Glentress black trail

dellz9

I though I'd change up from my preferred red route at Glentress today (Monday) and gave the black route a bash. My gt aggressor did me proud by not chucking me off once!

My time was 2hours 47 minutes start to finish (there were a few diversions in place near te end also, not sure if this would have made my time better or worse than it should have been?)

One thing I do know, I was cream crackered when I finished!! I would highly recommend the black trail to anyone who hasn't yet tried it....

Not sure if this is a good, bad, or indifferent time, anyone have any thoughts/ comparisons?

Ta

Paul

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alanswalker

havent tried it yet not been down that way, from glasgow, since the snow went, how does it compare in difficulty to the spooky wood in your opinion?

cheers

dellz9

Hi Alan,

In terms of the uphill part of the spooky woods, the uphills on the Black are mostly more technical, except for the forest road sections & in parts a LOT steeper (Still managed to stay out of the granny ring though!!)

None of the downhill sections quite flowed as smoothly as the spooky woods downhill, they were all great, especially the Britney Spears section, but way more technical & rocky. This meant that my downhill speed was a bit limited on my GT

All in all, a great run though, well worth a try if you havent done it.

Next time i'm down, i'm going to try & knock a bit off my time too, it would be good to see if i can go a wee bit faster having ridden the course once already.....

Cheers,

Paul

nomadicbry

did it on my GT last year the onbly major difference i found was the gradients other than that II found no harder than the reds to be honest

covelove

^+1 yeah i would agree, it's not any harder than the red apart from it being about a million miles longer and i thought it also had much less flow than the red. i did it over a year ago and although i am at glentress regularly have never bothered doing it again. i just feel that the red has much more to offer and in a smaller distance! (for those who don't like to pedal for too long)

hammy7272

I am going to Glentress next weekend arriving on the trails about 11-12 on the sunday. I intend to stay over and drive back around 18:00 on the Monday. is it worth doing the Red on Sunday afternoon and then the black on the Monday? Or Red then Inners? Or Red Red Red?

Broonster

+1 on the GT red route actually being a better ride than the black route. I only tend to do the black route when I need to put the miles in for training. Red route is for pleasure!

Off to GT tomorrow morning and haven't decided whether it's a pleasure trip on the red, or a mile muncher on the black!

neil_sheehan2000

I did the black route a couple of weeks ago; I think the diversions you are talking about made it a lot longer; did the diversion lead you uphill on a trail that was sigposted as having 2-way traffic? If so, it took you to nearly the top of the red route again (the top of the section after the section after Spooky Wood- can't remember its name).

Your time seems bretty bleeding awesome if that was the case. As does the fact that you didn't even use the granny ring!

My favourite route at GT at the minute is to cycle up the red (or the blue, depending how bothered I can be), do Spooky Wood a couple of times and then do the 2nd half of the Black route. I'm loving the black route just for the novelty of it, though I agree that it doesn't necessarily flow as well as the red, and there isn't always an obvious point at which I think 'now I should drop my seatpost all the way'.

MarkLG

The diversions on the GT black knock about 3 miles of the route - I clocked it at 15.5 miles on my GPS a few weeks back.
To me the black rode more like a natural route with the steep climbs and loose, rocky and steep descents. I found the XC route at Innerleithern to be a better ride than the routes at GT.

peter413

The innerleithen XC is great.

Not to say the Red at Glentress isn't but Inners is a whole different league. Much steeper and faster and much more technical.

If you think the red or the black at Glentress is really hard, probably give Inners a miss.

Anyone ridden the new bit on Magic Mushroom yet, what did you think. The bridge is still to be sorted before anyone says about that

IMJolly

GT red route is definitely a fun quick route, I've done the black a few time but I would have to agree with MarkLG about innerleithen XC.

I did it the weekend past last for the first time on my hardtail, it was a way more technical and rocky with hardly anyone else on it, great fun and would recommend it to anyone. A word of caution though, with the exception to one mini decent you do have to climb a lot before the coming back down, but it is sooo worth it! Even thought about a 2nd climb back up, where's that chairlift??

It didn't take long when I got back to have a look at a full sussy, bought one that night!!

Back there today!! Yeeha! maybe this time 2 loops or a wee blast at GT afterwards..

Kiblams

We went up and rode the Glentress red and Innerleithen reds last year and loved both, what we did find is that most if not all people who we met on the red suggested that the black route at Glentress was "a boring slog".