Simon Brooke
July 4th 05, 09:06 AM
Today's club ride was an exploration of the new red route at Ae
forest. Every time I ride a new 7stanes track for the first time, I'm
yet more impressed by the skills of the Forestry Commission's 7stanes
team. Ae is their latest. I'm not going to call it their best; I still
think Kirroughtrie (despite the fact that it is technically too
difficult for me) is possibly their best. But it's an example of the
mature flowering of their art; the experience gained at all the other
centres shows here.
One thing that is certain is that there are no Romans in the 7stanes
crew. Nothing here is straight. Where the Dalbeattie Red Route is
flowing and the Kirroughtrie trails are sinuous, the Ae trail is
positively calligraphic, even arabesque in its flourishing twists
through the woods. Bends of 180 degrees are the norm; hairpinning
climbs zigzagging across the face of the hills; twists and jinks just
for the fun of it on the rare flattish sections; and amazing
vertiginous berms on the descents.
It's the berms and the woodwork which stand out for me as Ae's
signature features. Mabie has berms, too; so does Kirroughtrie. But
they're pale, half hearted things beside Ae's berms. True walls of
death which take the trail and hurl it by the scruff of the neck back
across the hillside; and corkscrew descents down gullies which look
unrideable but if you can get over the edge prove to be a blast; and
badmintons of berms which fling you back and forth across the hillsides
like a shuttlecock. Berms with banking fully three metres high and
banked at 70 degrees or more. Berms that really mean business.
The woodwork also shows far greater confidence then older red
routes. Yes, Mabie now has its amazing (and exceedingly tough)
kilometre of north shore. Nothing at Ae is anything like that. But Ae
has bridges galore, and raised board walk sections, and frankly they're
much easier to ride than the older board walk sections at Mabie.
Hey! Rider! Leave those brakes alone!
Of course, I fell off. Of course I fell off because I always fall off,
it's traditional. But I fell off today because I didn't trust the
trail. There was a blind drop off before a steeply bermed turn, and,
because I don't like blind drop-offs, I slowed for it. Consequently
when I got onto the berm I didn't have the speed to stay on the
banking, and just slithered down it to the bottom. You need faith;
those berms simply cannot be ridden slowly. And, indeed, that's the
trick to Ae. Have faith in the trail designers. They don't want to
scare you and they certainly don't want to injure you. They want to
thrill you. They want to give you a workout. And they want to give you
a good time. And by now they have a lot of experience.
There are a lot of trick features to Ae: suspension compressing dips
with near vertical climbs out; rollercoaster sections of big mounds
and steep descents, often with those amazing bermed turns; blind
summits and stepdowns galore. And the trick to riding them is, for the
most part, leave those brakes alone. Obviously, sometimes you need
those brakes; some parts of todays ride were ridden to a chorus of
Hope disks, all squealing in slightly different keys. But the
roller-coaster sections seem to have been built so that, if you roll
into them gently letting gravity do the work, you can just flow
through all the berms and over all the summits without turning the
pedals.
A Vroom with a View
The hills around Ae aren't particularly high, but they're steep and it
doesn't take long to get well up above the valley floor. The landscape
the route traverses is varied - old established plantation woodland,
clear felled hillsides, meadows. And out on the high meadows and
clear-fell areas, the view down over Nithsdale is pretty
spectacular. It's not up to Glentrool standards, but when you get the
opportunity to lift your eyes from the twenty metres of writhing trail
in front of your front wheel, there's a lot to look at.
And under your wheels the surface is amazingly varied. There's pine
needle carpets. There's well-crushed shale. There's clayey mud, wet in
some places, hard and rutted in others. There's very hard packed sandy
shale that's almost like tarmac. There's loosely packed broken rock in
jagged edged lumps bigger than your fist. There are raised boardwalks
and bridges. Oh - and there's water - one ford which was deeper than
my hubs (although other people took a better line and didn't get in
quite so deep) There's a running joke on the Singletrack discussion
forum about inexperienced people asking 'what tyres should I use
for...'. There are no ideal tyres for this trail; it has just
about any surface you can imagine. Whatever tyres you choose they'll
be less than optimal somewhere - so what you've got on will do.
And, in the end...
So overall this is another excellent piece of work from the 7stanes
team, and another link in the chain of excellent trails which are
making southern Scotland one of /the/ places for mountain biking. It's
generally more technical than Dalbeattie (although lacking Dalbeattie's
outstanding set pieces) but less technical than Kirroughtrie. While
riders at my level can ride it and enjoy it hugely, it will clearly be
a blast from someone more competent and confident on their bike.
It was also nice to see a lot of other people using the trail today.
