Venue: Kirkhill

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Kirkhill 1

Kirkhill including Elrick Hill

Kirkhill and Elrick have a maze of trails all throughout the area. This is a GPS log from a ride through some of them.

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Kirkhill 2

Kirkhill without Elrick Hill

This is a route starting at Craibstone, and taking in Clinterty Woods and some of Kirkhill Forest, but misses out the run round Elrick Hill as it has now been partially flattened to make a path.

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Brilliant Local trails, take your pick mig gave this trail 5 stars about 5 years ago

Rating my own trail entry. Good introduction for a beginner into departing from flat fire-roads at least for a bit. Won't challenge more advanced riders though. ravelin gave this trail 3 stars about 5 years ago

North Kirkhill Loop

This route starts at the main Kirkhill Forestry Commission car park at the top of Tyrebagger and pretty much circumnavigates the woods. It's a mixture of single-track and fire roads and only one bit I'd describe as 'technically awkward'. Probably OK for relative beginners as the awkward part can be walked if necessary.

From the car park start out by following the main fire-road but turn off to your right almost immediately to get onto a more interesting bit of single-track. Follow this uphill until it intersects a more established track, turning left then right, back onto the main fire-road.

Follow the fire-road uphill then turning right for a fast ride along a long straight stretch. At the end, instead of following the fire-road as it turns left, take the narrower track straight ahead of you. This is quite a decent track with there only being one downhill bit that is quite rocky and awkward. Once past this you drop steeply onto another narrow track, where you should turn right. Follow this track and it will turn left and eventually bring you back to the fire-road near the north eastern corner of the woods.

Here you need to take a right turn then immediately left to pick up the fire-road that contours around the northern edge of the woods and eventually south towards the summit of Tyrebagger Hill. Leave the fire-road to climb up the path to the viewpoint at the top of the hill and down the other side. Take a left as you hit the fire-road yet again, but turn right to go down a path on the right only a 100m or so later. Follow this downhill for a bit until you meet an obvious track that takes you back uphill to the left, eventually joining the fire-road (there's probably a better short-cut here to avoid some of the following fire-road but I haven't done it so can't vouch for that).

At the fire-road turn right and follow it as it swings right and back the way you came earlier. To add interest to the return, keep a look out for the signs to the bike park that point off to the right. Take the narrow track here along the side of a gully until you reach the top of the bike park. Enjoy the ride down the man-made trail back to the car.

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Over top of Elric Hill

This route goes over the top of Elric hill, rather than round it (as the route round it has now been flattened into a very smooth (and boring) path).

It then goes on to the other side of the A96 to take in some of the close by Kirkhill forest stuff, before returning to the start point at Craibstone.

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This is the GPX file I used for my ride today, and it was pretty good - though I'm about to upload a 'cleaned' version of it, which also starts and ends from the Kirkhill Forest carpark. rustille gave this trail 4 stars about 1 year ago

Kirkhill area loop

There is so much to ride at Kirkhill and no one had the single track gems on a route so i rode them and uploaded. We rode over from Craibstone which means crossing the dual carriage way so not for the faint hearted, some great hidden single track sections throughout the woodland and including the two hill top climbs and best descents off each. There is so much more than here though to explore and put together some decent long loops with plenty of natural rooty muddy singletrack riding. Finishes off on the kirkhill side with the obligatory blast down the fun park before heading back over the road and through some fast singletrack and walkers paths around tyrebagger, watch out of the buffalo sculptures.

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Kirkhill Forest

Kirkhill Forest North outer route and bypass past bogenjoss cottage - AP

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kirkhill loop

A fun loop at kirkhill that takes in a lot of the of the beaten path tracks.

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Kirkhill fun

This file is based on my experience following the 'Kirkhill area loop' GPS file on this site. As I wasn't keen on crossing the busy dual carriageway I've eliminated that portion of the file and also cleaned up a couple of deadends.

We all know that Kirkhill isn't the best when it comes to MTB trails however it's close proximity to Aberdeen makes it handy for a quick blast on the bike. I would estimate that about 75% of the trail marked here follows the fire track, and the rest is singletrack which can suffer from fallen trees or boggy sections as it's not properly maintained.

There are a multitude of other unofficial singletracks that I spied on my bike trip, some of which I will try to record in future. I just wish the Forestry Commission would

Note that you may not be able to follow the north eastern section perfectly due to the AWPR construction at the time of writing, however good diversions are in place.