Looks like fun
Looks mighty fine. I don't like the boardwalk stuff - but thats about my head not anything actually wrong with it.
mmmmmm, yeah!
Looks luverlee. Think we'll be visiting later in the year.
I suspect the board walk is a means to an end, its a big peat bog up there, would be very hard to build a track otherwise. The DH is a "raft" of hardcore on top of the peat iirc.
Designed by Brio?
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quite uninteresting first 3 minutes looks like it's just a means to getting across the bog to the good part, which does look fun!. 😀
Who are the riders?
looks great - think the afan weekend away will become a fort bill weekend away now!
WILLIAM. Fort William.
WILLIAM. Fort William.
Amen!
like that !!!!
WILLIAM. Fort William
Sorry!
It does look fun, but all that wood is going to be well slippery in the wet.
looks fun. does it start from the gondola station?
no it's not it'll be covered in grip paint.
the boardwalk sections on the proper track are prob the grippiest parts of the track.
very close to the gondola station, Jambo
hmmm. about time for another roadtrip from pastyland i reckon.
I shall be paying a visit forthwith.
That looks superb!
Well if it's grip painted then fair enough, although it does wear pretty quick.
We've been trialling some epoxy/sand grip stuff (that's normally used for decking) at Stainburn on the NS and it seems to holding up fairly well.
Only been up to fort william biking once (ten under the ben) - how busy is this trail going to get? looks like it could become packed.
Jambo - bring us a steak one.
Simon - I'd doubt it'll get that much traffic it'd wear away in a season, the DH track stuff holds up fine and will see far more runs what with the yearly SDA, NPS, & WC (300* riders at each) and now the DH endurance too
Looks ace! Def a trip up there soon.
Yep, looks good fun that. Is it actually open yet, that bit at the end by the digger looked unfinished?
It says in the video title that it's meant to open on the 24th of June.
Those that have ridden it from our club say the red rating is a bit on the under-estimating side compared to say the Laggan and Golspie blacks that we ride regularly! Not wanting to put you all off but it might be a bit tougher than it looks in that vid. The penalty for getting it wrong on some of the shore sections would probably qualify you for flying pay before you impact. I hope to give it a shot soon.
That looks superb but I predict carnage!
Imagine what it's going to be like with yer average lycra-wearing xc rider mincing down that with a group of hard-charging TLD pajama-wearing DH'ers right up their arse... 😯
Yeaaaaah. Watching the vid, it doesn't look [i]too[/i] difficult, your standard glentress red runner should be OK as long as they keep the head and don't get carried away... But the penalty for failure is going to be a lot higher than the average red. That, and all that boardwalk is going to be new to most folks, and throw in the weather to boot, and distracting views... There's going to be some pain 🙂
Watching it, I did think it could do with a bit more width in places, not because it needs it to be ridden but because it's got huge long single-bike-wide sections that some people will want to absolutely bomb down, and others will mince. It'd be good to have passing places. I can't wait though, have to ride it...
Northwind - to me that looked much harder than Glentress red
That looks superb but I predict carnage!
Indeed,like a rider on a Gemini falling off maybe......
(Oh that was on the 'proper'FortBill d/h run) 😉
looks like a lot of fun. *needs to plan roadtrip soon*
To me, it looks like a Red-Downhill track as opposed to the Red-XC tracks at the likes of the 7 stanes and whatnot. So I dont think it compares too directly, and it will be tougher.
It certainly looks like the penalty for getting it wrong could be some serious air time, a lot of the jumps look like blind take offs.
It'll be a case of ride fairly restrained the first couple of times, then, if you've any arms left from the techy sections, blast down.
looks like fun.
Looks like some people will be able to give further justification to their 6" all mountain bikes eh?
A tenner says there'll be a handrail on that hillside boardwalk section this time next year.
Looks great though.
Dunno if a handrail would really make it safer. Those little boardwalk jumps/drops scare me for some reason - it's not like it looks hard, just a mental thing. At least the hillside below looks mostly grassy!
smoothtastic!
Dunno if a handrail would really make it safer.
