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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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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