Perthshire Drovers Route

[jobro]

Thinking of doing this Markus Stilz route as a 4 or 5 dayer in late May this year.
I have no experience of this area so if anyone on here has done it or knows the route to give me any tips or advise I would be very grateful.

One. slightly odd, question. Is there anywhere on the route that would provide a good chance of seeing Crested Tit? Its a bit of a dream bird for me.

TIA

[fatbikephil]

Some of it is really good but there are two horrendous hike a bike bits which would spoil it for many users. Some of the feedback is interesting.... Its also a mountainbike route, not a gravel bike route. If I were you I'd get its GPX file, get an OS map out and make a few mods to avoid the two bits where there is no trail, plenty of options. Robbie Lyall on here produced a 200k gravel route around perthshire which is far more straightforward and more like what you could do on 40mm tyres.

Re birdies, I haven't a clue, sorry!

[jobro]

Thanks Phil
Off hand do you know what days the hikeabike bits are as listed on the separate GPX?

[fatbikephil]

Stage 3 and 4. On stage 3 it's a bit above Glen Almond - the route climbs away from Loch Tay at Ardtalnaig and over the bealach into Glen Almond. It then climbs steeply away from the glen southwards and there is a k of peat hag and heather to link to the top of Glen Lednock - the sort of terrain you could disappear in.... Whats annoying about this bit is that he's made no effort to plot a route - it just follows a straight line between the two tracks. If you look at aerial photos there is a clear argocat track between the tracks including a couple of plank bridges - probably pretty wet but better than trying to plough across heather and peat hags. Why he didn't put the route along here is baffling and smacks of him not having ridden it...... As an alternative just carry on down the Glen Almond track which is a lovely route on a gravel bike. Then reverse the route to Comrie and Crieff and then go back east by back roads to re-join the route at lower Glen Almond

On the day 4 bit, the offending hike a bike is a link between the tracks in the forest after Griffin Wind farm and grand tully hill. I've not done this but it looks like a boggy schlep along the line of a burn - only a k but.... By contrast, continuing on the forest tracks past loch Kennard and down to Strath Tay is a gravel bike blast. From the bottom of this you can pick up the railway path to Grand tully and then further east on NCN 7 to re-join the route.

[jobro]

Thanks Phil - much appreciated

[robbie]

https://www.plotaroute.com/route/1125079?units=km

That should be the link for the route Phil was on about. It is doable on 33mm tyres but not comfy better with something 38mm plus. There are a few options to make it much bigger if you have 3-4 days.

[jobro]

Thanks Robbie

I'll be doing it on my Mason ISO with 55mm tyres so should be able to cope with a lot. How long did it take you to do the route?

[ad441]

I did the upper half of the route at the end of last summer, cutting out the lower section with a detour past Strathtay. Was a pretty relaxed 2.5 days. Used a 'gravel' bike, but with 2.1 tyres, which was fine for most of it. I don't think a proper mountain bike would have been much help with the hiking bits as they were pretty unrideable, though flat pedals/regular shoes would have been a better choice than clipless.

Longest non-rideable section of the bits I did was immediately after Allt Scheicheanach bothy (I think this is day 1 on the website route, but i did it at the end of day 2 due to starting the route in a different place). It might be more rideable it it hadn't been raining solidly for days... but a large part of it was on a footpath that had turned into a stream (took me about 30 minutes just to find it in the morning as it didn't look like a path). Then the path pretty much disappeared and I think unless it had been very dry for a while it would be very difficult to ride.
Also quite a bit of hikingf on the bit before River Tilt (also day 1 on the website), some of the descents there would be more rideable on a proper suspension mountain bike, but a lot of it would be too boggy to ride at all.

I'd still recommend it - even in non-stop rain the hiking parts were in nice scenery so were tolerable.

I don't know enough about specific birds, but I stayed near Loch Tummel before doing the ride and there were huge amounts of small birds visiting the garden feeder (and pine martens briefly), it seems a really good area for wildlife.