Bikepacking one of Scotland’s more technical routes | Deeside Trail

In this adventure I take on the Deeside Trail, one of Scotland’s more technical bikepacking routes with singletrack and MTB trails throughout. Starting from Banchory and doing a figure out eight through the Cairngorms, the route takes in mountain biking trails at Aboyne, Muir of Dinnet and Tarland, not to mention some amazing technical descents through Ballater and Braemar.

I chose a short travel xc bike for this bikepacking trip and needed the suspension to soak up the hits! I chose not to use a seat pack so I could get full use out my dropper post and enjoy the descents. Turned out a wise choice!

Links to the other videos mentioned:
West Highland Way – https://youtu.be/sBqzdaQCH9I?si=fVy1kgqd3nGDom2b

Lochnagar munro (waterfall descent) – https://youtu.be/n1mAAnj__Qc?si=RF_1b-u3bSuzZY-i

This is not an easy route. We were out in the remote mountains pedalling for several hours at a time in bad weather with no escape route. Definitely one to be prepared for all conditions – and this was in summer! There are plenty good mountain bike trails and we adjusted the route to take in a couple of extra trails. If you have more time too you could easily link in Ballater’s Heartbreak Ridge which in my opinion is one of the best trails in the area!

If you enjoy mountain biking and bikepacking then you’ll love this route.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:30 Day 1 – Techy!
02:19 Aboyne trails
07:46 Evening & camp
08:43 Day 2 – Wet & remote!
11:10 River Crossing
12:12 The best trail!
14:03 Day 3 – Tarland trails!
16:00 Full Tarland Descent
18:40 Finish & Outro
Location: Deeside Trail, Cairngorms, Scotland
Filmed on: Go Pro Hero 12 Black
Bikes: Vitus Rapide FS mountain bike

