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!