Bike accessible bothies in Scotland

[gma]

That looks like a superb trip Rual. Thanks for the list of bothies – a Scottish bothy trip is definitely on my todo list, so it should come in very handy when planning…

[rualexander]

Just back from this year's bothy tour, three nights, three and a half days, three bothies visited.
Left the car in Moffat, short cycle in to Brattleburn bothy. Next day, back out to road and headed north up the old A74 to Elvanfoot then south and in to Daer reservoir, track over the hills from there to Kettleton Byre bothy was hard going due to gradients, snow, and rough surfaces.
From Kettleton Byre, took the track out to the minor road that runs south to Forest of Ae, then up track to Burleywhag bothy.
Final day, out to road again, down to Ae village, then onto forest track cycle route through to Moffat.
Good weather again apart from first afternoon ride in to Brattleburn.
Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rualexander/albums/72157678588332933

[rualexander]

Map of tour

[StuntPilot]

Excellent photos! I stayed one night in Betty-Mouats Böd before taking a flight from Shetland to Bergen on the North Sea Cycle Route back in 2013. This Böd is five minutes by taxi from the airport and a great place to build/disassemble and pack you bike after/before a flight. The standard is good and the place was clean. All facilities - showers/toilets and kitchen and bunk beds. Just put your £10 in the plastic sandwich box!

http://www.camping-bods.com/Betty-Mouats-g.asp

I haven't tried any other Böds on Shetland but if they are of the same standard and accessible by bike it would be an ideal accommodation option for a cycle tour of the Shetland islands.

[Matt2matt2002]

I'll second the Shetland bods.
I have stayed at Windhouse x3.
Excellent value.
I think the price has increased from £10/ night but they can't be more than £15 now.
I used it as a base to tour around the island and visited Muckle Flugga to start my Scottish end to end tour 3 years ago.

Back to the bothy list; I hope to do the Hebridean Way next week so will try to incorporate a few.
Kick off from Inverness then Fort Bill, Oban and ferry to Castlebay.
Fingers crossed for only mild gales.
😉

[RST Scout]

What wonderful photos and what great tracks. Thanks for posting. Love it.

[Binky]

A bit of a thread resurrection.

Good to see there's a bothy thread on here, I'm a big fan of them, have used many and have attended a few maintenance days (work parties) over the years, where any help is appreciated regardless of what DIY skills one has or doesn't have!

Fair play to you on getting loaded touring bikes to some of those bothies. Some landowners' idea of a "landrover track" can be pretty steep and rough and I've walked in to some of the bothies mentioned thinking I'd struggle on a mountain bike!

As has already been mentioned, the MBA website is a good source of information on where the bothies are and how to use them responsibly. Membership is worthwhile as the yearly membership fee helps go towards maintenance of these facilities.

The UK bothies forum at https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/ukbothies/ is worth a look too. Some parts of the forum require logging in to read (creating an account is free) but the threads for each bothy, organised in subsections by region can be accessed without logging in. Plenty of stories and photos over the years.

I'm gradually trying to spend the night in every MBA bothy so if anyone wants some (unfit) company for bothy trips let me know!