Life Behind Bars, Through The Trees & In The Dirt - Glentress

08/05/2016
After a long six nights of night shift I fancied a few hours at the Glentress trail centre down at Peebles in the Scottish Borders, I only ever manage to sleep for 4 or 5 hours when I'm on night shifts so after six nights I never had the energy to go for a long haul around my my local routes, a morning blast around GT was just the ticket & besides it was my eldest twins birthday so I had to be back home in the early afternoon anyway...
...perfect..!

Arriving at Glentress I decided to cycle up the trail path for a change, I normally like to just cycle up the fire road to access the trails quicker. The single track trail weaves it's way up through the pine trees with a couple of skills features such as log balance beams to keep you entertained on the way up.

Also in the Glentress forest is the 'Go Ape' assault coarse high up in the trees, it looks brilliant fun & there's even a couple of zip wires which cross the fire road & over a small lochan, I'd love to have a go one day but mountain biking is my first love so I'll just pedal on !

Click link below for Go Ape website

"Go Ape" 

Climbing forever higher & the views over the Tweed valley were as always awesome.

Finally arriving at the freeride park which I had to myself, I had a wee play around for a half hour or so honing my airbourne skills, just wish the jumps were bigger...much bigger !

 I'd love to see the Glentress trail fairies create a top to bottom big steep fast flowing free ride route with big berms, big gap jumps, big table tops & BIG airtime jumps, there's room for it the forest is massive.

Look at that for a view !

Not even at the top yet but here the forest has a small clearing looking down into the Tweed valley & it's always a good excuse to stop, take five for a fluid top up & marvel at the stunning scenery before disappearing back into the trees for the final push to the top of the red route.

Now at the top of the red route here at the 'Spookywood' section & again a good place to stop for a breather before going hell for leather down the trails.

As I've mentioned in previous blog posts at each of the 7 stanes trail centres is a feature stane (stone) & here at Glentress we have the 'Meteorite Stane'.

The six ton Ledmore marble stane contains text carved in Klingon, with the obvious implication it may not be of this world !

Stopping for another fluid intake although it was only mid morning it was absolutely roasting & besides any excuse for a photo shoot !

And that was that here at GT, a play around the freeride park & a blast down the red, so now to head back home re-energised after night shift for family duties eating lots of birthday cake :-)

One more wee thing I'd like to share with you, Iv'e driven past this stone many times on the way to Glentress & Innerleithen & always wondered what it's all about, located on the outskirts of Peebles it's simply known as 'the white stone' this is an ancient boundary stone of the burgh of Peebles, and in 1462 it was referred to as "The Quhyt Stane on the north half of the gat rekand to the Wenlaw"  Work that one out I have no idea either !!!

The stone was originally brought to the nearby area locked in & then deposited by a glacial flow.

Anyway that's that for today short & sweet as it was but the two days after this wee ride out at Glentress I put the miles in & cycled around my home area photographing all the pigeon doocots to make a blog post about them & their history, so look out for the next two posts titled :-

"The day of the doocot (part 1)"

&

"The day of the doocot (part 2)"

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