Dalbeattie Diversions!!!!

Hey everyone,

It's came to that time of year when forest harvesting operations are coming to the fore and this year it's Dalbeattie thats being affected!! The Town Wood Thinning operation is about to start on Monday the 9th November and will effectively last until early January. Hopefully the bike trails won't be affected for the whole time, due to the kind guys in harvesting agreeing to work a "rolling" system where the works will only be concentrated on a small area at any one time.

Unfortunately, the first coups to be thinned are close to the Richorn trail head, and due to the proximity to the Green cycle route on both the outward and return legs, we are left with no other option than to close the green route for approximately the first 3 weeks of the operation. However, both the green routes at Mabie and Ae are currently fully open and are a great alternative!

The Red and Blue routes will also be affected and a diversion will be in place from post 83 (the entrance into Volunteer Ridge) right back to the trailhead. This diversion will pass through private land and is only available to us through the kind permission of the Wilson Bros at Dalbeattie Forest Lodges, and without which we would have had to look at closures on these routes as well, so a big thank you to them!!

Currently there are also diversions in place at post 31 on the blue route and at post 36 (Road to Nowhere) on the red to allow for a seperate harvesting operation to take place.

Please obey and follow the diversions, harvesting sites are potentially very dangerous to members of the public and operators take a very dim view to being interupted by a gang of rebel mountain bikers!! Plus, the less hassle they get, the quicker they get finished and the sooner we can get everything back to normal!!

Thank you!

2009 South of Scotland Youth Cyclocross Series is Go

I am a HUGE fan of cyclocross so was more than a little stoked to see that Scottish Cycling and three local clubs have joined forces to put on a series of three cyclocross events for U16s during November and December.

Cross is quite possibly the funnest, friendliest, cheapest and most accessible type of bicycle racing out there and these events are a great way for young 'uns to try out racing - I promise they'll not be dissapointed!

Dates are:

Sat 14th Nov, St Ronans Primary School, Innerleithen (Peebles CC)
Sat 21st Nov, Drumlanrig Castle (Drumlanrig Root Rats)
Sat 12th Dec, Heathhall, Dumfries (Stepping Stanes)

These events are just another example of the fine work these 3 clubs (and others) are doing across the south of Scotland to get more kids on bikes.

More details on these races and the Scottish Cyclocross Series can be found at: www.scottishcyclocross.org.uk

don't forget to bring your cowbell!

Singletrack awards

Calling all 7stanes lovers, fans of  10@Kirroughtree and Glentress.

Make sure you, and all your friends, vote with your hearts and minds in the 2009 Singletrack on-line reader awards for the biking event and trail centre that really hit the spot for you.

http://www.singletrackworld.com/reader-awards/

Innerleithen XC Route Trailwork

As part of Phase 2 of the 7stanes Project we were able to add a couple of new sections of singletrack to the XC route at Innerleithen. One of these sections, 'Oh Deer' enabled us to bypass the most technical sections of Plora Craig and make the whole route Red graded (with part of the old Plora Craig becoming a black graded option).

The other section comes straight after the first descent off Minch Moor at the summit of the route and links in to the 'Enduro Path'. This new section enabled the previous natural climb back up to near the Minch Moor summit and boggy descent following, to be removed from the route and added a really fun new section of descending trail, making the climb to the top more worthwhile and the route more complete.

These 2 additions made an already very good route even better and make the Innerleithen XC trail an excellent alternative to the Red Route at Glentress. It's a similar distance with similar amount of climbing involved, but a little more challenging thanks mainly to the frequent rock features. I'd highly recommend it - as well as some brilliant riding, the views from the top are stunning and it's much quieter than Glentress.

On Wednesday myself and Andy Weir (fellow mtb ranger) were up on the section on Minch Moor doing some maintenance work. The first job was to make a rock step feature approx 3/4 along the trail more 'rollable' (as it's on the main line of the trail). The second was digging out a blocked topside drain and pipe which had badly silted up resulting in a pretty substancial puddle on the trail.

Rock step before..

Rock step after.. (still as 'huckable' as ever, just now more rollable too)

Blocked topside drains/pipe and muckle puddle!



Pipe unblocked, topside drains dug out, puddle mostly gone.

We got both jobs done just in time to catch the most stunning sunset i've seen in a while.



cheers,

andy

News from Ae

Trail Demons Wanted!

If you have some spare time and are willing to help out please phone 01387 860541 and add your name to the growing list of volunteers joining the trail building team at Ae. Lots of work coming up, dates to follow soon.

Ae Halloween Bash,  Friday 30th October

Family fun, games and spooky goings on at Ae Forest! Get your costumes and your bikes ready. A great range of demo lights from Light and Motion will be available to try out, with a group of bikers leaving Ae Café at 7pm for a ride around the green route (watch out for the ghost of Ae!).

Ae café and bar will be open till 9pm with the usual tasty offerings as well as a Halloween spaghetti bolognaise special (in adults/kids portions). Dooking for apples, prizes for fancy dress and lots more for bikers and non bikers alike.

Dining Nights at Ae

the popular dining nights will be starting again at Ae in November. The first offering will be on 6th November, menu will go on the website www.ae7.co.uk in due course and booking is essential for these sell out nights.

Ae Downhill Team

Congratulations to all the Ae team riders on an impressive first season. Highlights were Ryan Chambers winning the SDA at Dunkeld and getting podium finishes in the NPS races at Ae and Fort William. We’re expecting big things from him next year!

Ryan finished 4th overall in the Scottish Series, Callum “Cub” McCubbing came 10th overall in juniors and Lewis Cochrane finished 28th in seniors. Well done to all the lads and their bright orange Ae Team tops are part of the circuit now.

Swedish trailbuilders visit to Glentress

Last week we had the pleasure of showing 3 visitors from Sweden the trails at Glentress and Innerleithen 7stanes centres. Niklas, Per and Erik are part of a trailbuilding group that are developing mtb trails at Falun in Sweden so were keen to learn about how we build and maintain the trails here as well as getting plenty of riding in.

Cue lots of riding, big smiles and plenty of trailbuilding chat. I think they really enjoyed the trails and their visit.

They've done a write up on their blog including an article with some beautiful pictures of the trails (which proves the sun does shine in Scotland sometimes!).

Here's a link to it translated from Swedish:

http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=sv&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Flugnetmtb.blogspot.com%2F&sl=sv&tl=en&history_state0=

The translation's a little wonky but still absolutely readable, oh and “stigbyggarskola” means “trail building school”, “leads” or “joints” means “trails”.

cheers,

andy

Electric Blue Flyover Bridge Reopen

Mark (fellow MTB Ranger at Glentress) managed to get a new layer of grip paint onto the Flyover bridge on Saturday and Sunday before the rain came on Monday and Tuesday.

Ideal!

The bridge is now open for business once more with a super grippy surface, ready for the wetter weather autumn and winter will no doubt throw at us. I also did a bit of loose stone clearing on the runout from the bridge whilst up taking the diversion down.

Next up on the grip painting front - the log skinnies on Cardie Hill Climb. Aiming to have these completed and open before Christmas.