Biking in the Borders

A few months back for my birthday William, Brian and I headed down to the borders for a birthday ride. Rocking up a Glentress at half ten, we went to hire them some bikes for the day. This was to be their introduction to mountain biking, with a few blues then reds to get the hang of handling a bike as it's relatively new to them. Unfortunately they were out of hire bikes for the day, so thinking on my feet we got them to ring to Innerleithern to see if they had some available. Thankfully they did so we bombed down the road, picked up the bikes then set off on the Inners red run.

Having not rode here before I thought that it would be similar to the Tress down the road but how wrong I was! Turns out the first 10k of the loop are mainly uphill. Fine for me, in fact something I enjoy, but looking back after two corners to the lads I started to wonder what I was putting them through. Brian was slogging away and William was pushing. Turns out they didn't know how to use gears properly!!! This was to be a steep learning curve!

Sitting behind them and shouting shift gear left hand down, right hand up we were getting the hang of it. Brian seemingly getting the better of William. Shuttling between them and a lot of banter/waiting later we were soon at the summit of the hill and ready for the down hill. William was a broken man, eating all the food he brought and a bit of mine too! Power poses later we were ready to ride the downhill.


Having never actually rode a MTB properly this was to be as equally eventful as the uphill. I set off first stopping at the more dangerous bit to give pointers on technique and body position on the first few then waiting at the fire roads for them. Somehow Brian didn't fall off but William did a fair few times which was funny...until he didn't appear for 5 mins at the fire road and I started running up to see where he was at! Turns out he was fine just in a heap with the bike!

The day ended, with the route seemingly continuing to Williams dismay and the weather turning into a thunderstorm and buckets of rain. I had to swap for his hire bike and bomb the last bit with Brian back to get them back in time. Cake bought and dried off we went to find William and feed him up again. Never have I seen anyone so broken.

We've been down a few times since, much to the same theme...crashes fast uphills/pushing. Great stuff. I'm sure it will continue into the winter months. Plus I'll be super fit with the new 36 mile commute I now have!

Northumberland - Back to Bowden

After coming back from Font, the lads who couldn't make it decided it would be great to make the most of the weather and head down from Glasgow at 05:30 to Northumberland and asked if I fancied it. Despite the lack of skin left on my finger I decided to tag along and take the rest of the week as rest days to allow for all the font niggles to recover. Plus it was Kev's birthday which meant that I could bring along a massive cake and eat the majority of it!

Great Hat!

After a McDondald's breakfast on the way down we arrived at around 08:30 as the sun was just hitting the crag. We warmed up on the warm up wall and then some more as we started doing some bouldering at the far end of the crag as the sun hit this first. It was great to have the crag to ourselves, and it remained really quiet most of the day until we headed back up the road around 16:00. A fast and quick raid on the county.

As always there was a lot of banter, with Andy wanting to finish off 'the lightbulb'. A 6a which defeated him last time despite the numerous attempts he spent on it, and a massive source of banter for the past year when he fell off anything he did bouldering outside! Thankfully for him he put this demon to rest by making a cool ascent. After a few further sends from Stevie and I we moved to the 6b slab 'Child's Play'. This is a brilliant route I did a few years back when I was living in Dundee and unable to repeat last time I was down. This time I got it and the top felt a lot less scary from what I remember! Andy followed me up but had a look of sheer panic when he reached the break near the top. That looked familiar, too high to not want to come down (and really difficult to reverse) and not wanting to carry on as you get higher. A lot of words of encouragement were shouted and he completed it. Great stuff.

Lightbulb

We climbed a fair few more and on the way out I tried the 7a+ 'His Eminence' which looked great, but was always busy when I was down. Unfortunately I did not complete it but I'm sure I'll be back to give it a fair few goes as it seems an amazing problem if a little high!

 

His Eminence

Return to Font

I've just got back from another week in Font this year, where the temperatures were hotter and more sweatier than ever before! Nevertheless it was still a great trip, even if there was a 4 hour siesta each day to sit out the 35C heat!

The chance to get away again this year was too good to turn down due to ludicrously low price we managed to get it for. Arthur, William, Brian and I flew from Glagow Prestwick to Beauvais then drove down to Font in a massive Citron, via a scenic detour into the middle of Paris (thanks Sat Nav)! We stayed in a lovely gite near Milly, owned by an equally lovely elderly couple who even offered us food the night we arrived! Then all that was left was to climb away.

As chief Sat Nav navigator and Ray Mears forest veteran, I sniffed out the venues for the trip again using my expert judgement but primarily where I wanted to go. We therefore ended up going to 95.2,

Roche aux Sabots, Bas Cuvier, Roche Canon, Franchard Isatis and Franchard Cusinere. We quickly realised on day 1 just how warm it would be, so headed for the trees! 

I cant really remember what was climbed, though due to the heat I got close but no cigar to a few 7a's but mainly did quite a few 6's, some lovely slabs, and really easy fast circuits at the height of the midday sun. The others were more focused on some of the harder stuff but again had little success. Everyone enjoyed it which was the main thing. Well that and of course the amazing food (seafood bbq, salmon pasta, mackerel, steak, baguette, pain au raisin etc) and French wine. 

Here's a few pictures from the trip. A video is soon to follow which may be quite short as footage is primarily of failures on harder stuff!)