WRECKING CREW
We head to the Cairngorms with The Dudes of Hazzard and friends
The Dudes of Hazzard show us how to get wild around the stunning Laggan Wolftrax trails in the Cairngorms
First impressions? With views like this, it doesn’t even matter how good the trails are. We’ve just started out on a lap of Laggan’s red trail and, only halfway up the climb, we’re already impressed. The panorama of rolling hills and jagged, rocky peaks stretching out into the distance is enough to make us forget we’re gasping for air, chasing a clan of ultra-fit Scots up a winding ribbon of singletrack. It does help that we’re riding in blazing sunshine, with not a cloud in the sky. The locals reassure us that it’s always like this here, but their shifty glances at one another suggest otherwise.
A few minutes of pedalling later and we arrive at The Wolf’s Lair, a craggy viewpoint where the red and black routes split. We drop our saddles, and the wolf bares its teeth almost immediately, as we’re plunged straight into a tricky series of slabby drops. Our riding companions today are everyone’s favourite rut-hoofing, fish-suppereating Scots, The Dudes of Hazzard, with the exception of absentee clan leader Joe Barnes. Liam, Fergus and Lachlan make short work of the rockery, gapping in with a deft turn of their bars, rattling down the slab and power-wheelieing in succession out of the turn below.
James, Graham and Louise, the last three members of our crew, follow suit and we hang onto the back as the trail dives off into the trees, carving over and between a jumble of rocks and roots. The terrain here gives it a very different feel to most manmade trail centre routes, and requires some precise line choices and well-timed hops into the compressions to keep momentum. It feels more akin to an enduro race stage, and Liam tells us that when he and the boys are in training, they’ll bust out the stopwatches for some timed laps of the 3.4km descent.
Easy does it
Halfway down, Ferg pulls over to show us a hairy time-saving line that he’s scoped out. It involves gapping off one boulder into another, with a very rough run-out through a savage compression. We’re sceptical, but he assures us it works and pushes up to show us how. A few seconds later, he comes careering back into view, twisting his 6ftplus frame through the trees, and pulls up through a narrow gap between the trunks. He gets the distance fine, but on touchdown there’s a massive bang from his rear wheel and the rapid exit of air from his tyre puts him out of action.
Unperturbed by Ferg’s effort, Louise lines up to give it a go. Having grown up taming the rock gardens of Fort William, she doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest. The plucky Scot very nearly nails it too, but a slip in the turn afterwards hammers her shoulder into a tree, aggravating an old injury. The pair of them are forced to limp back to base, as the rest of us carry on.
We barely go on another minute before there’s another casualty. The Devil’s Chessboard is
the last feature on the black run and deserves its fearsome name, being made up of a jagged staircase of rocks that protrude between wheelswallowing holes. Reuben, our photographer, drops in first to get lined up for a shot and we wince as, seconds later, we see him get catapulted over the bars. Hundreds of pounds’ worth of camera gear goes flying and he crunches his head right into a rock. It’s a brutal impact, but somehow he gets up, only a little scraped and bruised. His gear is thankfully intact, but his helmet is a different story – it’s cracked and the top is caved in. The wolf definitely bites.
One of Laggan’s most iconic features is Air’s Rock, a 10m-tall, near 45-degree slab on the lower red route. Ever up for a challenge, the boys take bets on whether they can pedal up it. Lachlan takes several goes, blasting in as fast as his legs can spin the granny ring. He’s so close, but each time comes grinding to a halt just metres from the top, and there’s a scary second as he just unclips in time to slither back down! James gives up on climbing and goes for a more gravity-fed approach, turning his attentions to hucking as far as he can off the top. He boosts off the blind lip way faster than the rest of us dare and his wheels only just find solid ground near the end of the transition. Not to be outdone, Lachlan goes for style points, popping off the crest and clicking the bike flat into a textbook downward table. Spurred on for more airtime, we break away from the red trail onto the orange-graded bike park downhill.
Over too soon
Under the blazing sun, the wide arcing turns and tight switchbacks are dry as a bone and the loose gravel sitting in the berms makes for some wild speedway-style drifting. From the middle of the train, we blink dust from our eyes and grin as Liam blasts round the turns in front of us, sending up great plumes of roost. Hollers from behind indicate
that James is following his example. We wish it could go on for longer though, for all too soon, the trail fires us out into the car park for the obligatory high-fives. There are suggestions of another lap, but our tour guide, Graham, recommends we check out some of the prime off-piste trails across the valley – dubbed the ‘brown’ side by the locals.
Let’s just say we aren’t disappointed, and we end the day with a coating of finest Scottish loam on our down tubes and even more in our shoes. Graham explains that, right now, Laggan Wolftrax and the surrounding forest are owned by the Forestry Commission, but there are talks going on about Laggan Forest Trust potentially taking over management and making everything we’ve ridden into an official network. That’s still a way off though, so until then your best bet is to get friendly with the locals or spend lots of money in the cafe – then, if you’re lucky, Graham might let slip where to go hunting!