Your Mileage May Vary - The Witch's Trails at Fort William

World famous due to the world cup downhill and 4X races that have been held there for a good few years, the trails surrounding the Nevis Range gondola are only a few miles up the road from Fort William. The gondola provides easy access to the World Cup DH route and the Nevis Range Red XC route. The car park is the starting place for the World Champs XC and 10 Under the Ben red graded routes, as well as a smattering of green and blue options.

The massive car park accepts donations and the site includes a bike shop and bike hire service, as well as cafe at the bottom and top of the gondola. Signage to the start of the XC trails is more or less adequate and while it hasn't faded when you're out further in the hills, it can be confusing if it's your first time there; for example: arrow points straight ahead, trail forks exactly in two.

A break from the steep parts of the climb

From checking out the pdf map available online it's clear that the World Champs XC and 10 Under the Ben red routes share some sections of trail. After a walk nearby the previous day it was also clear that some of the sections of both reds were shared with walking trails, with bikes, rightly, being told to yield to other trail users. Not a great start in all honesty as you can ride walking paths anywhere, if you've travelled to a trail centre you want dedicated trails if possible.

The World Champs XC red route rises quickly out of the car park on a dedicated but well maintained forest trail. It's pretty much all climbing, some of which is steep, for what felt like the first 2-3km or so. At first this is in the forest, and later you are rewarded with some truly outstanding views across the countryside for your efforts. 

Scotland in June: it doesn't always rain

Upon reaching the highest point on the route I had excellent views of Carn Mor Dearg with Ben Nevis poking through in the background. Like Golspie and Cwm Carn, the trail follows a traditional uphill then downhill structure. However, unlike Golspie, the climb is not as interesting to ride due to the limited views at the beginning and the plain trail surface followed by amount of fire road. Good if you have a full-on XC bike and like busting your lungs, however perhaps less enjoyable if you're more of an AM/enduro rider. It felt very "old-school" compared to many trail centres that have more recently-built trails.

The first part of the descent is graded black and features a gravelly / rocky trail surface that includes a pretty much mandatory drop off. Part of the challenge on a sunny day is not being distracted by the views!

The bulk of the red descent on "Cat's Back" and "Witch's Brew" is pretty interesting with a reasonably technical trail surface taking in rocks, a few roots and some steeper sections. It's a close call, but I would say it just misses out on providing enough thrills to make up for the for the climb you have just endured - your mileage may vary.

Keep your eyes on the prize

Following the main singletrack descent, you'll be following a footpath across a field, some gently ascending fire road for some way, a further walking trail under a high ropes course, and a final section of bike-only trail which just serves to provide a small climb and singletrack descent around the car park.

The trail's short length, at a mere 5.2 miles, belies the challenge involved in the climb and the technicality of the descent. The downhill is good, the rest, although this is surely heresy, is only elevated above the ranks of average trails thanks to the outstanding view.


Next up was the "XC Nevis Red". Gondola tickets are £12 per run or £31 per day. The ride up is pretty fast but weirdly, and unlike Whistler or the lifts around Morzine and Les Gets, the bikes are suspended by their saddles. I can tell you that it's a lot easier for the rider to hang the bikes by their front wheel than to up-end them and wrestle the saddle into a loop! Despite the signage telling me to wait for the liftie to call me through and provide some help with my bike, the guy on post at the time couldn't have cared less and just let me get on with it myself. Fend for yourself newbies!

A couple of blurry pics of the World Cup DH from the gondola!

The Gondola uplift spends most of its time above the World Cup DH course and you can watch other riders coming down, it looked awesome! Without my full face, dianese and DH bike, I was not going to ride it this visit.

The red cuts a pretty imposing line across the mountain side, the first maybe 30% being wooden boardwalks, the next 50% being bedrock, the final 20% being sandy berms and fire road.

Scotland gets the views very right

The boardwalks are solidly built and raised about 12-24" above the hillside. Due to the way that the boardwalks traverse the hill, the distance to where you would land if you come off is very small on the uphill side, or a good few feet on the downhill side. This makes it feel much more risky than the couple of feet suggests! Not being too keen to experience the larger of these two drops I steered well clear of the edges and getting past that section was not the most fun I've had on a bike.

