The Pictish Trail

The Pictish trail officially starts at the furthest northerly point in the UK at Dunnet head, however I think it’s a much more enjoyable experience in reverse and that how I took on this epic 450 miles (ca. 724 kilometres) 724 Km route through Scotland. I found the trails to be easier to ride in this direction, with the climbs more on the smooth side and the descents a little more on the technical side. Also, going these ways is filled with them, perfectly long gradual descents that Scotland is the best for. Whichever way you go, this is a great route with some excellent trails and memories to be made.

I chose to start in Edinburgh and make my way up to Dunnet head. (The Furthest northern point on mainland UK) because it takes more than a day for me to get there. There aren’t a lot of trains all the way to Thurso. This is also true to get back to inverness there is around 3 trains most days. So starting this route at Dunnet head can be a bit of a chore to get to. You will need to pre-book your bike on the train from inverness to Thurso. These trains get booked up fast and can normally only take 4 bikes per train. Now let’s get onto the actual ride and route itself.

Will need to remove frame bag to use these storage spaces.

The route is a fairly long one at over 450 miles but feels fairly fast going in parts, there are plenty of paved sections on this route from quiet country roads to separated bike paths. In the direction I travelled, these seemed to come often after some tougher trails, which I was always thankful for. It always felt like each day you could feel you were making good progress even if sometimes you had some harder slower sections. A lot of Scottish bikepacking trips can be incredibly remote, meaning you need to be really self-sufficient and carry a day’s worth of food. But as the Pictish trail heads up the east of Scotland, it is a lot more built up with a lot more opportunities to resupply. There are still remote sections, but they tend to be in between two built up towns. So it’s easy enough to feel prepared for these sections. You really only need to be able to carry enough food for around 50 miles (ca. 80 km) at most, and water is easily found for filtering along this route. The actual trails vary a lot in terrain types, but a lot of the off-road sections are wide gravel tracks, mostly pretty smooth gravel tracks. There are some rougher double track and some steeper single track trails, but a lot of this route is not so much technical. If you head north instead of south, I think you will find there is very little in the way of hike a bike. I had a few sections that were hike a bike. But that was mostly due to the extremely windy conditions I faced over the first few days of this ride. One thing that was a little annoying though with this route was that some of the gate had been pad locked shut, so you will need to be able to lift your bike a couple of times on this route.

I met quite a few people along this route who were also doing the Pictish trail but in the official direction, and they all seemed to be grinding along. Maybe it was just pot luck that I met them at them sections, but I really did always feel like riding this route in the direction I did (Heading North) was a lot more fun and floe. I think heading north is slightly easier, according to my Strava ride the route in this direction has an elevation gain of around 31,000ft just under 9500m. Which isn’t, nothing, but I actually found most of the climbs along this route in this direction more or the gradual side of things and not often too steep. So it was nice to be able to get into a rhythm and pedal. I think that is why I found it a fairly easy route. What you don’t really want when you are climbing is it to be too technical because then it ends up being tedious. But at least going in this direction, nearly all the climbs were gradual, and smooth gravel instead of technical. The picture above is looking down from the highest point. If you were going in the official direction, you would be climbing this trail, and while I think most of it is ridable, it would, I think, be on the tedious side. There are a couple of little stream crossings as well as them little drainage gutters. Going up here would be slow-going. But going down is a lot of fun.

Quite often with bikepacking routes, especially the once that make it on to bikepacking.com, I tend to find so many tedious trails that are fun for just going out mountain biking. But kind of annoying when you have a fully loaded bike. But this is actually a very good route for riding with a loaded bike. I think what this route does well is it rewards you with lots of easy miles along pretty good cycle routes that are mostly all flat. So after coming over trails that are a bit slower, a bit harder and more tiring you know you will always have some easier miles that you can make good ground. At least going north, that is what I found.

Along the coast from Dundee

Detour

However, there is one section of this route that is pretty rough going, in either direction, honestly. Especially if it is wet, cant imagine it is ever completely dry, this section. As you can see from the picture below, this part of the trail is a boggy mess and no fun to ride. It is also really quite easy to avoid and by avoiding this section you can also avoid a section of the A9 which is quite a busy road. And also the creaky, slippery bridge of death. (if you watched the video, you know) If you follow the red line on the picture below (3rd) then you can see you rejoin the route but in a reverse which means you still get to ride through the endless gravel trails through the Flow Country. Up to you though, but if I was to take this route on again I would probably divert that section.

Tips

Let’s talk a bit about which bike is best for this route, like I said this route is actually fairly easy goes with not lots of overly technical sections, but I do think in terms of tyre size a 45mm or bigger is your best bet. Just do give you a bit of confidence on the fast descents. But you will 100% want something fast rolling as there are a lot of flat fast rolling section, some of which is along the road but mostly is bike paths that are smooth gravel. A gravel bike will be good, or an Xc bike, but in all honestly for the most part even an XC bike might be overkill for most of this route. Just a bike with a good range of gearing and good brakes that you are comfortable riding. One thing I found was there were some locked gates or kissing gates that I needed to chuck the bike over, so whichever bike you decide to take, make sure you are able to lift it.

Midge. The midge along this side of Scotland shouldn’t be as bad as on the West Coast, but I would recommend some Smidge and a bug net just in case. The good news is, although Scotland is terrible for the little midge Fu**krs Scotland is also normally pretty windy and the midge are pretty useless in the wind so if you are trying to set up camp before the midge find you try to camp up high in the wind if you can. That will give you a better chance of not meeting them. Not always possible, unfortunately.

Waterproof jacket The one crucial item that you really should take on this route is a waterproof jacket, it might not rain all day, but it will probably rain a little on any adventure you go on in Scotland, a good waterproof jacket that you can also double up as a wind jacket is a must. I use the Patagonia Torrent shell 3l, and it has served me well. Something on the thicker waterproof jacket side, I prefer in Scotland.

GPS A GPS is a must really on a route like this nowadays, who can be bothered keep pulling out a paper map. This route is fairly easy to follow, but it isn’t marked as Pictish trail all the way along. It’s a mixture of different trails roads and Forrest tracks, so have a GPS unit for mapping is going to make it much more enjoyable. Also to note, there was a trail closure just before inverness with no diversion around, after I could find a way around being the weekend I just went through anyway. Which meant squeezing beside temporary gates. It is in the forest by a place called Balloch, just before inverness. The only other obstacle was a fallen tree around loch Morie, I was able to crawl under it.