Was a joke, looks quite gentle in the vid, wonder if it's steeper in real life.
That's a sh1tload of timber to keep from getting slippy over time - exposed rock sections look good but would have been nice to see some stone pitching in place of the predictable soil berms
GW - Member
Who are the riders?
looks like joe barnes, a german racer girl and whoever was filming which makes little boys comments like
you have squeaky brakes and you use them far? too often.
and
Person in? fronts fault. Thier going too slow
quite amusing. if you ever want to fear for the state of humanity read youtube comments eh.
quite amusing. if you ever want to fear for the state of humanity read youtube comments eh.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=33108335 (NSFW I suppose)
I look forward to hurting myself on that in the near future 😀
Yeah, I can imagine plenty of "it's only a red" carnage...
I also second Barney's statement... 😀
"Northwind - to me that looked much harder than Glentress red"
Oh yeah, I agree, looks pretty innerleithenish in places in fact. What I mean is that anyone who's used to something like GT red, and who keeps the head, should get down it OK. It looks tougher but not murderously tough. I think probably the boardwalk will catch the most people, especialyl with teh wee jumps and berms all done in timber, and maybe people will get too used to the fast bits and then hit the slow bits at 30mph 
Does look ace quite a bit of woodwork in there, does in part look like a hard red 🙂
Look forward to trying it
Looks brilliant. I also predict a busy time for Locaber mtn rescue. I Wanna go!
Aye, the Lochaber m.r.t boys gonna be busy!
yea, ther'll be a few miss judgeing the boadwalk corners. I'm sure on at least one of them i picked out the wrong line and just jumped off forewards rather than turning then wonrdering why the video turned left!!
Agree with a few folk on here about the Red rating. Having GT Red and Black as my regular trails, I would shitting myself on some of those boardwalk sections - one slip/mistake and it is a VERY long walk off the hill. (Assuming you're fit to walk!)
Think the Red rating will be 'reviewed/revised' very quickly.
Not sure I have the balls for that at the moment...
Looks fab, and I too suspect the volunteers at the local MRT won't be thrilled. Like others have said, it looks a fair bit more technical than your average FC red route. It's all very well on here saying it's a DH red route, but then I hope they make that very clear to people at the gondala station, cos most people are going to think it's just a red route and therefore quite easy. And I agree, in an accident up there you're also gonna have that addition of exposure on a big mountain wearing shorts and a T and not much else, most people won't think about that.
The FC grading system is far too general and not fit for purpose IMO, since when the hell have people who are experienced in growing and managing trees as a business suddenly become experts in mountain biking and grading technical bike trails. 🙂
Red is not classed as a strict rating I mean even Thetford has black route.
Looks good fun though and will probably have to pay a visit.
FCS in "inconsistent grading" shocker. What happened to John Ireland's safety review? Its probably gathering dust in an office somewhere....
Quite ridiculous that it has the same rating as the North Face Trail in Grizedale. I think most people would be able to mince slowly down it though.
Does anyone know if they keep the 4x course open to ride outside of events? That looked fun from the TV coverage of the WC.
and dont go looking for info on the nevis range site [url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8109806.stm ]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8109806.stm[/url]
A website for a major mountain bike championships has been "compromised" by being linked to harmful software.
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I think most people would be able to mince slowly down it though.
That's what I'm hoping 😆
AB wrote "Agree with a few folk on here about the Red rating. Having GT Red and Black as my regular trails, I would shitting myself on some of those boardwalk sections - one slip/mistake and it is a VERY long walk off the hill. "
The boardwalks are pretty wide though, wider than most of GT red's main lines... If you were to take a dive off the boardwalk in Magic Mushroom I suspect it'd hurt just as badly, and it's considered the coward's option 😉 Compared with GT black, the exposure's not worse than parts of Deliverance, but the trail's twice as wide.
David Russell wrote, "FCS in "inconsistent grading" shocker. What happened to John Ireland's safety review? Its probably gathering dust in an office somewhere...."
I could be wrong but I don't think this is an FCS trail? For what it's worth, from the video it doesn't look harder than innerleithen red.