The wooden surface features many small drops and undulations, and is covered in chicken wire. This does provide grip, but is also in tatters where people would naturally brake hard, leaving me a bit preoccupied about getting punctures from the ripped up metal wiring.

Once you get past this, there is a very flat and reasonably long section where the surface is mostly technical bedrock: like McMoab or Balblair but with infinitely less flow. DH bikes must have a hard time getting through this? It's actually uphill in places.

Upper boardwalk switchbacks with World Cup DH in the background

This surface eventually becomes quite steep and rough and is now well suited to a proper DH bike. Some of your options include a sizeable drop or the chicken line, being a steep rock face into 90 degree corner with no banking onto boardwalk.

Towards the lower part you pass over a tedious but brief boardwalk made of rounded logs and covered in chicken wire ("log-shore") followed by the sandiest trail surface known to man for a handful of turns. I'm not saying there were kids making sand-castles in the berms, but there could have been. The very last stages take in some fire road (groan) and the last couple sections of the World Champs XC, I think. Signage was not great here so I may be mistaken. I've heard that in the past the red DH met up with the World Cup DH route and that the trail described in this paragraph may be only a year or so old? Either way, this section was a let down.

The view from the flatter part of the Red XC / downhill / whatever

This is the officially billed as the XC Nevis Red. Drawing on all my riding and racing experience there is no way that it should be categorised as an XC trail or be red graded. This is a black graded DH run that requires everything that the designation implies to get the most out of it: full face, pads, DH bike. Yes you can get down it on an XC hard tail, but I'd rather be on a 223. The flat bit in the middle may be a bit of a buzz-kill on your 8 inch beast though - I would love to know what they were thinking.

Regrettably I was left with the impression that this DH route was built and described as a red XC route mainly to entice more non-downhillers to part with their cash and go up the gondola. No wonder the mandatory liability waiver form is so comprehensive. In short, if you're on a DH bike, you're good to go but will likely enjoy the World Cup DH more, if you're on anything less, hire a DH bike, or go elsewhere.

I know popular opinion is that the Nevis Range riding is amazing, but based on my experience I can't agree.  In its favour, it has a gondola which is pretty rare in the UK and if you have a DH bike and the skills, the World Cup DH track would be challenging and fun. However, the Nevis Range doesn't fare well in comparison to the other lift-accessed trails I've ridden abroad and my recommendation would be that if you're more AM than either pure DH or XC you should skip the gondola accessed red and the Witches Trails (assuming 10 Under the Ben* is similar to the World Champs XC) and go elsewhere.


*I do intend to go back and ride the 10 UTB course, for completeness's sake but after the WC XC and Nevis Red, despite staying only about 20 minutes drive away, I had no inclination to go back that week for more.

Binary Trail System - Kyle of Sutherland Trails (Balblair’s Black and Carbisdale’s Red)

Balblair’s blue and black trails start with a fireroad climb leading out of an unassuming carpark on the right of the road heading out of the small village of Bonar Bridge in Scotland.  Both the blue and the longer black share a first climb, first descent and final descent.  Completing all of the black options will net you about 11.5km of total trail, plenty of which is singletrack. 

The first descent, called "Woopy Doo”, is a wide dirt trail through the woods, raised to help drainage but a bit tame for experienced mountain bikers.

The blue branches left here and right provides more fire road and the first of some excellent views for riders following the black. Although there are a couple of fireroad climbs, only the first feels like it should be replaced by singletrack.  The others provide a nice breather between technical sections!  You have to earn your descent somehow though and overall it’s hard to complain about the layout of the trails here when you consider what comes next.

So much surprisingly flowy rock

It’s not too far until you’re back into singletrack that quickly goes from a typical gravelly/dirt path surface to one that takes you over large natural rocky sections that have been incorporated into the trail. The trail features loads of rocky sections and provides a really enjoyable and involving riding challenge. The rocks feature small steps to climb and sections which slope upwards, downwards and provide all kinds of off camber trail to test your balance on.  I was glad I was riding a full sus bike on the rocky black sections but a hardtail would have completely fine if I was only riding the blue.

