Tourist Trap at GT reopens!

Yep, 'tis true, we've just reopened 'Tourist Trap', after a pretty extensive rebuild and closure.
Sorry it's been closed alot longer than we anticipated.

Tourist Trap is a short section of singletrack that comes towards the end of the Red/Black mtb routes at Glentress. It used to have a fairly quick run in to a tight, slow turn onto a tight bridge (momentum killer if ever there was one), followed by a short sharp climb out upto the forest road, guaranteed to leave that lovely stinging sensation in the legs.

Time had taken its toll on this section however, the climb especially had suffered badly due to the poor (soft) ground conditions and the approach to bridge was constantly on the recieving end of heavy braking.

So as part of the 7stanes trail maintenance program we spruced her up with a revised line and more fun for the descent, a new boardwalk stream crossing (that should give you a bunch more momentum back up the other side) and a new climb out that is a little easier, but has added rock step loveliness to keep you on your toes.

We've built it all much more robustly and been extra careful with the design to ensure all flows well. Richard Hamilton (fellow FCS Mountain Bike Ranger) has done a great job rebuilding the trail in the digger and i'm especially chuffed with how the boardwalks look.

Here's a couple of pics from during the build. Note the old line and bridge (craftily hidden by tree) across the stream vs. the new line and boardwalk. Below - Mark applying grip paint.

We hope you like it. Let us know what you think.

Cheers, and again, sorry for the delay.

Andy

Mabie Log Ride

After much deliberation, humming and hahing, chin scratching and general chit chat, we decided yesterday to put the black log ride option on the Hand Cut at Mabie out of its misery. A sad day for all I know, but old age, general abuse and a substantial amount of rot helped us make the uneasy decision! Bad Times!

There is however a replacement planned for the near future, so those of you who like the technical stuff hopefully won't be disappointed!! Good Times!!

Kids Summer Dirt Crit Series at Glentress

It was the 3rd event in this popular series at Glentress last night.

Peebles Cycling Club, who organise things have these races dialled - commentary; music; coffee/tea and cake stand; barriered start/finish straight; an ace short, not too hilly but super fun course that's makes for exciting racing and great spectating; lap boards; chequered flag; cow bells; enthusiastic competitors and supporters; races for all ages from 6 - 16 years old.

The atmosphere is pretty special. People out in the forest having lots of fun. Bravo PCC and all involved. The organisers sum things up perfectly: "a truly grass-roots experience open to all young riders who want a taste of racing in a friendly, exciting atmosphere".

If you fancy having a go the final 3 races in the series are on Thu 30th July, 6th Aug and 13th Aug. More info at http://www.entrycentral.com/index.php?festivalID=107

Nearly 60 kids were out racing and having fun last night. The future for mountain biking looks very good indeed.

Kielder 100 (miles!)

Yup, that's right, 100 miles. The Kielder 100 will be the UK's first 100mile, single lap, offroad race. This is very cool.

It'll also be very challenging, but they'll be lots of folk out there who'll be up for it, for sure, especially given how popular the Merida MTB Marathon events have become.

The route will also cross over the border into Scotland, taking in the 7stanes trails at Newcastleton, before heading back to the start/finish at Kielder in England.

The date: Sat 5th Sep 2009.

To find out more/to enter have a peek at the Kielder 100 website

Tweed Valley Bike Bash

Just back from the Tweed Valley Bike Bash - a wee event organised for the kids at St Ronans Primary School at Innerleithen, as part of National Bike Week. Rich and Dierdre, members of the Tweed Valley Tourist Consortia and the school did a great job putting on various biking related activities (with help from several local companies, organisations and individuals) to get the kids excited about biking.

First up though was a bike demo from the Clan, including the extraordinary talent that is Danny MacAskill (doing a stupidly high bunny hop in the pic above). Needless to say it went down an absolute storm, as did the freebies from Cycling Scotland. Lots of noise, enthusiasm and very happy faces.

Next up for the kids was a series of activities including: have a go mtbing with Peebles Cycling Club and the Tweed Valley Bike Patrol; pump track demonstration (on a beautifully crafted, portable wooden track built by Ben Wills and Rich Latimer); mtb skills with Emma and Tracey from the Hub; downhill bikes on display from the guys at Icycles and finally a wee trailbuilding demo from myself (FC and 7stanes).

How do you even hope to keep a bunch of kids attention following a stunt demo?? Fortunately I think most were still buzzing from the display and seemed quite interested in the trailbuilding, even the different types of soil!

I showed them the different stages involved in developing a trail from plotting the initial line, to brashing the trail corridor, right through the tamping down the finished trail surface. And hopefully didn't go on too much about the fantastic mineral soil the hillside is blessed with!

Mmmm. Very tasty golden mineral soil! The McCloud is standing on what the finished trail surface will look like. No need to surface with imported crushed stone here.

Of more interest for them was the possibility of a short section of trail being developed in the woodland next to the school where we were working.

