Glentress New Year 1/1/2007

It rained. It snowed. It was very, very cold. Conditions at Glentress weren't as affected by the gnarly weather as I expected. I really love my full sus bike now. Baby Blue handled all of the trails beautifully. My poor, still overtired body coped, but certainly ran out of steam near the end. After epic rains and 30MPH winds on New Years Eve, through which we walked to George's, Neil, Fraser and I thought Glentress sounded like a fantastic plan. Neil and Fraser solved the riddle of how to fit 3 bikes and 3 bodies into Fraser's Punto and then arrived at mine to complete the puzzle with my bike. We all fit and on the way to Glentress, though more rain, we decided that 3 bikes and 3 bodies came with a height restriction. The configuration would never work with George's bike.

The clouds parted occasional on the way to Peebles. Once there, we found ourselves not alone but nearly so. We parked at the middle car park to save some of the initial climb for the end and reduce faff slightly. Destination Red Trail. A short climb brought us to the taster run. Despite wet conditions, the trail was not slippery at all, a testament to the trail builders. I took my usual place at the back of the group, not nearly so fearless as Fraser or Neil. At the end of the trail, I discovered what is now my preferred line for the last semi-drop: straight down the middle, lean back and let the bike do the work. Far left seems best saved for drier days (i.e., summer) and far right seems too close to the trees and too indirect to be worth the hassle. One trail down, lots of climbing ahead. The upside of Glentress is that once you're at the top, that's 90% of the climbing done for the loop. The downside of Glentress is that once you're at the top, that's 90% of the climbing done for the loop. It's not a short climb!

We interrupted the climb for a quick refuel and then continued upward. I had to walk a couple of small spots for lack of speed. One walk resulted from a poorly judged attempt at a standing climb; I have since learned that granny gear and standing don't mix. We reached the top. The wind was epic. What was rain at the bottom was big flakes of snow flying everywhere. Too sparse to be a blizzard, the snow gave the trail and the views into the valley below that moody Scottish charm that I love. I wish my hands had been warmer. I would have dug out the camera.

We zoomed... and zoomed... and only once found a large casualty from the winds of the night before. A large tree completely blocked the trail, perfectly aligned to impale the unsuspecting biker. Neil, Fraser and I did what we could to unblock the trail. Translation, not much, but at least we got the top part of the tree off the trail. We hoped it would be enough to slow down an unsuspecting cyclists and continued our zipping down the hill and occasional climbing to the next trail.

The trail conditions were sticky enough to hold but muddy enough to make sure we and our bikes looked like mountain bikers. Somewhere near the last climb, the cold and the damp caught up to me. I was shivering and sweating, so I opted against the last stretch of trail and instead offered to ride back to the car while the boys ran that trail. We regrouped at the bottom car park where the rain returned again. The boys offered bike wash at theirs in lieu of bike wash in the rain. I thought that was a fantastic idea. After some quality time warming up at home, I cooked dinner at theirs and we recapped the day's adventure and conjured more ideas for future adventures.