Pentland hills midweek trailride...

headed up to bonaly in edinburgh wednesday evening with friend paul with bikes on the car for the bike chain shop midweek trailride on the pentland hills just south on the door step of edinburgh,
organised by mark and colin of edinburgh bike shop the bike chain and advertised on the singletrack magazine forum...
21 riders turned up!,also a large group of girls too that meet there weekly and they go do there ride...
oh quick plug-mark can build you a surly...there a surly dealer...

we set off up the aptly named "puke hill",i put the head down to get up to get pics of everyone,it was real dry and dusty and i spun out 3/4 way up and dabbed once but rode up non stop behind friend kit who was setting the pace...






friend paul...

we all regrouped up at the top gate...

it was nice to put a few faces to names of who i have spoke to on the singletrack world forum and chatted until everyone arrived and had a well deserved breather...
then it was along to a trail to descend down to torduff resovoir...

a grassy/peaty singletrack with the odd washed out stony bit to keep you on your toes..


mark..Mr Edinburgh Bike Chain...


riding blind for the first time i was watching the guys in front as much as the trail in front,something havin raced enduro motorbikes taught me to not look down but ahead...
not sure the name of all the trails local MTBr`s have named them but after this nice wee trail along a vally...

a hike-a-bike climb and a break to regroup and have a bit banter...

we rode a while on a grassy way on the level at hieght and again a regroup and blether...

kit and myself doing the "photo taken of a photo taken"

to then do a cracking descent named "red road" this was great flat out off the brakes the whole way except for a dab for a gate held open by a rider...i was riding this for the first time but sat in behind a good rider who i trusted by his good riding and we were flying down as you will see in the film...one of the boys came a cropper after getting cross rutted right in front of us but he shouted he was ok-keep going...i caught his crash on camera which you will see on the film...
then a play down a woodline road...

a loop of the shore trail and then across to a resovoir and some fun trails through pine woods...
heres some film up to here...



we all split off after this for different finish desinations,paul and myself was led up to the start of a descent knowen as scaletrix by rob who seems to have a great knowlage of the pentlands and we werent dissaponted with the run down back to bonaly...

heres the film of scalectrix...somehow i deleted it by mistake so here is Scaletrix on another evening!



i have been riding mountainbikes since 1987 and i have only ridden on the pentlands twice-despite lookin at them from work here in east lothian for over 20 years...always i thought "they will be packed with walkers etc..and not worth doing...tonight we saw a handfull of walkers...and i was showen just how good the riding was this now in very dry conditions..and after reading alot about the wet conditions of usual/winter up here i can see me heading up on the pugsley which is great on wet peaty grass trails...