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  • Goat fell – Arran – Anyone ridden it?
  • Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    I’ve not walked it for a few years now, thinking of having a push up, and a blast down, anyone done it?.

    cupra
    Free Member

    No, but having walked it last year and mtb’d in arran as well I can’t say it would be my first choice but each to their own.

    Shak47
    Full Member

    Yes, back in 1986 or 87,I carried a rigid Saracen trekker all the way up, did some comedy falls every few yards on the way down, quickly gave up and carried the bike back down.
    I was working in London, just got the bike, and thought well its my local mountain so came back up the road to do my first proper mountain biking session.
    It was something of a disappointment to say the least.

    I dont think its that great a ride,even with a proper up to date bike,the Merrick is better.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    went up so far from the glen rosa end once and up one of the other paths another time, both times decided to turn back as the rocks where getting bigger so I just binned it, no idea if it’ll be anybetter further up, only went up i dunno about 1/3 each time if even, never had any intention of heading up the whole thing was just having a look.. don’t really fancy it much beyond the bottom bits tbh which were fun mind..

    stucol
    Free Member

    Bunch of us doing a weekend there in Sept.

    Road bike around the island then a trip up Goat Fell.

    Really has to be done with the MTB’S.

    Managed Ben Lomond fine so should be a doddle.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    Top 1/3 is a steep scramble on foot from the brewery side ….. Bar the top section it would be a hoot !

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Top 1/3 is a steep scramble on foot from the brewery side ….. Bar the top section it would be a hoot !

    That’s what I reckon Terry, Find out soon I suppose…

    balfa
    Free Member

    I’ve ridden from where the Corrie/Cladach paths join back down both ways. Anything much higher is pretty scrambly. The path to corrie is pretty tough in a slow trialsy manner so you’d have to on your game. The Cladach path is much more rideable but certainly still challenging. Both are good fun. You can ride most of the way up the cladach path until the 350m contour then the rocks get bigger and its a push.

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Cheers Balfa. It’s a smashing island, with some pretty good mountain biking. I’ve did most of the routes, the only area I’ve not really ridden is the cock of Arran in the north.

    That’ll get addressed in 3 weeks time when our club is going over to do the ‘End-to-enduro’ A route from Lochranza in the north to Kilmory in the south which is entirely off road apart from 3km on tarmac.

    Should be good.

    Another reason I like riding Arran is that I can get a train for 15 mins, and then on the ferry, no driving. Means I can get a few Arran blondes over the neck on the way home!.

    Good times.

    stooo
    Free Member

    Errrr…. sort of.

    A good 6 years ago now I reckon, poss more… hopped on the ferry form Ardrossen, just my pal and I and our bikes… clad in proper summer hear (sunnies, SPD shoes, summer lycra, nothing extra). Rode as far up goat fell as we could before the huge rocks got too tough to ride… then we carried on walking up to the saddle.

    It was one of the hottest days of the year, mid-July. The path was a mess after a massive rainfall a week before that had just washed all the big rocks down the path, leaving it pretty tough even to walk. It was going to make a technical descent!

    We were getting super hot on the way up, so stopped in the rock pools for a lovely dip to cool off… then carried on riding/walking.

    Once at the top, it was time for an epicly techy down, on our oldschool hard-tails with 80mm forks (RST Elastomer forks on mine). We picked our way down over the baby heads, sweat dripping from our helmets and hands slipping on the grips… until….

    A rather nasty sized rock on a steep switchback caught me out. On turning the front wheel, my tyre slipped off the rock to the side and dropped down in between two boulders. The bike stopped dead… I didn’t.

    As I went slow motion over the bars, I tried to spot for a soft landing and aimed for the grassy fern bank to the side of the path. One of my feet didn’t release from my SPD and as the bike twisted behind me, and I tumbled to the side, I heard the crunch as I tore pretty much all the ligaments in my ankle.

    My pal heard the shout/scream, stopped, and gambled back up the path to find me in a heap, looking rather pale. I couldn’t stand, I could barely sit up with the pain. He help me down the path 150m to the next wee burn that crossed it, where I sat down with my foot in the ice cold water, to try and reduce the swelling while we decided what to do.

    With my ankle now resembling a bruised melon, no mobile reception, and evening coming on in a couple of hours, my buddy decided to head off the hill to the first road and call mountain rescue. Once he’d got them on the phone and explained our predicament, they asked him….

    “how bad is he? will he need a helicopter? how far up the hill is he?”

    he replied,
    “he’s in quite a bit of pain. Nah, he’ll just be embarrassed… not too far, perhaps a mile or so”

    MR chaps turned up in their landrover and drove as far up the track as they could…. about a mile or so. Turns out I was another few miles up. I was left in the stream, being eaten alive by the worst midges in the area for about 10 years, for 4 HOURS! Once they found me, they had to stretcher me off the mountain, whispering “should have got a chopper!”, before getting me to the local A&E, which was shut.

    They had to call a doctor in from his home to confirm that I’d very badly sprained my ankle, that they didn’t have any beds for me, we’d missed the ferry home and we’d have to take our summer-lycra clad selves off to find a B&B for the night on the busiest weekend of the year… Arran highland games.

    So, would I recommend it?… no

    YMMV 🙂

    balfa
    Free Member

    Cheers Balfa. It’s a smashing island, with some pretty good mountain biking. I’ve did most of the routes, the only area I’ve not really ridden is the cock of Arran in the north.

    The cock of Arran route is good but I’d probably ignore the road bit and just do lochranza=>fallen rocks and retrace your steps.

    Another push up and blast down is Corriein Lochain down the coast from Lochranza. Not a particularly long outing but enough for a good evening’s entertainment.

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