Braefoot

Braefoot is found on the northside the fourth estuary down the road towards the oil depot.  Braefoot is a great biking place, it is owned by Shell and the riders have come to an agreement that they are allowed to build as long as the don't build on top of the structures. 

Braefoot is certainly the place for you if you enjoy the larger jumps and drops.  There are some well built large doubles and smaller easier ones, along with a road gap and massive roof gap.  There are lots of small trails, and the push up is not bad, and down the north side there is a longer fast track with some great techy bits and a long flat corner, great for getting a bit loose.

I had a casualty on the Glory though, i decided to give a 20 foot double a go, the first time i cleared it no problem and the second my back wheel hit the top log.  This cracked my MTX rim, and snapped 8 spokes, totally writing of the rim.  Picture above and left! I rekon if it hadn't been so wet it would have been fine, but was so slowly rolling.  Think this is going to be the last time on my glory, prefer riding the scratch.

Cambu

We decided to go to Cambu today, (Cambusbarron).  Although it is a bit of a drive it was certainly worth it, located just outside Stirling it boasts some of the best biking i have done to date in Scotland. 
The trails arn't the easiest to find, we started off by heading into the quarry, where some dirt jumps have been built by the locals, the probably arn't worth the drive if all you do is DirtJumping.  So we headed off up the hill and luckily met some young local Downhillers.  We started off walking up and just checking out the trails, the are very fast flowy trails here, not steep but some have big doubles and hips built into them, amazing fun. 

Cambu is notorious for being a bit of a huckers heaven, and when i heard there was a massive step down i had to have a quick look.  Although i don't consider myself to be overly wimpy when it comes to larger stuff, this was pretty big, there is about a 20 foot horizonaly distance and about 20/25ft vertcial, if it wasnt for one rock that stick out just before the landing, which would make casing it pretty much death i might have considered it, but theres always next time!  

We then got showed a newly built trail, lots of wooden structures, starts off with a long right hand wall ride, which is amazing, followed by a 2 metre bit of concreted track into a wooden berm (planks driven into the ground at an angle to creat a really fast running berm).  You then have a small kicked onto a northshore about 3 metres long.  you then have a pedally bit with some drops and a really nicley built path gap, and to finish it there is another path gap, it looks hard to clear but just boost of it and you will be fine!


Once again i decided to take the Scratch over the Glory, and it was defiantly the better decision!

Bonaly

Another Sunday out on the bikes, this time at our local Bonaly, located on the Pentlands just on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
Great little biking destination full of loads of short, steep loamy technical trails.  Great on the scratch once again!  Some lads from uni have built a new line which is absolutly amazing, it has an off camber drop, which once you get over the nerves is great fun, really shoots you out, and to finish the track they have a little take off into a berm followed by a really steep section and a final hip jump.  Probably my favourite line at Bonaly. 

Bonaly is definatly worth a few hours but not a place you want to go to everyweekend, the push up is very steep and although the tracks arnt long it never seems worth doing full runs because they are so steep to push back up. 

Glentress!

Today I took a mate to Glentress, the haven of biking in Scotland.  Located 5 minutes along the road from Peebles to Innerleithan it is one of the best biking destinations in Scotland.

We went for a blast around the red trail, with the famous Spooky Woods decent, it has about a 45minute accent, which you can choose to cycle or push followed by 10/15minutes of some of the best single track found in Scotland.  Lots of swooping berms, table tops and pumps.

Today was a day to test new gadgets and gizmo's, included in this was my new Canon 550D camera and the Trek Scratch Air 2011.

             The Trek Scratch Air was a spur of the moment buy, i decided that i needed a shorter travel bike than my Giant Glory 2006 custom built, because it was useless at everything bar the most gnarly downhill.  So whilst looking through the Ex Demo and Magazine shoot bikes email that we get through the shop every now and then i came across the scratch.  I got it less than half price and it had never been used, best buy i have had to date. It is a do everything bike, with 170mm rear travel through a Fox Rp23 air shock and 160mm upfront with the plush Fox 36 Float forks.  It pedals like a hard tail and yet has an aggressive geometry so for the downhills is feels like a lightweight downhill bike.  Great for Scotland. 

Find included a quick and rather sketchy low quality video of the Glentress free ride zone, and a few pictures of my bike!