I think the land the trail is on is owned by Alcan not the FCS. Don't think there is any involvement from FCS.
looks like fun, it's just a shame that they aren't allowed to do anything interesting with the wood sections in this country 🙄
I wonder if the forward thinking Californian pioneers of our noble sport ever wonders whether there would be 50 posts devoted to splitting hairs on the categorisation of a purpose built gondola fed DH (freeride) track as they pushed their bikes up a dusty fireroad in their jeans? Unreal.
I wonder if the forward thinking Californian pioneers of our noble sport ever wonders whether there would be 50 posts devoted to splitting hairs on the categorisation of a purpose built gondola fed DH (freeride) track as they pushed their bikes up a dusty fireroad in their jeans? Unreal.
I'd tend to agree. Looks seriously frigging tame, dull and sanitised. You could ride that on a Dutch bike and still not dislodge the cheese from your basket.
I'd tend to agree. Looks seriously frigging tame, dull and sanitised. You could ride that on a Dutch bike and still not dislodge the cheese from your basket.
What utter bollocks.
IIRC this is Nevis Ranges gig** and the land above the deer fence is BA / below it's FCS. Ergo FCS will have entered into an access agreement with Nevis R who will be reponsible for management grading and risk
** FCS are on record stating they did not plan to build any further technical trails on the forest estate (mind you they are on record stating quite a lot which subsequently turned out to be complete bollocks)
I wonder if the forward thinking Californian pioneers of our noble sport ever wonders whether there would be 50 posts devoted to splitting hairs on the categorisation of a purpose built gondola fed DH (freeride) track as they pushed their bikes up a dusty fireroad in their jeans? Unreal.
😆 +1 and I'm not even that good a rider! I saw this track "in the flesh" and to be fair from right back at the gondola station, but it looked pretty easy from that distance. Even on the vid it looked fast and flowy rather than technical. Seriously, if watching that vid worries you there are plenty of natural trails that you should avoid like the plague
[i]You could ride that on a Dutch bike and still not dislodge the cheese from your basket.[/i]
I'd like to see that; it would be amusing to watch. As a concession, you would only be disqualified if the Edam cheese actually fell out of the basket.
wonder if the forward thinking Californian pioneers of our noble sport ever wonders whether there would be 50 posts devoted to splitting hairs on the categorisation of a purpose built gondola fed DH (freeride) track as they pushed their bikes up a dusty fireroad in their jeans? Unreal
Is repack rider from here not one of the pioneers? Why don't you ask him.
Looked easy in the distance and on the video. video always flattens out the trail and the features.
I saw this track "in the flesh" and to be fair from right back at the gondola station, but it looked pretty easy from that distance.
Perhaps I should qualify that the people I know that HAVE ridden it and think it is not easy and should be graded above red are capable of 14 runs in the Endurance DH on the proper DH track.
Perhaps I should qualify that the people I know that HAVE ridden it and think it is not easy and should be graded above red are capable of 14 runs in the Endurance DH on the proper DH track.
Duly qualified
new vid of it up on www.mtbcut.tv/
looks fun!
Saw that vid, on pinkbike I think. Looks ace. Ben Cathro's sections was especially impressive! I bet he's still bruised though.
I think it looks sweet. If they use the stuff that's on the wood at Balblair you wont slip on it.
Must get down to it soon ... I think a 2-dayer with the Devil's Staircase/Ceiran Path is in order. Might even sandwich in a night in the Clachaig.
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and other neeps[/url]
bruneep - great video
I'm just back from FW. The red is good fun, and 8 inch bikes are completely rubbish on it.
Boardwalk is easy, and has enough grip in the dry. Just ride at the pace you would normally ride a 3 foot smooth trail with a drop on one side and you won't have any problems.
Rest of the trail is pretty good.
There are uphill bits!
looks sweet
I'm just back from FW. The red is good fun, and[b] 8 inch[/b] bikes are completely rubbish on it.
OMG, you've bought a Sunday to fill the rear travel void between your SX and Glory? 😮