Glentress weekend

Gazaberdeen69

Hi,

i am off to Glentress for the Weekend in Aug - any suggestions / tips and routes to def try out? (i take it theres no uplift here?? .... only when my legs are getting tired.. honest!)

fyldesmurf

Midgie repellant, and lots of it :P

Majski

Innerliethen is 10 mins drive away, has uplift services availible http://www.upliftscotland.com/ and has some of the best downhill trails in the UK - if that's what you're after

UH DH

Glentress is fine for midges, only ever been bitten once in 12 years, and thats when I went right into the trees for a natureshit.

You'll likely just want the red route. Moderately challenging, nice balance of climbing and fun downhills. Black route has a couple of fun downhill sections, but is mostly uphill slog for little reward, and the fun sections can easily be reached from the top of the red route anyway.

Blue has some fun sections, but it's generally dead easy as well.

Freeride park is good for afew hours, or try to find some of the off-track trails. Here's a free one: From the Buzzards Nest carpark, go up the hill alongside the freeride area. At the top, the road goes straight on or to the left up to the red route. Go straight on toward the black route, but about 25m along the road is a trail off to the left. Try that.

Maps can be got from the Peel Centre at the bottom.

Northwind

Lots of midges out at GT/Innerleithen just now, not something I've ever been bothered with before there but we got eaten to bits last time out. Smidge/Jungle Formula, Skin So Soft is good when you're off the bike but not so good on.

You can get the maps here- though worth having a hardcopy, neither place is hard to navigate but it's useful to be able to change plans, tweak the loops etc.
http://www.glentressforest.com/images/7 ... eithen.pdf

Glentress is easy, it has an excellent and approachable red route. I like the black too but it's hard work for less reward than the red. The blue has a couple of excellent sections- the new Berm Baby Berm that's just beside the freeride area is ace. Most folks will just do the red by itself and not worry about anything else, but there's easy add-ons. UH DH's tip is a great one, that's called Zoom or Bust and adds a bit of variety to the loop, lovely bit of trail (at the end, turn left and go a wee bit down the fireroad, then at the junction turn left, and go up- takes you back to the top car park)

If you want to sample the black, you can get the best bits into a lap of the red- either go on up the fireroad from near the top of Spooky Woods (leave the red at waypost 40, joining the black at 73, can't miss it) to take you up to the Boundary Trail (lovely) then ride back in along the fireroad. That rejoins the red route after Hit Squad Hill, but you can just nip back up the climb if you want to do the red stuff as well.

Also, at waypoint 45- top of Pie Run- you have loads of choices. Go straight down pie run to cut out a climb, or pedal up the fireroad following the signs to the parallel red and black descents. You can loop this all up as well- I often go back up and do both, then go back up again to do Pie Run as well, they're all good



Innerleithen, well. The red is good, and well worth doing but not IMO as good as Glentress's red- lacks a bit of variety, and some bits are hard to get the best out of til you know them. The off-map stuff is fantastic but not really easy to find without some guidance on the ground. The DH trails are excellent though and well worth the uplift to make the most of your day (you can often jump on the uplift for single runs even when it's fully booked, as people tend to drop out as the day goes on- fiver a go, just speak to Elliot in the car park)

Majski

Oh but be warned, the guy who runs the uplift (Tally?) is a total chode

Northwind

What makes you say that? Elliot that's usually running the innerleithen one is one of the good guys... I don't know Tally well but he's always seemed sound enough.

Majski

Well I'd been told by mates that he was a bit of a weapon, then the first time we got on the uplift there the bus broke down after 3 runs and they just called us all over and said 'well that's it for today guys, we will give you a free half day if you want but you have to use it in January' and then they didn't run any uplifts in January.

I'd say that's rather sh1tty myself.

Northwind

That is terrible to be fair. There were similiar stories doing the rounds when they had the snow half-uplifts, people being told no refunds. I'd not be happy.

cat_with_no_tail

Yeh I noticed when booking our uplift for the 29th July that it pretty much says on the website "If it's cancelled, or does not run for whatever reason, tough shlt". Not overly worried like due to time of year, but if I was booking a winter one it'd make me think twice.

NW, you gonna come down for the day while we're all there end of this month?

Northwind

Up at Fort William that weekend doing the endurance downhill race... You'll just have to try and muddle through without me

Majski

The weather's one thing - they can't control that. But it was their fault as the bus broke down so between us we lost over £100 uplift money. That's not counting how far we'd come and the cost of the weekend in general. Refunds should have been given for everyone, for the full day.

Last time we went I just pushed up for 3 days it was fine.