Colintraive to Dunoon hugging the coast

[billy80]

We were cycling round Bute this weekend and I started to wonder if there was a route that we could take from Colintraive round to Dunoon that hugged the coast all the way round, roughly following the blue line in this image.

I suspect that there is no route that would take us round the first (to the west) peninsula, but from google and strava, there might be a path round the second (the eastern one). It looks like there are dotted line paths but I am not sure how passable they are. Gravel paths would be fine but rough ground or sheep tracks aren't what we like doing.

Does anyone having any idea how much, if any of this route is passable?

This is as far as I got with Strava...


Thanks,

Billy.

[andrew_s]

There are no roads or cyclable tracks at either side of the northern end of Loch Striven.
On the west side there's about a 6 mile gap between the end of the public road and the B836 at the head of the loch. The southern 2 miles of it has usable track, but the rest would probably be forestry plantation bashing.
On the east side there's about 2 miles of footpath between tracks, probably good enough to follow without getting lost, but that's about all.

Similarly, your Strava route has a mile or so of more or less trackless hillside over the Bealach na Sreine (mile 18-19, or thereabouts).

[irc]

Not what you asked - but I have cycled the forestry tracks north along the coast from Holy Loch to Lochgoilhead. Easy cycling with no steep hills. Could be used to make some sort of loop in the area.

The road north along the coast from Portavadie which I've driven would be a great cycling road. Almost zero traffic and scenic.

[Tinnishill]

If you want to research this sort of route Bing Maps gives you free on line access to 50th and 25th OS maps and high resolution satellite photo. The Open Cycle map sometimes shows more up to date paths than OS. Anything based on Google maps is pretty poor quality for anywhere that doesn't have tarmac sticking to it.

[andrew_s]

If you want to research this sort of route Bing Maps gives you free on line access to 50th and 25th OS maps and high resolution satellite photo.

Which is what I did (though "high resolution satellite" is actually aerial).

Generally, you want to use several sites when checking routes.
Bing allows you to zoom further in to the aerial than Google does, and the OS mapping makes it easy you be sure you are looking at the right place.
Google has StreetView.
It's area-dependent on which actually has the better photos.
If there's a routable track, cycle.travel will allow you to easily search the geograph.co.uk photos for a look at what the track surface might be like (unfortunately cycle.travel won't route footpaths).