I'm up in Scotland this week and I'm going to hire a bike and have a ride of Glentress. I have never been there before and was just wondering if it would be wise to ride the black route on my own? I'm not bothered about the technical side of things as I have been riding for quite a while, its more the fact of crashing, badly hurting myself and no one being around. What you do you think?

There'll be someone around, sooner or later. Mid-week, during the day, this could easily be 2 hours or more though. This may feel like quite a long time with a broken leg or similar.

How much this bothers you depends on your person notions of risk… I'd ride it solo, no hesitation.

If you're hiring and you have a mishap at least someone will come and look for the bike at some point 😉

I'd solo it no bother, I might wind my neck in just a little though. Just treat it as being an XC route in the country, since that's basically what it is. The usual "Glentress is like a road, you could ride it on a shopper" crowd might be along in a second but there's some truth to that it's not technically hard, or especially risky. But IMO it's possible to hurt yourself pretty much anywhere with the right go-getting attitude 😉 It'd hardly be the first time someone's been helicoptered off the black.

Though TBH I'd also say to do the red not the black, it's a brilliant fun trail, very approachable, the black's well worth the ride but the red keeps drawing me back for one more go. And it's easy to cut it up into bits, redo sections etc.

Shouldn't be a problem…Enjoy!

Just take a mobile phone with you and you might not (might, mind) die.

😆 Thanks everyone, I might try and squeeze the black and red in in one day if possible.

make sure you eat your weetabix in the morning then

We are up there this weekend so if nobody has come across you by then I will keep a look out for you 😀

make sure you eat your weetabix in the morning then

I had 3 Weetabix on Saturday morning and felt permanently empty stomached on my ride that day. Forget Weetabix, porridge is the way to go!

I will be riding GT on saturday morning, if you are still on the track then I guess you will be in a pretty bad state though!

Its a top track, enjoy

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Innerleithen yet, the red trail there is definitely better than Glentress red or black.

Or you could do Innerleithen red then Glentress red in a day, they're only a couple of miles apart.

I tend to do the 7stanes routes on my own. Sometimes I've ended up tagging along with other groups and riders for periods of time.

I have booked the bike for Sunday, so if anyone see's a bloke on a Zesty 314 laying on the trail broken, you will know its me.