Been out lastnight and ridden the first half of the local loop (first one I linked to earlier). I started from the Pub in Pencaitland rather than at mine and it took about 2hrs to get round to mine. – Basically start in local woods follow the tyne east, cross it by bridge , follow it on the other bank a bit further out to a wee farm and loop round to Saltoun Hall, ride through grounds and out past the Western coach house, freewheel down the road to Saltoun big wood for a lap of that taking in some of the nicer singletrack, head along past “the ducks” to the railway track, do one nice fast wooded singletrack blast then cut across a field to mine.
thinking we’d do the first half, stop for half time refreshments at mine before continuing on with the second leg (Woodhall/Wolfstarwoods/ormiston/Winton/wintonhill) another 1-2hrs depending on exact route – has a lot less gates and isn’t as tight or technical and end with a few pints in the pub.
The good – it’s mainly nice fun singletrack, only has 2 very short road sections and even with the recent rain there was only one (40sec tops) steep single track climb in Saltoun woods I couldn’t do (with a baldy minion on the back)
The bad – 19 stile/fence/gates (although a few are openable). a lot of the riverside single track is fairly technical and I’d say too tight for a tandem (alternate routes round could be done but IMO you’d be missing out big time TJ&MrsTJ).
What do you think to doing this sometime next month?