Before and after passing by a large communications tower, there are long sections of north shore style elevated wooden runs to help make the most of the rocky ground.  A great example of the right way to do wooden trails right; a flat flowing surface, grippy sandpaper-like covering, well secured at either ends to rocky ground, no drops to upslopes. Balblair’s north shore could be livened up by some drops or more corners on the wood, but to be honest it provides a welcome contrast to the technical rockyness elsewhere on the trail. 

Perfectly built boardwalk leading to more of the hard stuff

There was a black loop at the top which was closed for maintenance when I rode past. Out of interest I still checked it out and it looked to be one of the most technical pieces of trail I have ever seen. Bring some trials skills would be my only recommendation! Luckily, this is easily skipped as it is an offshoot of the main trail which re-joins at the exact same spot where it leaves.

At what felt like the furthest point from the car park, the backside downhill is a lot of fun, featuring tight but flowing corners and a good natural trail surface as it re-enters the woods. The trail was looking pretty overgrown in this part, which was odd considering that this was only the start of the summer. Perhaps the trails are so far out of the way that they do not get used much at all? I saw no other riders while I was there. After taking in some scenic fireroad and singletrack climbing the final couple of downhill sections were a bit less technical, with the finale taking place after re-joining the blue trail. These bits were overgrown too and I had to duck down as far as I could go to avoid getting slapped in the face by branches quite a few times!

Towards the end the trail appears to provide a shortcut which avoids the majority of the first fire road climb if you’re going for another lap. The trail is a nice length and it’s probably worth doing twice if you’re not going anywhere else that day.  As it was, I headed off to the other Kyle of Sutherland Trail centre: Carbisdale.

Carbisdale starts out of the car park for the impressive Carbisdale Castle youth centre which was closed for redevelopment while I was there. The trail features a blue loop of about 3km and a red extension which takes the total length to 4.5km.

The blue / red starts out of the car park with a short off road climb, followed by a road climb, followed by an off road double track climb.  There are some nice views from the top here.

Fast and smooth on the red

Next up is a shared descent which seems suitable for the blue grading but features a couple of larger rocks you can launch off if you know what you’re looking for. The red splits off soon enough and climbs further into the woods.

There is a pretty fun descent through the woods on singletrack covered with pine needles and leaf litter before the trails merge again for the final descent that has a red option featuring a couple of large boulders which provide an easy taste of what you might encounter on the Balblair black . Before you know it you’re back at the car park.

View down the glen before the final downhill blast

Short, but a good blast as a second ride in a day or for introducing someone to mountain biking; as the loop is short you could do the blue, then head back up to tackle the red sections to build up a newer rider’s confidence.

I heard that you could ride between the Balblair and Carbisdale trail heads and, while I agree you could, I would strongly suggest getting in the car and driving between them as the ride between centres is probably twice as long as the ride you will get at Carbisdale.

The Kyle of Sutherland provides two solid trails to ride in a half day and their relatively short length means you can easily do a couple of laps if you wanted to spend longer in the area. I would suggest that if you are in the area and are comfortable on black runs your top priority should be to ride the Highland Wildcat Trails at Golspie first, then if you have another day, or a lot of energy(!), hit up the Balblar and Carbisdale trails later on. 

Reap what you sow – Golspie’s Highland Wildcat Trails

The Highland Wildcat Trails at Golspie is the UK’s most northerly trail centre, it boasts the UK’s longest singletrack climb and the longest singletrack descent.  They are a pretty long drive for most UK mountain bikers but those who do make the effort to ride them will be rewarded with well thought out, well maintained and fairly quiet trails.  Their remoteness probably means they are likely to stay in good condition longer than somewhere more easily accessible and while I was at Golspie there was barely a braking bump to be seen anywhere.

Going all the way up there!

In a traditional style, the trail gets all of the uphill out of the way right at the start as you ascend to very near the summit and a huge statue of a Duke of Sutherland before the second half starts, nearly all of which is downhill.  The centre includes blue and red loops that start from different car parks as well as a black graded loop that acts as an extension to the red route.  The black itself features a further optional (but recommended) extension which is also graded black. 

