IN summer there is quite heavy traffic on main roads in Ayrshire. And yet, it has many quiet but exhilarating hill, valley and ridge-top roads, often with spectacular views to Arran and Ailsa Craig.

You need a map to find most of them. Livestock often wander across their unfenced stretches, and some are specially signposted for cyclists. Ca' canny.

Kilbirnie to Largs down the Haylie Brae is often a pain, but from Loch Thom the road by Brisbane Glen to Largs runs through country remote enough to have appeared on 19th-century maps as "Back of the World". And going from Dalry over the hills to Fairlie Glen opens up tremendous views of the Firth of Clyde.

One very quiet way towards Ayrshire is from East Kilbride or Eaglesham, south over a 1000ft-plus summit almost as far as Caldermill. That opens up the network of hill roads north of Darvel, where there is one hairpinned drop into a green riverside like a tiny pass in the Alps.

Above Darvel, these roads look across to the wooded ridge around Lanfine. From Priestland on the A71 a minor road climbs to that side of the valley, in long straight stretches with turn-offs towards the Galston-Sorn road, one of Ayrshire's many fine, open B-class routes.

The B741 from Dalmellington to Straiton, bumpy at river level, has been largely resurfaced, eventually looking dead straight towards Arran, whose island status is hidden by the middle-distance hills.

Straiton is the start of a classic loop, south through the forests on an old coaching road to a 1407ft moorland summit, then doubling back at Rowantree Toll towards the steep-drop Nick of the Balloch.

Northwards, the hill road continues towards Crosshill, twisting across open country around Ayrshire's own Deil's Elbow. To the west, most roads hereabouts lead to Barr, approached by one winding hill route or another, whether unclassified or numbered the B734.

Ayrshire's most peculiar road is the Electric Brae on the A719 near Dunure, where coasting cars seem to roll to a standstill downhill and accelerate gently uphill. Some drivers potter along at five miles per hour, inattentive to other traffic.

Nearer Ayr, the Carrick Hills turn-off climbs to a majestic viewpoint, descending towards Maybole by the historic road where John Loudon McAdam laid his prototype "macadam" surface.