Glentress 7 Race Report

Last weekend was the Glentress Seven – 7 hours of racing both on established Glentress trails, and some lesser-known ones.

Here’s Fiona Dalgleish’s race report:

Two previous winners of the Glentress Seven, Greig Brown and Rob Freil, headed out fast in glorious weather with LoveCross winner and friend-of-Singletrack Rab Wardell hot on their heels; everyone was keen to see if they could better Rob Freil’s winning 11 laps of last year. Greig Brown faded by lap 6; he was out of the running. In the end, Rob Freil won with 11 laps in 7 hours 3 minutes, and Ant White was second with 11 laps in 7 hours 18 minutes, also winning the Male 40 –49 category. Rab Wardell came in third completing 10. In the women’s categories Liz Peacock, an old TweedLove favourite, was triumphant in the over 40 category with 7 laps completed in 6 hours 30 minutes. Beate Kubitz was second about 5 minutes later. The under 40’s winner was Amy Hickman with 7 laps in 6 hours 56 minutes, with Janey Kennedy coming second.

Singletrack also had a sizeable contingent racing (Beate is One Of Ours, but sssh). Chipps was also racing, as were Mark Alker and (some of) his family. Each lap took anywehere between 35 minutes plus, and an hour and a bit – depending on how fit you were.

Laps consisted of mostly steady climbing with a few stiff pitches, winding their way up the general Glentress singletrack. There was a free local cake stall at the top (also water, but FREE CAKE) and a really fun. very singletrack-y descent, away from the usual Glentress trails. The whole thing finished in a fastasyoudare uncambered field slalom descent back to the arena. Great fun by all accounts.

The start line

Barney Marsh

Barney Marsh takes the word ‘career’ literally, veering wildly across the road of his life, as thoroughly in control as a goldfish on the dashboard of a motorhome. He’s been, with varying degrees of success, a scientist, teacher, shop assistant, binman and, for one memorable day, a hospital laundry worker. These days, he’s a dad, husband, guitarist, and writer, also with varying degrees of success. He sometimes takes photographs. Some of them are acceptable. Occasionally he rides bikes to cast the rest of his life into sharp relief. Or just to ride through puddles. Sometimes he writes about them. Bikes, not puddles. He is a writer of rongs, a stealer of souls and a polisher of turds. He isn’t nearly as clever or as funny as he thinks he is.