Rising above the coast

This is certainly a lot of climbing, but it goes by much quicker than you expect as the trail has been built to maintain your interest; before I knew it I was high above the coastal town of Golspie, climbing into the low clouds, having made only one wrong turn at the end of “Cairn Climb”.

Where the first black-graded section leaves the treeline there is a shortcut called “Treeline” which allows you to skip the more exposed parts of the trail. If the weather is good enough for you to continue without the shortcut the next section is “Lactic Ladder”.  If you guessed from that name that this might be a killer climb, you’re dead right.  The rocky trail climbs steeply via a series of switchbacks.  For me, the low cloud hid the best of the views across the valley and down to the sea. The section provides a real technical challenge but ultimately feels fair; if you can’t ride it all (and I would be incredibly impressed if you can clean it on a first attempt!) then it feels like it must be your skills or set up, and not the design of the trail that is to blame.  This sharply contrasts with some other UK trails that I’ve ridden where the black sections are not as well designed and feel simply unfair – the balance of risk and effort versus fun and satisfaction feels off.  Golspie gets it very right.

While the black extension “The Laing Way Round” is a fairly long double track climb around the back of the hill, it is unequivocally worth it IF you have the skills to ride the black descent.  Aside from this double track ALL of the rest of the trail is single track, with only one very short section of fire road on the climb – even I can’t complain about that!

Slight break in the clouds at the start of the downhill half

The quality of the downhill parts is evident immediately.  Starting with the view from a hilltop shelter looking down through the first few bends of “Mon-U-Mental” it’s clear you are in for a treat.  The trail is fun to ride, well-built and drains well.  I’m not much of a wet weather rider but I was riding it in the pouring rain and can safely say it was one of the best trails I’ve ridden.

Enjoying it despite being soaked through

Being one of the longest purpose-built singletrack downhills in the country, the descent is very meaty; stopping to take some pics and also to let my arms recover I enjoyed about half an hour of downhill.  This is an amazing payoff for the earlier climb!  If you can stop yourself from being distracted by the great views (the sun had managed to break through by now) “VTOL” features some large jumps and well thought out rocky corners.  This is pretty challenging stuff but it’s all rideable if you’re feeling confident.

VTOL snaking down the hill

Re-entering the treeline on “Running the Gauntlet” was the first time that the wet weather really made the trail slippy and a bit too sketchy for my liking.  The mist flowing through the old forest made for a great atmosphere though. 

Running the gauntlet

The downhill continues on the red graded “Valhalla” and “Lawsons Run”.  These are not as tech as the black, as you might expect by the grading, but are incredibly fun and feature smaller jumps and drops off large rock slabs with the added bonus that you can let loose a little bit more due to the lower technicality and being nearer the car park.

As you exit the woods, the trail suddenly transitions into a fairly long string of north shore obstacles, about 1 – 2 feet in height.  These looked well made but being soaked to the skin by this point I wasn’t keen on sessioning them this time around!

A final blast down a well-reinforced rocky section leads you back to the starting point of the trail with a great sense of accomplishment and the feeling that you really should try to squeeze in one more lap, after all, when will you be in the area again?

A Mixed Bag - Dalby Forest's Red trails

Dalby's impressive visitor centre sat under a full blue sky as I parked up.  Not being one to carry nearly a tenner in loose change meant I had to decline paying the eyebrow-raising £7 parking charge and because it was a week day in the spring there was no one working on the gate to enforce the payment or help with change.

I'd decided to drive up to Dalby Forest Park near the North Yorkshire Moors to ride their red route. The route is split up in a needless and slightly confusing way. There are 4 red routes, which all form one long red graded trail.  The trail is marked on the map with posts labelled 1-38. In all, it's between 34.3km and 38km; different places on line and in guide books seem to disagree.  Bottom line: it's long.

Target acquired: sandy trails made it feel coastal!

Starting the ride at the main visitor's centre, after devouring a bacon, brie and cranberry sandwich from the cafe, the first section of trail you hit is called the Newclose Rigg trail and covers posts 1 -14 and is 9.4km (6miles) long ending at Dixons Hollow play area and the nearby car park.  Initially the trail gains height quickly through a series of switchbacks and you are soon riding swooping singletrack through the forest.

