Mountain Biking trip on some of the best Scottish routes

What would you choose to do on your short holiday break, when you work in the outdoors?

Outdoor Explore offers kayak tours on lochs, rivers and sea mainly so this time we went mountain biking to Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland with friends from Alyth Cycles (www.alythcycles.co.uk).

If you haven't visited 7 Stanes Mountain Bike centres in Scotland yet, change it! They are really well developed project,, mainly by Forestry Commission. 

Five out of seven centres is in Dumfries & Galloway so it was an obvious choice for four of us to go camping and biking.

We set off from Blairgowrie on Saturday, as work still had to be done in the morning. Straight away we headed off to Kirroughtree. 

AS all these attractions, they are easy to find. Alwyas signposted well, included standard brown road signs, helping you to find the right directions when you are nearby.

Kirroughtree is quite large bike park, which beside great routes has also cafe, bike shop and camp site (closed at this time of the year though). As the day were still short on that day (clock was changing over the next night) we only managed to complete one route. We probably would stay longer but we also had to find somewhere to wild camp, ideally nearby and the weather was horrible; rain and quite cold (3-6 degrees).

Quite luckily we found a great, hidden spot nearby just by the edge of the bay. Even we started to set up the campsite in a pour rain and darkness we managed to have a great BBQ and chilled evening.

Following day was much, much better. Slightly less rain, so it was time for breakfast and hit the road to the next bike park. I do have to mention here a great gift I have been given earlier this year; Kelly Kettle. If you are camping often and would like some hot water to boil quickly, get one! It's a genius, Irish idea of boiling water on mini fire. I had 1.5l of water boiled in under 4 minutes, in the rain, using only two 'tweeks' of silver birch! Amazing, in my opinion.

So anyway, next bike park, Dalbeattie. Much less car park infrastructure but still done to a high standard. There is a toilet block and nearby cafe if needed. Tracks are much more 'rustic'. Plenty of single tracks, through the narrow forest and with great views whilst riding on the nearby hills. Again, place worth visiting. 

And at the end even sun came out! So a really good, very active and extremely short weekend.

To top it up, we headed off to Kippford, where an Anchor pub serves superb meals for not to much money! You really should head over there when you are in the area.

Once more, short, active breaks are amazing. Completing a challenging trip when you think there is no time for a 'proper' holiday is really worth doing. You might be exhausted on Monday at work, after driving 400 miles, riding in two bike parks, wild camping in cold March and cleaning all the gear at 6.00am before going back to work but at least you have amazing stories to tell...

Till the next time then

www.outdoorexplore.org.uk

www.alythcycles.co.uk