Recommended.
--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
;; When all else fails, read the distractions.
forest. Every time I ride a new 7stanes track for the first time, I'm
yet more impressed by the skills of the Forestry Commission's 7stanes
team. Ae is their latest. I'm not going to call it their best; I still
think Kirroughtrie (despite the fact that it is technically too
difficult for me) is possibly their best. But it's an example of the
mature flowering of their art; the experience gained at all the other
centres shows here.
One thing that is certain is that there are no Romans in the 7stanes
crew. Nothing here is straight. Where the Dalbeattie Red Route is
flowing and the Kirroughtrie trails are sinuous, the Ae trail is
positively calligraphic, even arabesque in its flourishing twists
through the woods. Bends of 180 degrees are the norm; hairpinning
climbs zigzagging across the face of the hills; twists and jinks just
for the fun of it on the rare flattish sections; and amazing
vertiginous berms on the descents.
It's the berms and the woodwork which stand out for me as Ae's
signature features. Mabie has berms, too; so does Kirroughtrie. But
they're pale, half hearted things beside Ae's berms. True walls of
death which take the trail and hurl it by the scruff of the neck back
across the hillside; and corkscrew descents down gullies which look
unrideable but if you can get over the edge prove to be a blast; and
badmintons of berms which fling you back and forth across the hillsides
like a shuttlecock. Berms with banking fully three metres high and
banked at 70 degrees or more. Berms that really mean business.
The woodwork also shows far greater confidence then older red
routes. Yes, Mabie now has its amazing (and exceedingly tough)
kilometre of north shore. Nothing at Ae is anything like that. But Ae
has bridges galore, and raised board walk sections, and frankly they're
much easier to ride than the older board walk sections at Mabie.
Hey! Rider! Leave those brakes alone!
Of course, I fell off. Of course I fell off because I always fall off,
it's traditional. But I fell off today because I didn't trust the
trail. There was a blind drop off before a steeply bermed turn, and,
because I don't like blind drop-offs, I slowed for it. Consequently
when I got onto the berm I didn't have the speed to stay on the
banking, and just slithered down it to the bottom. You need faith;
those berms simply cannot be ridden slowly. And, indeed, that's the
trick to Ae. Have faith in the trail designers. They don't want to
scare you and they certainly don't want to injure you. They want to
thrill you. They want to give you a workout. And they want to give you
a good time. And by now they have a lot of experience.
There are a lot of trick features to Ae: suspension compressing dips
with near vertical climbs out; rollercoaster sections of big mounds
and steep descents, often with those amazing bermed turns; blind
summits and stepdowns galore. And the trick to riding them is, for the
most part, leave those brakes alone. Obviously, sometimes you need
those brakes; some parts of todays ride were ridden to a chorus of
Hope disks, all squealing in slightly different keys. But the
roller-coaster sections seem to have been built so that, if you roll
into them gently letting gravity do the work, you can just flow
through all the berms and over all the summits without turning the
pedals.
A Vroom with a View
The hills around Ae aren't particularly high, but they're steep and it
doesn't take long to get well up above the valley floor. The landscape
the route traverses is varied - old established plantation woodland,
clear felled hillsides, meadows. And out on the high meadows and
clear-fell areas, the view down over Nithsdale is pretty
spectacular. It's not up to Glentrool standards, but when you get the
opportunity to lift your eyes from the twenty metres of writhing trail
in front of your front wheel, there's a lot to look at.
And under your wheels the surface is amazingly varied. There's pine
needle carpets. There's well-crushed shale. There's clayey mud, wet in
some places, hard and rutted in others. There's very hard packed sandy
shale that's almost like tarmac. There's loosely packed broken rock in
jagged edged lumps bigger than your fist. There are raised boardwalks
and bridges. Oh - and there's water - one ford which was deeper than
my hubs (although other people took a better line and didn't get in
quite so deep) There's a running joke on the Singletrack discussion
forum about inexperienced people asking 'what tyres should I use
for...'. There are no ideal tyres for this trail; it has just
about any surface you can imagine. Whatever tyres you choose they'll
be less than optimal somewhere - so what you've got on will do.
And, in the end...
So overall this is another excellent piece of work from the 7stanes
team, and another link in the chain of excellent trails which are
making southern Scotland one of /the/ places for mountain biking. It's
generally more technical than Dalbeattie (although lacking Dalbeattie's
outstanding set pieces) but less technical than Kirroughtrie. While
riders at my level can ride it and enjoy it hugely, it will clearly be
a blast from someone more competent and confident on their bike.
It was also nice to see a lot of other people using the trail today.
Recommended.
--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
;; When all else fails, read the distractions.