today I’m taking you on an adventure if you watch the channel you’ll know that it’s mostly in jural riding but now sprinkled with a bit of bike packing and endurance events Adventure type stuff as well cuz I do like mixing up and doing both so a few weeks ago I did the West Highland Way which ticked off one of the routs that I’ve been wanting to do for a while and now I’m going to take you on the dside trail so not to be confused with the dside way which is another room rout this route is I think it’s about 230 km H largely single track through the mountains valleys and forests of the Kieran GMS in the north of Scotland and we’re doing it over 3 days H so it’ll be fairly long long days there’s quite a lot of mountain bike uh trails and Technical riding in it which I really like especially coming from an aduro background I’ve done it on my vus repeat FS uh which is a full mention 100 m travel bike Rock shock head Forks uh mavic crossmax wheels and mitchellan wild XC tires so light bike it’s about 11 kilos without the kit and then I’ve actually done away with a saddle pack uh for this route because of the technical riding I really want to enjoy that H so I’ve managed to distribute the the stuff everywhere else I’m slowly getting better at packing light for bike packing so I W to say anything more I hope you enjoy it it’s a tough route H and yeah let’s go oh on the way heading along through scaly Forest we’re just in it’s been a few years some pretty coill trails in here some Big Slab features this is going to be a really fun route lots of technical single truck hopefully keep this Barb on heading to a B for some Trails pretty sweaty now so we just come up single track climb you can kind of see behind me in the grass we’ve got more more to go ahead that’s a fine fine looking bicycle ready to descend on what is it Chutney Chutney oh oh my God this is [Applause] off oh right I’m going to try not to make horrendous noises the whole way down this but trust me with the 100 Mil of travel these Hicks are quite big [Applause] [Applause] so heading to the edge of a one more traill Master Blaster and then on to ballar gets a bit flatter after this cuz they’ve been quite a lot of climbing so far we’re on just coming up for 1,000 M and 30k so far scenery is really nice fun fact is 34 of the world’s open Heather Merin is found in the UK according to the side behind me looks about right forgot to turn the GoPro on for the the start there something else super Rocky some Boulders met a in a gravel bik and it not gravel bik friendly oh God yeah there’s a few nice Square rocks that would grab the wheels I’m trying to avoid them I would say the next bit this much less rough this much more techy oh fantastic than I feel small looks like it’s getting steeper oh my god [Applause] oh guys this is pretty steep My we 100 Mil Forks are working bar Bag doing its best to pull everything forward oh been on a gradual climb for a while now good like 40 minutes maybe 45 minutes we got a steep bit at the end just heading towards Balter hoping to arrive soon to be honest it’s really tough going it’s really steep come up from the valley down there down there and heading up to the top to descend down into ball I’m having one of those days where it just feel absolutely kner so finding it especially hard we 47 km and, 1400 M so far so not really that much in the grand schem of things I’m a little bit worried about the next uh couple of days I just need to get this one done for now and get some food this track’s meant to be called decent descent we are not seeing the decent descent yet all right decent descent is starting I’m ready for after that coim see is the best yet I think stunning views heartbreak ridges over there on the left famous well pretty famous in Scotland uh descent along the the ridge is the diler okay maybe you are lucky that’s fine you that is lucky that was a monster sick to get Mia so made it to Balter stocked up in Mars Bars and Scotch eggs and Co-op for tonight cuz we’re going to knock off another few hundred meters um so that we’re pretty much in Brar for breakfast tomorrow morning and make the most of the good weather cuz tomorrow is going to be Savage we have lock Mech in the background over here lock AAR B up there we did a cracking descent down the waterfall path a couple of years ago pop a link in the description below really good Tech it’s like super loose and Sandy in the corners quter 9 couple of thousand M down today 80k I think in the end I think we’re at 0 sorry we’re at we’re 90 km down 2,150 flipping heck might as well go for the 100 right setting up camp here’s me Coran and Gavin let’s go check this out I have to say I was saying it was rubbish 5 minutes ago but now it looks pretty cool the first ever night in the hammock first night in the hammock we’ll see in the morning how it’s going how well or bad it goes yeah it’s very cool and we are off timed it with the worst of the rain now can’t really see but it’s uh pretty wet in for a long be wow impressive really nice very wet Savage weather we did not time that well at all everything is just soaked through apart from the Kat on the bike bought an extra couple of dry bags I’m very glad I did oh hello hello would be kind of cooler if it was not pissing guys [Applause] along the valley floor and I W it’s been a long slog lots of walking this is not my favorite part to be honest been more off the bike than on the bike and this is descent it’s kind of flat here through the valley though I don’t I’ll I think someone needs to drag and catcher C you can be on catch try wheel submerges [Music] no it’s okay I think I think I’ll be good I’ll just copy you we’re in it’s harder than I thought that’s quite I can take your bik you can just jump I don’t think I can jump as you know okay okay I’m doing it I’m doing it I think I just have to walk through the riv I’m too scared it’s take your [Laughter] Ro so we’ve arrived at ball and we’ve got take out so we’ve got a nice gmy meal here going on in the shelter Con in has got a selection in the tapis we don’t have any plates we’ve got a spark so it’s uh it’s interesting Gavin’s had a sweet and sour balls and then 10K left to camp tonight or just under that all right had dinner and we’ve got a trail had a about a single track and now Gavin’s detoured us slightly to be a red Trail it’s 9:00 at night full of Curry what could go wrong go w wow you’re such a s you’re so strong I know I know it all day Heavy Rain XY tires bike packing kit this is pretty [Applause] fun oh good should we do it again no but it is really good onwards we’re not done yet that was really good well as you can see from my eye camping was horendous the midges were out in full force and I don’t know if you can see the the bites here that’s just a few of the 50 60 bites that I got lips eyes everything so it was not a good night and I’m very excited to get on the bike and get moving H so they can’t keep attacking me I think everybody’s in the same situation especially H Coran and the Biffy um had a slug crawling across uh his face this morning um yesterday was really tough going and I’m think today is going to be a little bit easier in that front bit more elevation but uh yeah we’ll just have to see I think we’ve got some trails at tarand as well which would be nice so this is the old tarand Trails before the the new development flipping heck it’s uh very trials on this oh got a tasty climb ahead I thought the old tand Trails were just next to the new ones but we’re going around the back way and H to the top uh of tarland so fair a bit of climbing at the moment hello I take everything back that I said before today is not easy this is a really steep climb in the grass and it’s been going for ages now I’m just getting a bit tired so I’m pushing for a while still climbing up here oh gross it’s really tough off going and we’re in tarand on high pressure oh yeah this is welcome after that climb oh I don’t want to go for the doubles yes call me Chris yeah oh I knew that was going to happen I knew it lose it somewhere oh my God it’s rough we Forks working hard oh [Applause] tarland is so good oh it’s nice to ride some bike park stuff oh fueled by space babies that was so fun that was just amazing I forgotten how hellish The Climb was there’s our path right there where he is look at that somewhere in aberin Shire [Applause] [Applause] beautiful [Applause] woooo oh my God definitely off the main line now [Music] getting there so we’re heading up here it’s turned into push it’s a really steep path heading up the hill I think this is hell of fair we’ve been trying to chase uh well trying to stay ahead of the storm thunder lightning and rain had a we bit of Thunder but the rain’s over there and I’m hoping we’re going to miss it but got my doubts 8 miles to go so we get back to Banker that was me already for The Descent we have descended but we’re going up another 150 M the hills that keep on giving and we’ve arrived it’s pretty epic here really epic so I’m back in the van it has been such a good few days definitely had a bit of a love hate with some of the parts in the route it was it was really really tough route actually a lot harder than I expected because of some of the terrain day two definitely wasn’t my favorite there was a lot of just a long SLO once we left Brar and we were heading over the the valleys and the mountains there H but apart from that it’s just been such a good varied few days we ended up on about 240 km and pretty much 5,000 m of elevation so more than the route actually said we did add on a couple of hundred H adjusted it slightly to get a descent at taring so it’s been a fair shift H definitely feeling it and I’m pretty tired now so just going to head home and see you soon thanks for watching if you enjoyed the video please give a like and if you’re new to the channel hit subscribe for more content a mixture of Enduro riding and Adventures like this