Dreghorn Loop

Gibbo3771
Gibbo3771 Posts: 145
edited October 2011 in Routes
I think the route that I done yesterday was the Dreghorn loop, it was not a very long ride but quite a bit of a climb. Below is a picture of the entire pentlands area and the walking paths, I have marked the route I took and going to leave my story with more pics at the bottom. This was my first time proper offroad on the bike. :twisted:

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After some confusion from coming over the water of leith and up a muddy but fun patch I go along a farm road and eventually hit a real road, I dont have much of a description at this point as tbh, I was kind of lost :p lol.

But eventually I caught a footpath to my left and decided to go up it..or tried to at least.

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It was ungodly wet and slippy and some points I had to get off and give it a push as my back wheel was just going all over the place :(. Once I got past this part It was a similiar path but downhill, was much easier to go down hehe, then I came to a small bridge going over a little burn.

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The burn is in the background of this pic but not very noticable, the ground was very slippy due to roots everywhere but I managed to get over it without a fall. 8)

The rain came on a little bit so decided to pack my phone away, about 20 minutes later I took another picture a fair bit further on, this part was after I cycled through a hellish puddle and up what honestly seemed like a shallow river, did I mention my bike got stuck in the puddle resulting in me having to get off and stand in about ankle deep mud (which was probably mostly cow dung..... :( )

So here I am out in the open.

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As you can see in the above pic....that hill in the distance is where I "eventually" end up....eventually :p The ride here was actually pretty nice besides the wind, was gradual uphill rather than omgwtfcalfs :shock:

Next pic :D

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This was at the top of the hill, or close at least..i think lol. Anyways you can see the first patch of forest area in the picture, that is back at the very start next to that ungodly puddle but after the little forest route and rocky path in the first picture. After this it was....lets just say epic but scary as hell.

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This was along side the big hill you can see few pics up and its basically a gate that leads into a awesome decent, rocks, marsh, puddles sheep, you name it...it was on the path. I can not believe how fast I went down this part without falling :shock: unfortunately i never got a picture of the bottom upwards, too much adrenaline and was eager to get going.

If you go back to the very top picture, the map. You can see the part where the path takes a very sharp turn to the left. This is the bottom of that big decent and jesus the path after this was just unridable. I had to push the bike most of the way, at least half way up the next hill.

Here is a pic at the top, when the marsh finally gets 100% ridable.

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Its not the best pic in the world, I am as much as a photographer as a mountain biker :p

After this...it got quite fun but also very difficult, the mud was deep as hell, puddles where huge and the amount of sheep shit on the bits that were not muddy, was actually pretty funny :?

My little write up about this route is coming to an end soon but first, we havent come to the fall yet!!!!

So about 15 minutes further up I come to a flattish bit of land...lots of puddles and muddy patches, it become very difficult to judge how deep some of these puddles where and if i was going to get my wheel lodged and do a superman over the bars.

So here is the scene of the crime :lol:

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As you can see and probably guess I came down the little ridge and flying towards the puddle. However I was deciding what to do on the way towards it...go through it, or around it. As I got closer i said to myself f*ck it, dont fancy swimming so I "tried" to go around it :roll:

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At the right of the pic you can see a small tread mark where I intended to go (but didnt ofc lol) I went at it with a decent bit of speed and weight shifted to the back to keep traction but unfortunately my back wheel got caught in the mound and span out towards the puddle resulting in me basically, coming to a fullstop and falling over to the side....into the puddle ofc :wink:

So after 15 minutes of eating a sandwich and drying off and fixing the damage to my dignity. I continued towards the end, unfortunately I only took 1 more pic after this since I had to pack my phone in the rucksack.

So it comes to and end, after that puddle its downhill for about 30 seconds then instantly back uphill again...it is very gruggy, marshy and just plain hilarious to try and cycle up...you then continue along the path till you reach a forest and at this point you can go 3 ways, left, right or straight. I went via the forest and down a killer hill which left my break pads burning.

Last pic at the bottom of that epic hill.

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After this it was pretty much just trying to get back to baberton, it was a nightmare to say the least but overall I had fun and came out with no damage to myself or the bike :lol: (so the puddle was good and bad)

Overall the route is fun, challenging (for me) and you meet lots of other bikers/walkers as well. However it is very wet and muddy this time of year, I never expected to push as much as I did tbh but oh well :) was probably down to lack of experience and confidence. I hope to do this route more often and hopefully I can find some friends to do it with :D

To finish up I did take pictures of the before and after bike "cleanslyness" :p

So if anyone is interested in seeing all the mud I brought home and trailed along the carpet feel free to have a gander :D

After the ride:

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After some water, elbow grease and actual grease.

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Hope you enjoyed reading and also, if your nearby consider this route :D