7 Day Mountain Biking Break in Dumfries and Galloway - MTB3

Start – Any day of the week.
Distance – see below.
Overall Grade – You choose trails at each location to suit your ability, green, blue, red and black.
Terrain – Mostly maintained mountain biking forest tracks and trails with forestry roads, cycle routes and country roads in between to link each day.
Comments – Use our local knowledge to visit 6 different mountain biking centres in Dumfries and Galloway region. A unique tour for mountain bikers using our cycling holiday expereince to link the centres and explore the region.
Price – from £595 per person.

Tour Features

- Below we briefly mention each day of this mountain biking tour and some features between the trail centres. The tour information we supply on your arrival at your welcome meeting contains trails maps and interesting features along your tour route, including info on tea rooms, pubs and evening restaurants. Our local knowledge is invaluable to get the best from this tour.
First night's B&B accommodation in Castle Douglas - Summerhill B&B with swim spa, subject to availability.

Day 1 – Visiting Kirroughtree Forest

We take you west in Galloway and drop you off to join an old railway line (an off road part of the National Cycle Route No. 7) with great views over Wigtown Bay.
You arrive at Kirroughtree 7 Stanes mountain biking centre - reputedly the best of all the 7 Stanes! - and spend the day there (cafe and bike shop). After your day on the trails, bike a few miles on to your B&B in Newton Stewart where you bags will be waiting for you..

Day 2 - Visiting Glentrool - in the Galloway Hills.

Bike from your Newton Stewart B&B and follow a quiet riverside road into the hills to beautiful 'Scottish Highlands' like Glentrool with Loch Trool nearby (part of the way, we give you the option of a challenging alternative route to the visitor centre).  
Try the Glentrool 7 Stanes trails and then continue through beautiful scenery with lochs on a forestry road to emerge onto a quiet tarred country road with forestry visitor centre (tea room) stop option before taking the peaceful National Byways Cycle route to your accommodation. This is a truly fantastic route with spectacular scenery which gives you the flexibility to decide how long you want to spend on the trails at Glentrool before moving on. A great hotel with good food at the end.

Day 3 - Visiting Drumlanrig Castle

We pick you up after breakfast today take you and your bags to near Drumlanrig Castle. We point you to the old smithy where the pedal cycle was invented in 1840 by Kirkpatrick Macmillan - worth a photo with the plaques on the wall. You then bike to the Castle and the Drumlanrig mountain biking trails. 
You are in beautiful Nith Valley countryside the Castle having several other attractions including castle tea room as well as the Scottish Cycle Museum. After this unique biking day out, it is not finished as we provide you with the flexibility of a couple of routes (a longer one via a picturesqe village, castle and loch) to get you to the nearby small town with excellent B&B which we regularly use (subject to availability).

Day 4 - Visiting Ae Forest

After breakfast you set off into the hills on a quiet road on a scenic route with spectacular views over the Nith Valley and beside moorland used in the chase in The Thirty Nine Steps movie. Detouring from a loch you bike along stretch downhill to Ae Forest 7 Stanes trails.
After biking, we give you the option to go to a nearby B&B or cycle a wee bit further to finish the day in Dumfries, the largest town in the region, for accommodation there, where you have a choice of different restaurants, pubs and entertainment places. 

Day 5 - Visiting Mabie Forest

Whichever B&B you stay at, the next morning you follow the off road bike path partly by the riverside through Dumfries, with the option of a circular town route we can supply you with if you wish. 
Departing the town you take a countryside route towards the coast and on to the popular Mabie Forest 7 Stanes trails. Again you have a bike shop and biklers cafe here. After the trails, you have a few more miles to a village for accommodation or a wee bit further again to the coast and a small village with a pub with good food a few doors away.

Day 6 - Visiting Dalbeattie Forest

Although it is possible to bike the distance, to maximise your day, we pick you up with your bags and move you along the coast to visit Dalbeattie 7 Stanes trails. We suggest coming off the trails at a specific point, and taking a circular detour (we use it regularly with our cycle tours) to the Solway Coast around lunchtime via a good pub beside the river estuary before returning to the forest for more biking and where we pick you up - or at the pub if still there! 
B&B again at Summerhill in Castle Douglas,subject to availability - it's popular!

Day 7 - Flexible Day - last day or a day during the tour

We'll leave this 7th day blank meantime and we can discuss what suits you best, prior to you arrival e.g. an extra day's mountain bikiing at one of the trails mentioned above, or we can incorporate a midweek rest day or sight seeing day into your tour or even re-visit one of the previous sites again.
The town of Castle Douglas, our base, also has a local brewery which you might like to visit to celebrate the end of your biking tour of Dumfries and Galloway.