The miles and the road(s) to Helensburgh

My mother lives just outside Helensburgh and tomorrow J and I are going over to see her.  I am having my usual debate about which way to go because there are lots.  It is basically straight across the country east to west, about 88 miles by the most direct route.

So we have the straight across way via the A91 and then the A811 (with or without a brief excursion on to the M90).  This has the advantage of being the shortest, and much of it being on our familiar and beloved A91, and the disadvantages of lots of roundabouts, going through the centre of Stirling, and the numerous cyclists on the A811 (particularly at weekends).

Then we have the A9 route which heads up to Perth and takes the A9 to Doune.  Then by somewhat circuitous routes it joins the A811.  This is my favourite route out (although it still suffers from the cyclists on the approach to Loch Lomond) – on the way back not so much so because there are a couple of nasty right turns at roundabouts.

The  “R special” aka “Motorways of Scotland” involves using sundry motorways and crossing the Kincardine bridge (yes really).  It is actually quick though quite a lot longer.  For R the key things are no town centres, urban roundabouts and narrow streets with parked cars.

Then the is the nuclear option of going right down into Glasgow on motorways all the way, crossing the Erskine bridge and picking up the A82.

Believe it or not, there are other ways as well (I just saw Google suggest going round the bottom of Loch Leven but I think he was joking there), you could even try the A85 for a long scenic route via Crianlarich.

The one thing all these routes have in common is that on a good day all the sane ones take about 2 hours 15 minutes, and that all of them in their different fashions are a bit shite.