National Cycle Network Route 7 Drymen Gartmore Aberfoyle Callander Guide

Part of a series covering cycling in the highlands of Scotland - Sustrans National Cycle Network Route 7 Lochs and Glens North (Glasgow - Inverness). Watch for new sections as they get added. The routes are all done as return trips so you can see the conditions and scenery in both directions and are intended to give you a feel for the route, gradient and surface - as well as showcasing the beautiful scenery.
Drymen to Callander via Aberfoyle. Total distance return trip 48miles. Overlaps with the Rob Roy way. Shot on 9 May 2015, but since I forgot to charge the gopro that day, theres also footage from a second run on 5 March 2016.
It’s very much a route of two halves and crosses the highland boundary fault which runs south west, north east. It’s a very scenic run but with two big hills - one right out of Drymen from 55m to 216m over 2 miles, then down to 30m or so before climbing up one of the HBF folds into Gartmore where we reach 85m before dropping down to the river forth and Aberfoyle at about 20m … then the big hill up through the Achray forest, reaching 260m before heading down past Loch Drunkie to Loch Venachar for a reasonably flat 90m nice lochside run into Callendar.
It’s mainly quiet single track road from Drymen to Aberfoyle (potholes though) with a short section of ex-railway cycle track followed by very rough forest track and then smoother track alongside Loch Venachar with some quiet(ish) road into Callander to finish.
Cycled with a Specialized Tricross with 32c Marathon Plus tyres - a bit narrow for the rougher parts of the forest sections where gradient and freshly laid big loose stones made for zero grip both up and down. An MTB would have given a much safer and faster result.
GoPro Hero 4 Silver, 1080 wide, protune, gopro colour -0.5 ev to retain the skies using the Grad Filter effect in • Grad Filter Effect Tut...
Additional material Lumix TZ30 set at -2/3 ev
Edited with Sony Movie Studio Platinum 13. No stabilisation (it cuts the field of view). Unfortunately this is resulting in some CZcams compression artifacts after upload. I tried a chest mount for the first time on this run, but it gave a poor result with arms in the way of the view and a lot of clothing noise and no easy way to control direction so for the March rerun I went back to the headmount.
Royalty-free music by Underwaterbeats
GPS and mapping by Runtastic
Look out for the Gartchonzie bridge on the left heading north a couple of miles short of Callander. In high summer it is covered in blue flowers (fairy foxgloves) with an amazing aroma