Introducing Scotland’s Newest Bikepacking Route: The Pictish Trail

There are few better means through which to explore a landscape than by bike, and with its dramatic remote landscapes and ancient tribal past, Scotland makes for some incredible bikepacking opportunities.

In the Early Middle Ages, in a pre-Viking era, a tribal confederation of Celtic people called the Picts ruled eastern and northern Scotland. Today, in the form of their iconic stone carvings, their stamp on the landscape remains.

Inspired originally by a photograph of a specific but unknown gravel road in the Highlands, over the past couple of years, Annie Evans and Huw Oliver pieced together a new bikepacking route through the ancient Pictish kingdoms, from the far-north reaches of the UK in Caithness, down to Edinburgh. This is the story of them piecing together that route, as well as their first journey along what has become Scotland’s newest bikepacking route – The Pictish Trail.