GLENCOE, SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS
You may well have driven past it on the way to Fort William, but next time, stop by. If you like your riding raw and rowdy, Glencoe is well worth the trip
Locals do…
Buy a season pass, so they can do an unlimited number of runs
Race the Scottish Downhill Association and National Downhill Series events held here
Bring a trail bike and pedal up above the lift to ride the new Epic Glades trail
Locals don’t…
Go balls-out first run, especially on the black
Forget to pump up their tyres – it’s rocky as hell here
Leave the rain gear at home (it’s not always as sunny as it was for us)
From the very first run, we know what kind of day this is going to be. Ryan, Andrew and Fergus drop in off the line and, in succession, rip around the first berm, sending rocks flying and leaving three dark slashes in the bright white gravel. We proceed more cautiously and, on catching up, the polite Scots invite us to go first. While we’re loath to admit it, we feel like we’ve brought knives to a gunfight as we lead the way, on our trail bikes, down one of the country’s most intimidating downhill tracks. And what’s more, with a crew of Scotland’s fastest breathing down our necks!
It soon turns out that the first turns were just a warm-up too, because after a brief fireroad respite, the ground tips away and we’re plunged into the black run proper. The well-worn line snakes through a series of loose, choppy switchbacks, but the trio of Scots have other ideas. Instead of twisting their way through, they’ve eyed up a boulder to boot off – a 10ft gap, which misses out one turn entirely and requires you to land on a narrow strip of loose chunder between two drainage gullies. After a ballsy display from the boys, we give up our place at the head of the pack and let them show us the way down the steepening slabs that follow.
Anchors aweigh!
The black run at Glencoe has been around for over 10 years now and in that time it’s evolved considerably. Riding the first rough-cut line involved sliding down steep muddy chutes into hairpin turns, bum on back tyre, just trying to make it down without being flung over the bars and sent tumbling into the rocks!
Dude of Hazzard Ferg, who’s with us today, has raced here nearly every year since ’08 and he recalls how wild the early races were, with axle-deep ruts in the peat bog concealing loose rocks (and that was before you added wind and sideways rain into the mix). These days, the track is much clearer cut and, while the hill hasn’t got any mellower and is still a serious technical challenge, the big, well-constructed berms, surfaced corners and catch fencing mean that letting off the anchors isn’t such a scary prospect. And that’s just what the boys are doing today, as they rattle down the big bedrock slabs at full chat, triple-clamp forks and piggyback shocks working to the max.
If we weren’t concentrating so hard on the riding, then we’d have more time to admire the scenery. There aren’t many UK tracks, save for Glencoe’s neighbour Fort William, where the
views are as breathtaking as this. Soak it all in while you’re sitting on the chairlift, because you certainly won’t be thinking about it on the way back down.
It’s showtime
Because the lift runs up parallel to the trails, the downhill runs give Glencoe’s many tourists something to ogle at. In the car park, we come across more than one group of bemused coachtrippers who are dumbfounded that people are riding pushbikes down the side of the mountain – and perhaps even more so by the fact we’re doing it for fun. “You go down there how quick?!”
Andrew and Ryan are putting on quite a show for them too, blasting into a set of high-speed S-bends, drifting their bikes fully sideways, popping out the end of the final berm and chucking in textbook scrubs off the next drop. The log is only 2ft high and has a landing littered with baby-head rocks, so we’re just as gobsmacked as the tourists and are finding it hard to understand how Andrew can get his Scott Gambler into the shapes he does.
Ryan can’t let him take all the limelight though, and off the big final stepdown he puts on a display of the kind of style that’s earnt him a good few thousand views of his web edits. Lip to lander, the jump must measure about 30ft, but Ryan has to be going 50. He’s launching off the flat take-off, throwing the bike into a fully-committed tabletop and only just uncoiling himself in time to catch the last bit of transition. “I’m leaving this to the young kids,” mutters Ferg (or something along those lines) and he heads off up the track for another flat-out run. Like us, he says he’s finding fewer and fewer opportunities to ride his downhill bike, and is relishing the chance today.
Taking it higher
If ever there was a place where you’re thankful to have a big rig, it’s Glencoe – as our clattering trail bikes keep reminding us. Thankfully, we’ve