I was asked by the school to have a look at the possibility of developing a trail in the woodland for the kids to ride on. The woodland isn't too big but I managed to plan out a new descent (think Blue Velvet and Electric Blue stylee at Glentress) that would work out around 120m long and would link in well with an existing trail that could be used as a climb to form a 250m loop.

It's just at the initial planning stage just now but what a fab wee project it would be. If approved, it would be great to get the teachers, kids and local community involved with handbuilding the trail.

A safe, fun, all weather trail to practise on right where people live - how fantastic would that be.

Cheers,

Andy

Forest Products Challenge Llandegla

This new event for the forest industry kicked off at the Llandegla trail centre in North Wales.

Teams of 4 riders rode 2 laps of the 12 mile red / black route with honors going to the quickest total time for the team.

Fifteen teams from across the country took part including one representing FC Scotland and riding in 7stanes colours (Gibb forgot his 7stanes top so rode in the colours of the local Hard Rock club)

The trail was new to me so we headed down for a course inspection the day before. The first 3.3 miles was a steady climb on a wide track with easy overtaking before the single track kicked in. Some fast flowing riding with plenty of kickers and berms and a few steep climbs - the race the next day was going to be fun!

Next morning we had an early breakfast and short drive to the trail head to sign on and warm up for the start in our teams of four at minute intervals; we were twelfth off.

Across the line and the race was on to pass as many as possible on the long climb before hitting in to the singletrack sections. I caught and passed most of the slower riders and had a fairly clear run for the rest of the lap.

In to lap two and I took a wrong turn (how? the race arrows were big enough). This allowed another rider to catch and pass me. I sat on his rear wheel for most of the climb but he dropped me just before the top (he did recorded the fastest lap time of 57 min).

The descents seemed to flow better on the second lap but the climbs were harder as I started to tire, time to dig deep.

The final decent saw me safely home followed by the rest of the team and into 3rd place.

If you haven't visited Llandegla it's well worth a try. The black sections are not really technical, if you can ride 7stanes red you will have no problems, just watch out for those kickers!

Kirroughtree Duathlon

Sunday 31 May saw 58 starters lining up for the second year of this event, with a near even split between solos and teams of two for the 10k run followed by the 17k of the red route.

The trails were dry and some fast times were recorded despite the hot conditions. The fastest bike time for the red route was 47 min by local rider Bruce Mccleary; if you can do better let us know!
The full results can be found at http://www.thebreakpad.com/

It would be great to see this event grow so get training for next year.

To the great timber trail heaven in the sky..

On Saturday myself and Mark (a fellow Mountain Bike Ranger) had the unenviable task of removing one of the raised timber trails in the Skills Area at Glentress - the higher of the two wider timber features near the hut in the centre of the loop.

It's time had come due to the condition of the posts and supports. The decking boards were in good shape since these had been treated, but the posts and supports were untreated timber from the surrounding forest and as a result were always going to start rotting quicker. Ewok Village succumbed to a similar fate recently, but more on this in a future post.

Still, the feature had been standing strong since 2003 just after the Skills Area opened, so it had lasted pretty well. All that it had needed maintenance wise was the occasional worn bit of netting patching up and a few decking boards and supports replacing.

On a more positive note, we will be replacing the feature with something similar, but alas not immediately. We're planning to do some upgrade work in the Skills Area in late 2009 or 2010, so we're going to hang fire just now, as we'd like to tweak where certain features sit around the area and the overall layout - part of improving how the Skills Area works for you the visitors. One area we're really keen to improve on is how the area works for larger groups of riders - school groups, the Kids Club etc.

We're currently fine tuning our plans for the upgrade work but would love to hear your thoughts on the Skills Area, especially:

1. What features and sections you like/work well?
2. What features and sections you don't like/don't work well?
3. What features/sections/types of trail you'd like to see developed in the Skills Area?
4. Any other thoughts or things you'd like to get off your chests?

The more thoughts and ideas we receive the better, as although we've built up a good deal of collective knowledge on the subject, there's always more to learn, new ideas and points of view to take in. Also we'd love to hear from everyone - first timers, skills coaches, school leaders, parents, youngsters, regular users, irregular users, young, old, in between.

So please do get in touch, either here or by contacting me at andy.wardman@forestry.gsi.gov.uk or 07900 138901 or drop by the Ranger's Office at Glentress and say hello.

cheers,

andy

Twitter - bowing to the inevitable?

Irritating fad or paradigm-changing communications tool? We've decided to hedge our bets and set ourselves up on Twitter. Follow us at http://twitter.com/7stanes.

Rate this trail feature now on the main site

You can now leave a comment about any of the 7stanes trails and give them a mark out of 5 as a comment feature has been added to the main site.

Just go to the relevant trail page, scroll to the bottom and fill in the boxes. There's the usual terms and conditions for posting comments, so try to avoid sweary words, but otherwise, all views welcome, good or otherwise.