An epic Scottish gravel ride with komoot & Scotty Laughland | Finding the UK's best routes

Komoot set us the challenge of finding the best routes in the UK and our search for some of the best gravel riding lead us to Scotland to team up with pro mountain bike athlete, Scotty Laughland who took us out on one of his favourite routes.

The route starts just west of Callander, which is a small town in the council area of Stirling, situated on the Eastern edge of the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. It sets off clockwise around Loch Venechar, along Three Forest Drive and around Loch Achray, before heading north, alongside Glen Finglas Reservoir and up a punchy 5km gravel climb with 400m of ascent. This takes you to the top of the most idyllic, remote ridge line where you can stop, catch your breath, admire the views and get ready for the most amazing descent down the valley.

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⚫️ In this video
0:00 Intro
0:36 The Route
1:22 Trail Finding In Scotland
1:57 Why Gravel Bikes
3:08 The Perfect Gravel Route
4:16 Starting The Ride
5:46 Middle Of The Ride - No More Road
6:32 Starting The Climb
7:39 Reaching The Top
8:16 Taking In The Views
9:03 Descent
10:00 Highlights
10:30 Off To The Pub

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[bikepackingadventure]

This is the sort of riding I did in early 90s on my hard tail MTB, before all the trail centres.

Plan your own route, long ride linking up countryside with road sections

This is why I love gravel bikes now. This is how you have to do proper off road riding in the U.K., you have to link up places using roads.

This is why I don’t like trail centres, it does not feel like an adventure like this does. Doing bikepacking like this is even better.

😊😊

Ps. Can you please do some rides like this in other parts of the country, where it’s more difficult to plan rides. Staffordshire or Shropshire would be good to see. 👍

[simpsonoutdoors]

Great video and represents my ideology of sitting with a map and modern satellite views to choose doable routes with less hike a bike but still give a great day out. Cheers Scotty, I’ve added this to my ‘to do’ list. And your description of ‘right to roam’ is fundamentally what it is all about. 👍🏻

[bendenisereedy]

Carry on NE from the top of Glen Finglas and you'll end up in my village. I do these mixed rides on my Roubaix with 26mm road tyres and it copes well; I so wish we'd had all-terrain bikes like these when we did Polaris events in the 90s because they were usually 50% tarmac covering the distance between bridleways and mountain bikes were frustratingly slow.

[nblauch]

Can you guys link to the route on komoot?

[robertmersey]

Done this 3 years ago on my ebike got 50mph on decent weee

[James-yyvl]

A good gravel route is just a boring mtb route. Change my mind

[aligilmour]

There isn’t a ‘Right to roam’ in Scotland. It’s not about being allowed to go anywhere.

[danceswithcarsdc]

Harassing the sheep
and leaving muddy tracks
on water alternate crossing(s) passage might not be
considered Respectful
If people were around...
Plus never seemed to
break a sweat,
get muddy,
amazing PR/sale$...