By Carl-Nils Kuchenmeister

Day1:

We started the day at the crack of 8:30…ish and we where on our bikes by about 10am(Carl was always last out the door -Ed). Being Scotland in peak summer the days are quite long. It only gets dark around 11:30 and rises around 3:30 so late starts aren’t a problem and 2 or 3 rides a day is very doable…if your body can handle it. By the end of the trip I’d wake up thinking “WHOOO HOOO LETS GO RIDE!!!” My body had other ideas.

After arriving at the trailhead we decided to do the 26km red route, which doesn’t sound like much but it was a pretty hard 26km. The climb up there wasn’t that easy and was 90% single track with switch backs and lots of little technical sections to keep you on your toes.
The real fun began once we got to the top and started the first downhill run. The ‘Spooky wood descent’ started off with a super sweet open section with a few drops jumps and berms which then lead into the trees with lots of fast flowing corners and back to back jumps. The rest of the descent back down to the trailhead was pretty awesome, with a good mix fast flowing corners and one or two pretty steep tricky technical sections. About half way down the run Harry got a puncture…. the first of many.

After fixing the pretty impressive pinch flat we made our way up the road towards the next descent and just 200 meters later, BANG!!!!!! Harry’s freshly installed tube explodes and Dan and I are canning ourselves with laughter. Harry instantly looks around at me thinking that I had some how sabotaged his tube. Turns out he’d just over inflated it using the wrong size air bomb…that’s what you get for being lazy! Just before reaching the bottom of the run Harry got a third puncture…being the supportive friends we are, we gave him loads of grief for it.

After reaching the bottom we had a small bite to eat at the cafeteria at the trail head then made our way home for some real lunch and a bit of rest so we could be ready for ride number 2 that afternoon. We decided to try out the blue route this time, which actually ended up being out favourite because it was just so much damn fun. Its slightly less technical than the Red route but much more flowing which means you can really attack the corners, jumps and drops and fly down the course.

About halfway down the course the route goes past a skills park that is in the middle of the trail centre, so we decided to check it out. There was loads of stuff to ride including a couple of pretty scary looking wall rides. The great thing about the park was that it was progressive so was something to ride for everyone depending on your skill level. I’d definitely say that anyone spending a solid week of just riding that park would improve their skills 10 fold by the end of it. Unfortunately we had other places to see and ride so we where only going spend about and hour or so and then make our way back down the course.

Now I’m a pretty decent rider and have my good points, one of them being good at slow super technical and do a bit of trial riding so I thought I’d give the north shore section a bash. It seemed easy enough, starting with 2 skinny’s (raised narrow log bridges). I made it across the first one no problem then as I was riding across the second one my back wheel slipped off the edge and my day got a lot worse. All I remember thinking was “uh oh my back wheel is slipping” and then doing a pretty decent cartwheel (more like a really clumsy handstand- Ed ) before landing on the opposite side of the skinny to where I slipped off. I noticed some pretty intense pain coming from my leg almost instantly. But that was drowned out by the laughter I was hearing coming from Dan (Sorry, it’s my natural reaction to fear!-Ed). I got up and checked myself over to see what the damage was and then saw that my right leg had taken most of the damage.

I had a pretty decent ‘S’ shaped gash running from just below my kneecap down my shin, the one area of the wound was completely white. At first I thought it was bone sticking out, but it turns out it was just fatty tissue (Probably just all that mayonnaise you eat!-Ed). As I was checking my leg out Dan arrived on the scene still pissing himself, but when he saw my leg he stopped …and the pulled out a camera to take a picture of it and the carried on laughing! Nice!

After getting patched up we made our way down the rest of the blue run and headed home for the evening. (Carl, I think we actually rode 3 times that day-you left out the ride after supper!)