Sat 10th Feb 07 | Glentress Red Route

Saturday 10th Feb 2007 - Glentress Red Route (Snow)

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Snow and sub-zero temperatures didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the dirty dozen for the first official forum ride. The meet was originally scheduled for 11am at the Red Squirrel Car Park (with some extra keen riders meeting for a warm-up at 9am), but plans had to be altered when heavy snow fall closed the road. Nine of us gathered at the car park below the Hub, with a further three joining us later; starting off up the first forest road climb at a nice leisurely pace, before hitting the first piece of single-track, which gave us a taste of the snow we would encounter. After a brief pause to re-group, we headed up to the Buzzard’s Nest before meeting up with a few more guys to blast down a snow packed Pennel’s Vennel. The usually slippy tree roots were nicely hidden by the snow making it a very interesting ride.

Then followed the long switchback climb upwards to join the fire road again, finding more snow before the very slippy climb up to Spooky Wood, which was very hard packed and much more taxing than usual, making it feel like a different trail altogether.

After a short re-group just below the tree line, it was over the top of Spooky Wood and down all the way! The usually fast and smooth descent was very different and wicked fun! A couple of guys came a cropper on the first section into the trees but no serious injuries were sustained, meaning we could have a good laugh about it before blasting down the next single track section - slipping, sliding and grinning all the way!
We missed out a small section of climb to head into the trees through a tight root strewn section before heading down through Magic Mushroom.

All that was left was the final descent down Falls Brae which always gives a final buzz before heading back into the car-park.

The weather wasn’t so good but the company was great. Here’s to many more forum meets.

The dirty dozen were:
Big-W
Sniperkona (official pic-taker)
Pinkeye
CharlieCheese
Supercharge
JuniorMikey
ScaffMonkeysteve
1985
Andycantjump
Rod
Dave
8307

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