Rippin' Up The Red - Innerleithen

Finally the last lazy late blog post this one from 8th of March & glad to of caught up with myself now & a mistake I'll not repeat, it's all too easy to say to myself I'll do it tomorrow...I'll do it tomorrow & before I knew it I'm way behind myself !

Anyway for this ride out I took myself off down to the Tweed valley in the Scottish borders, a pure mountain biking mecca with so much choice of mountain biking disciplines for all ages & abilities.

My choice for the day was to cycle around the red graded route at Innerleithen, the last time I was here my chain snapped near the top of the Minch Moor hill so I missed out on a high speed ride back to the beginning & had to make do with free wheeling, so today I wanted to put that nightmare to bed !

The red route is a long ride uphill through thick pine forests, fire roads & deforested open moorland nothing too strenuous but a good workout getting the legs pumping the blood around up to optimum performance ready for the return route reward back down the hill.

There was still a fair bit of snow on the highest hills but the day was fairly mild & light drizzle.

Riding up through the remains of a former pine forest the views were starting to open up, I often think that deforested areas look a real mess almost apocalyptic with the left over tree stumps & branches all dead, weathered & scattered all over the place but at the end of the day these pine forests were planted as a harvestable crop that takes around 40 to 50 years to become mature enough to harvest.

Spot the house ?..

...centre of picture at the bottom of the far away hill.

Although these dead tree stumps & branches look untidy they are creating an ecosystem for insects which in turn attract birds to feed on them.

Back into the cover of trees again from which I welcomed the cover from the relentless drizzly rain.

And by the time I emerged from the trees the drizzle had stopped & it was only a few hundred yards to the summit of Minch Moor where the fun begins :-) not to say that the cycle up here was not enjoyable but going downhill is always more fun than climbing uphill.

As I neared the top I met a hill walker walking down the track & he was the only other soul I met here all day, there were other vans & cars in the trail centre car park so I was a little surprised that I never met any other bikers out up in the hill.

I soon arrived at the top of Minch Moor hill with the trig point & cairn & I was glad to of made it to the summit this time without my chain snapping so that was a good result !

Taking five minutes to fuel up & stare out in marvel at the views beyond with grey areas of rain falling on hills all around me.

Belly filled & hydrated it was on with the helmet to give it hell for leather down the trail.

Stopping to catch my breath where the Southern Upland Way long distance walking route crosses the trail path.

After another high speed blast I was soon onto the fire road again taking the opportunity to get my breath back again, as I rode along I noticed across the valley an area which had been recently felled & when you see the pile of timber piled up it's not much to show for the area of land that the logs once filled.

Some cracking scenery to be seen while riding along the fire road to the next trail section.

Often if possible small quarry's are made to supply the forestry with hard core stone to build the fire roads to bring in the heavy plant required to fell the forest & also so that road going lorries can access the timber to extract from the felling site.

I was surprised to see icicles hanging on the reeds & grass from the water running off the hill as it was not cold at all.

Last photo of the day as this section is just far too good to stop & take pictures, Caddon Bank the last little stretch back to the car park has some great drop off's & other good features but best of all it's fast to ride down.

So Iv'e put a little video together of the return route back down off the hill hope you enjoy :-)

Well that's it Iv'e finally caught up with my homework & can now get back to normal writing my travels as they are done !

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7 Stanes - Innerleithen XC Red

A few days after Christmas my friend Davy & I travelled across into the Scottish Borders to have a day out at the Innerleithen mtb trails just along the road from Glentress. Glentress & Innerleithen are a combined part of the 7 Stanes mountain biking network in southern Scotland, so with all the Christmas calories to burn off we opted to give the XC red route a go with plenty of hill work to burn off some festive fat !

Bikes all ready to rock'n'roll & off we go on the XC red route.

No sooner than we started to climb up the trail we soon came across some snow & by the looks of it there has been a fair covering here in the Tweed valley, we've had no snow what so ever next to the coast but there's plenty of time yet.

There has been serious amounts of rainfall in the U.K. over the last few weeks it's been storm after storm with extensive flood damage caused throughout the country, luckily where I live we have escaped the worst of it, just really soaked & saturated ground, but here in the Tweed valley the river Tweed has burst it's banks & the water has risen to levels higher than it's been for over 100 years !

As you can see from the above pictures we had great views from the trail path looking down towards the valley & everywhere is flooded, in fact the flooding got a lot worse a couple of days later when storm Frank hit our shores & caused more mayhem.

The first bit of downhill we came across cycling the XC red route, short & sweet as it was we were soon climbing uphill again. 

The Cross Borders Drove Road is a route used between the 16th - 19th centuries to drive by hoof cattle & sheep to the market & fairs.

The Cross Borders Drove Road has now been recognised as one of Scotlands Great Trail's - an elite group of long distance routes in Scotland.

After following the fire road for a few hundred yards we were back off road again through the apocalyptic scene where the trees have been felled, a cold wind blasted our faces as we made our way along the track, some cracking views looking over the hills around us.

For ever climbing on a gradual ascent we were back in the cover of trees once more, some sections of the track were more like small streams with the amount of water trickling downward, now & then the trees would open up to views across the valley where snow was still present on the higher hills.

Disaster...!

About 100 yards or so from the summit of Minch Moor & the apex of the red XC route my chain snapped again like it did on holiday in Aviemore. From the car park I did feel a tight spot in the chain & gave it a quick once over but thought it would be ok, how wrong was I !!!

However on the plus side it was near the top it happened & as we reached the trig point we were at the highest point of the route so it wouldn't be a bad free wheel run back to the bottom to the car park. Another trig point bagged too for the effort :-)

The initial start of the descent was quite flat & I had to run along & jump onto my bike to get some momentum going.

Himalayan prayer flags in a Scottish forest ?

Last wee ride back to the car park & the best section of the XC red route called 'Cadon Bank' which sports some good rocky drop offs & decent jumps to get some air on.

Back to the car park after a good few hours out, gutted my chain went through the middle 'again' but just bad luck on me, it was still a good day to be had :-)

Well another eventful year almost gone with some great days out & about.
 Looking back on the years travels I'd have to say the highlights of the year would have to be cycling & wild camping along the Rob Roy Way, a fantastic & under rated route in my opinion which is not overly popular, so seeing anyone else was pretty much limited to when I passed through villages & towns, the isolation factor was right up my street, the stunning views of mountains, forests, wildlife, lochs & rivers as I rode along & the smell of a camp fire to the the smell of the damp mornings always feels primitive & wild, the whole experience was a sheer joy to have accomplished. 
My annual family holiday to Aviemore  riding the Laggan Wolftrax trail centre & what was the holiday highlight cycling up to the 2nd & 6th highest mountains in the country was a real adventure, as the sun was setting the magnificent late summer colours at the top of Cairngorm mountain will stay with me forever, the orange & red skies bouncing off the craggy mountain slopes creating amazing shadows was an awesome sight to see.

So there we are that's the last blog post for 2015, I hope you've enjoyed riding along with me on my travels & now it's time to start planning for some new adventures in 2016 :-)

 Raising a glass I wish you all a healthy & Happy New Year to come in 2016, keep the wheels rolling.