I do think that type of trail, albeit difficult has to be included though. Even in the POC. It’s not a beginners enduro. The EWS stages this year looked even more difficult/scary. And so they should be with pro racers in attendence.
I can only imagine that the EWS stages to be included this year would be the ones that used/adapted existing trails within GT would it not?

I think you’re thinking g of the Inners stages, quite different from the Glentress EWS stages.

Dan, are you not racing your Glory if you want full-bore DH action?

I rode the EWS stages 2,3,and 4 on Sunday afternoon, certainly the section of 2 through the woods down to Deliverance and the final pitch of stage 3 to the ponds were quite steep, nothing like Jawburn though. It was actually the final section from the fort into Peebles which surprised me, very tight and slippy with one rock section which I might have ridden in the dry but in the soaking wet with an open face helmet it was a climb down!! Will definitely be running mud tyres in a couple of weeks time!

I’ll not be ‘racing’ anything Mark, just riding! 🙂 I’ve decided I don’t like racing but having already entered I have to see it through. Laggan was interesting and the amount of cockups I made by putting myself under pressure was unreal.

What’s cool about the fort descent is that it’s not really difficult… But doing the whole thing at pace, that’s difficult, and all of a sudden even simple wee corners with roots in become a totally different matter as you try and get through them as fast as possible, while breathing out your arse 😆 Kind of the holy grail of enduro, that, for me- something that most competent riders can make a fist of but that rewards skill and stamina and p…sychology. The innerleithen mtb racing guys are traditionally good at that, it’s better than having stuff that gets a decent proportion of the field off their bikes

(like the SES nevis range round where I gather the entire womens’ field ran one section, frexample, it’s not cyclocross!)

Spotted this today..

was extremely fresh and had tree stumps placed top and bottom so obviously it’s not open yet but it’ll be awesome if we get a new track for the race!

Furryboots was that taken?

Between the picnic bench on super g and the bottom of the blue that leads on from spooky.

Trying to suss out where this is, looks like its in wee bit that looks quarried out, if you crossed over the fire road it would take you in around Broon troot kinna area, whcih would make sense :/

No, imagine you’d just come down Spooky, took a left and down the muddy chute to the fire road. This is up that fire road to the left so I imagine it starts between the chute and the blue or somewhere off the blue.

About the 20km mark
http://www.strava.com/activities/179586262/segments/4199629878

No, imagine you’d just come down Spooky, took a left and down the muddy chute to the fire road. This is up that fire road to the left so I imagine it starts between the chute and the blue or somewhere off the blue.

Yeh thats where Im thinking 🙂

Looking at the map, it is pretty close to Broon Troot. In my mind that’s miles away!

My first enduro and I am looking forward to it , the wife and mini moonsaballoon are coming down to cheer me on and were making a weekend of it . It’s also been a great excuse to treat the bike to a few new fancy bits

Event video on the way soon…

nice tune on the Coogan vid!

I know where that bit is…

so the course is open for practice on the saturday – how easy are the sections to repeat? can you generally spin back up a fire road to the top, dont think we’ll be doing the whole loop twice but it’d be good to session some bits.

Without knowing the exact route, it’ll still be easy to loop sections given the layout of the forest.

so the course is open for practice on the saturday – how easy are the sections to repeat?

Difficult to say, given the course has not been announced yet, unless I’ve completely missed it?!

Whats the chances the start of the stage will be spooky wood then a detour off on to this new stage then across into broon troot?

Seems reasonable, they’ve done the troot before but as a standalone very short stage, and spooky as part of a big redroute stage

I’m just hoping that it’s not just a new exit from Secret & Lies

Wouldn’t expect so- S&L is officially closed because of issues further up and I’ve not heard it mentioned for rework/reopening. (the woodwork’s way past end-of-life, it’s bollocksed. But I think everyone secretly admits that’s why it’s so good)

That pic is the new exit from Betty Blue, just as the last left that takes you to the exit along the fence. So some sort of Spooky\BB section, then that leads nicely into Brown Trout.

We did Zorro and Five Year Plan last night. Very wet and muddy. Can’t see either of them in the KOTH. new Ho-Chi-Min, ZoB and the Fort for sure I reckon.

Trail closures for the weekendhttp://www.7stanesmountainbiking.com/Glentress—Innerleithen

about 3 turns from the end of spooky there’s a trail that leads you down to the start of betty blue, there’s even an option to take you a little bit further into betty blue, that could lead you into the new exit above and into broon trout. from there it’s pretty easy transition over to double x and the bitch from the EWS course.

I don’t know but just guessing.

From the pond you could follow the ews route back to ho chi min.

There’s gonna be ‘long hard willies’?? I may need to take my shades 😯 😆

I usually get a walnut whip during these events

Diane – Member

There’s gonna be ‘long hard willies’??

I’m sorry to say, Glasgowdan rode all the willies and says they were actually not very hard at all.

Amazing!

Trail closures for the weekendhttp://www.7stanesmountainbiking.com/Glentress—Innerleithen

So going by this i think

Stage 1: Spooky Wood -> Betty Blue with new exit -> Broon troot
Stage 2: EWS stage 3
Stage 3: EWS stage 4

Then over to cademuir for last years KOTH last two stages

Latest word from the Organisers…

Enduro news: Who’ll be King & Queen of ‘Bike Valley’?

Hi guys, I thought I’d try here…is anyone going from Edinburgh and has a free space a car and is keen to take one more person+a bike? I’d be happy to share the fuel costs, of course!:)

Not giving much away are they. Couple of Cademuir stages, the Spooky/Betty/Trout one, one or maybe two more then finish with HCM -> Fort.

Would love them to chuck Zorro in!

Biggest question for me is four or five stages and what’s the time limit likely to be, 4hrs or 5hrs?

I didn’t see any Cademuir in that vid unless that was the bit at the beginning?

From about 1:30 onwards is Cademuir

I wonder if we’ll start off with the Cademuir stages this year then do GT?

That would be my guess. The big G-out of the bottom of JennyG and the lead in to it makes a good spectator zone for the finish.

Noted that there are no closures of the Black at GT for next weekend.
Which to me means the first three EWS stages from the second day of the EWS are not being used unless we’re only doing part-bits of them (if that’s possible without having piles of riders stacking up around the Black.

Doesn’t look like the EWS trails are being used other than S4. Must definitely include spooky wood and betty blue. Not much else closed so might be a fair bit of off piste stuff inc S4 😀