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Venue: Clachnaben

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Venue Type:
No. of Trails: 1
Facilities:
Car Park
Location:-
Head away from Banchory on the B974 (Cairn o' Mount road). Turn right into the forest car park.

Click here to see a detailed map and information about any additional locations.
Description:-
The Clachnaben forest car park is quite small and immediately to the right as you come along the B974 from Banchory (situated in an old quarry). Used by the many walkers, mountain bikers and other users of the hill, this car park can get quite full on a sunny weekend.

Clachnaben itself is very recognisable because of the dramatic and very obvious rocky outcrop at the top. This unique feature means the hill is very easy to identify even from many miles away. This hill is big enough to feel like a decent mountain once you are up there, but it is actually quite accessible and the top is actually not very far from the car park by the most direct route.


Trails at Clachnaben

Summary


Trail Title Length (Miles) Ascent (Mtrs) Time (Hrs) Tech Grade Fitness Grade
Neep Route 13.2 651 2.5 Hard Moderate

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Comments and ratings for Neep Route
After 7 weeks way from riding I decided to do this route, it was a hard climb to the top and I was thankful for the fire road, the section from tag 3 was good and I got a good bit of speed up here, go... read whole comment...
andyslandy gave this trail 4 stars about 3 years ago
This is a great ride. I love the technical descent, and the challenge of not letting the drainage ditches have their way with your wheels. Well worth the slightly boring fireroad ascent.
wayne gave this trail 4 stars about 6 years ago

Neep Route


Viewed 2068 times
Length: 13.2 Miles
Ascent: 651 m
Time: 2.5 hrs
Tech Grade: Hard
Fitness Grade: Moderate
Av. Trail Rating:
(2 votes so far)
Description:-
This is the standard route used by the 'Ecurie Neeps' MTB club.

Most of this trail is only a ‘Moderate’ tech grading, but it has been allocated ‘Hard’ because of a couple of long steep and quite technical rocky decents as you come down off the top. There’s not really any way round them, so if you are not confident on these sections you’ll be climbing down with your bike at your side.

Route Description:-

From the car park there’s a short section through the forest which ends in a small decent to a gate at Tag1. From there you start the trail’s one main climb up to the top. This climbing is all done on fireroad, and is quite gradual for the most part. But unfortunately it gets steeper and steeper as you go (the last bit as you approach Tag2 is the steepest). From there the trail flattens out into a few small ups and downs until you get to Tag3 which is where the fireroad changes to be a rough double-track and then to wide rocky single track. There are some fun little decents in this section, and the surface is rocky and interesting to ride on. If you push on, you can get up quite a head of speed too. After a last small climb up to Tag4 you have reached to bottom of Clachnaben’s rocky outcrop at the top of the hill. From here you immediately start into the most technical and steep rocky decent on the trail. It’s all ridable, but you need a bit of technical skill. Once over this first section it becomes easier and quite fast as long as you can cope with wheel eating drainage ditches. But please take great care here for walkers as this is a very popular route for them. At the tree-line (Tag5) this decent continues but changes character to be more of a swoopy rooty trail through the forest. But it’s very interesting, allows you to keep your momentum up and has loads of natural features to keep you on your toes. By the time you get to the gate at Tag6 you have lost most of the height and all that remains is a quick run back to the car park. Unfortunately the nice little decent you did as the first part of the ride, turns into a pain of an ascent back to the car park at the very end of the ride.


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Average rating for the trails at Clachnaben


4 Stars

2 votes for this rating
This venue has been viewed 8775 times

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Clachnaben


Links to external sites related to Clachnaben

  • Walkhighlands page for Clachnaben
  • Wikipedia entry for Clachnaben

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