The stars aligned for that beautiful thing – a full day out on the bike somewhere nice!
OK, the weather wasn’t great, but driving up from Kirkintilloch to Dunkeld the cloud seemed to lift a little, and everyone was pretty excited getting kit on in the car park.
A couple of regulars from Glasgow Mountain Bike Club joined us, with an old work/biking mate coming along for the ride too.
Initial navigation was a little patchy (some 4×4 tracks rapidly becoming singletrack at the edge of a car park didn’t help), but this was a lucky mistake as it led us round a great bit of singletrack with a nice clifftop viewpoint part way to our first trail up behind the town.
Naturally, following Trailforks, the trail grading was a bit up and down, but everyone persevered walking, pushing or riding down the first “red” trail. The Kona Process X DL coped with it fine, but other people’s bikes weren’t so happy on it*. Luckily Heather was having a great time on her Kona Honzo, despite perhaps being thrown in out of her depth a little**. After accusations that I only ride with people to show off and make them feel bad, we resolved to take a more gentle looking descent back into town then go across to the other side of the A9 for some trails we knew were a bit more gentle and calm nerves a little. Snacks were had, and nearly everything was ridden by all!
A few pleasant laps of this later, we decided to head up to Pink Floyd, forgetting the climbing involved (not ideal on a wet day with tired legs). The tired legs were worth it though, a long technical, sometimes very fast descent with a bit of everything thrown at you for what seemed easily long enough to make up for the climb! We made it back to Dunkeld just in time for sunset over the river Tay, too!
Great ride, thanks to everyone who came.
* It may have been the riders, but I can only sell bikes. Maybe try Trailcoach if you don’t think it’s the bike.
** Not looking forward to her revenge when we go skiing.
Marina Cycles 