Kirroughtree
Last day and the 4th Red loop. After lunch we had a bit of time to do some of the Blue loop, although a large section was closed due to forestry work.
More Photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104347553800437592244/MTBScotland2011