This section includes some sandy trails and interesting singletrack.  Like the majority of the riding on the red trails, there are no real killer steep climbs, and the descents are fairly limited too; the majority of the height is lost either on reasonably untechnical single track, or downhill sections with gently bermed corners.  

Strangely, when following the red, the first thing that might hint at the presence of Dixons Hollow play area is a sign for a black graded diversion.  Out of curiosity I followed this and found an orange graded section of north shore which turned out to start at the lower end of the play area and end at the top, near a small pump track and the start of a couple of runs of jumps and a 4x track.  

Such swoopyness on Newclose Rigg.

If you've ridden from the visitor's centre, you're not likely to be on a bike that will make the most of the 4x track or the jumps, but the 'shore is worth the diversion and the pump track will keep you entertained for a couple of laps.

The Dixons Hollow car park is the start of another section of the red trail, the 5.3km Adderstone Trail (posts 14-21), as well as a separate black loop, listed as taking ~1.5hr although this is not shown on the official pdf map available on line which, again, is weird.

The trail became less sandy, but carried on in much the same way as before.  The forest is a lovely place and occasionally you can catch glimpses of the countryside outside of the forest. There was one downhill section during this stretch which I believe is shared with the black trail and consisted of many switchbacks leading you down a pretty steep hill.  Remember to drop your seat otherwise this will seem more difficult than it really is!

Dixons Hollow play area.

Depressingly, this section ended with a long stretch of gradually climbing fire road, not the first encountered, which, was a bit of a drag as I was approaching half way round and nearly 2 hours in.

According to the map, I was near the Crosscliffe car park and the trail transitioned into the Jerry Noddle Trail (who names this stuff?) which stretches from about post 21 to post 26 over 5.8km. I never saw the car park, but the trail turned into some pretty dense woods and the trail surface itself became raised, like a dirt ridgeline in places, clearly to help with drainage.  To me, this was ok to ride; there was a lot of speed to be gained and carried in some sections, but the trail was mostly flat.  I knew I had a long way left to go.  The bacon sandwich was now repeating on me something rotten.  The trailside Christmas Tree was a quality touch.

The second leg of Jerry Noddle is on road / fire road and is as dull as it sounds.  At this point the sky had ominously clouded over and there were rumblings of thunder far off in the distance.  I redoubled my efforts and crossed my fingers that I wouldn't be needing the waterproof jacket I had stowed away in my hydration pack!

Jerry Noddle's sparkly goodness.

At post 26 the trail becomes the Riggs and Dales Trail which goes all the way to post 38, which is a stone's throw from the Low Dalby visitor centre.  Only 13.8km to go. There was one notable downhill with bermed corners that were well constructed, however I was carrying way too much speed into the final one and nearly went careening over the top.  Personally, I like to think the berm should have been bigger but honestly the section of trail was pretty underwhelming despite the effort that had gone into it so I'm unsure that more effort would equal a better experience in this case (sorry!).  

The trail meandered across fire roads, taking in one descent which was literally a straight smooth utterly featureless piece of gently descending singletrack, which crossed a fire road, only to then climb up a similarly straight, relatively smooth piece of single track (posts 32-34 perhaps?). As I was climbing I looked back on the missed opportunity that was the previous descent.  Why were there no little kickers or tables on that section, or features to pump?  I'm certainly not asking for an XC route to be turned into A-line and I know charging down a smooth path has its own feel-good feeling, but I was left wanting something more involving to ride.

The trail gently climbed through woods featuring a lot of leaf litter.  I was thoroughly bored by this point (post 36?) and luckily the trail was nearly over.

Was I expecting too much from a red graded trail?  Is this a blue in terms of technical difficulty and only graded as red due to its length? I think it's possible.  The black options off Newclose Rigg were not what I would call fun to ride featuring chainset scraping rocks and small sets of consecutive drops with barely a bike length between them - the sort of black section that is hard to clean and unsatisfying when you do.

In my view, the trail is great if you like long rides of overall low technicality.  From my own riding experience, I would prefer to tackle the trails offered up by Llandegla or Cannock instead.  For me, having significant climbs, followed by significant downhills is a good thing.  Dalby seems to disagree and each to their own.  However, I'd be keen to return to try out the black loop.