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I am off to Scotland to vist my farther in law and will be staying with him in Darvel. So which of the 7 stanes will be easist/worth going to from there?
many thanks
Depends what sort of riding you like, but Drumlanrig is nearer than any of the stanes and worth a trip if you like natural rooty slippery technical stuff.
A google suggests you will be as close to Tweed Valley as D&G stanes
Don't think you are that near any of them unfortunately. Glentress/Innerleithen is possibly most worth the drive to.
glentress and innerleithan are probably the quickest to get too.
kirroughtree is normally seen as the one that is the most out the way but if you are in darvel then it wont be too bad to get too either. about an hour and a half probably
Depends on how far you want to drive but my preference would be
Kirroughtree
Drumlanrig (not a 7Stane but excellent)
Innerleithen
Glentress
Dalbeattie
Mabie
Ae
KT Red/Black is an excellent ride, Drumlanrig has a very nice natural feel for a man made trail. Innerleithen and Glentress can easily be done on the same day.
Cheers for the suggestions. Not to worried about driving to them as it will be shorter than the 7 hour + drive to get to his house in the first place.
Did drumlanrig for the first time on saturday, awesome fun
Having just done a wee tour of some of the stanes, we found Glentress to be the most fun (least technical but most grin inducing) Kirroughtree was fantastic but quite hard on the body - more epic feeling than any of the others. Dalbeattie was good in a slow technical, not big hill riding way. Did not enjoy Inners at all - more like welsh trail centre trails.
Dalbeattie- excellent, and probably the best. Rocks, not too strenuous, long, enjoyable, proper descents none of this traversey nonsense.
Inners- again very good. Loooong climb, proper descent apart from one bit near the end that's a bit bobbins.
Kirro- good, a long ride that will tire you out. Very enjoyable in a non-tech way.
Glentress- hit and miss. Somedays it's fun, somedays it's gash. You really need to rag it to get the most out of it I find and if you're not on top of your game it's ultimately a let down- it's just not that much fun when you're not going as fast as you can. A lightweight XC bike helps, though.
Mabie- very tame, very dull, can get muddy. Unless you can do the Darkside in which case it's the most difficult and rewarding trail centre experience there is.
Ae- just awful. Bizarre in that there's a huge amount of climbing and very little proper DH. Badly built, badly maintained, no fun whatsoever.
No ridden Newcastleton or Glentrool.
Killoughtree is boring imo. Too much of the same and only the rocky 'Moab' bit thats interesting. I though AE was fantastic and Glentress is also worth the drive.
Another definitive STW thread where all parties agree 😛
Meeting simonralli and johnclimber , 10 @ Dalbeattie tomorrow(Tues)if you fancy riding with some locals(me & Si)
The last section of AE is almost worth the visit alone. The only bad part of my AE experience was the cafe.
I liked Ae, but to be fair I only went up the blue/green then rode up the fire road to join the red for the last couple of descents - I also went back up the hill from Omega Man and did the whole of the Shredder, which is great fun imo.
I really liked Kirroughtree too.
Dalbeattie- excellent, and probably the best. Rocks, not too strenuous, long, enjoyable, proper descents none of this traversey nonsense.
I quite liked Dalbeattie, but there are no long descents in it at all as far as I remember. 😕 Could have done with more 'flowy' bits imo.
My order of preference:
Kirroughtree/Innerleithen
Glentress/Drumlanrig
Dalbeatie
Mabie
[s]Ae[/s] in fact don't bother its shite.
There is not a lot of love on here for Ae, but personally I always enjoy it. Its a good length and the final descent is great fun to session. A couple of new sections have been built that removes some of the fireroad.
Like I have said on other threads regards Ae there are as many, nay more people who like it than there are forum members 😆
Good job not all the riding public do not know the existance of this site, given the potential damage it can do to the lbs/shops/cafes etc.
eg I ride with lots of people who neither buy mags nor use internet bike forums, not because they are tight, they just want to ride a bike regardless of hype etc.
I ride Mabie, Dalbeattie and Ae weekly but have not been to Inners/Gt for well over a year, maybe longer. Prefering to nip down to the Lakes which is just as close to me.
Well I liked Ae. Even though I did it on the last day of a 4-day trip which included Kirroughtree, Dalbeattie and Glentress so I was knackered and it was pissing it down.
It probably doesn't have the 'sophistication' (whatever that means) of the others but if you like going fast and getting your wheels off the ground then it's well worth a visit IMO.
if you like going fast and getting your wheels off the ground then it's well worth a visit IMO.
That's it - I suspect all the Ae haters are people who can't jump or ride drop offs properly. 😛
specialone - Member
Did drumlanrig for the first time on saturday, awesome fun
+1 😉
Funny it seems to rain when I have done Ae. Apart from the final descent I do not have fond recollections of Ae.
By the way I would definitely recommend adding on the top part of the Shredder DH course if you go to Ae. There's lots of fun jumps and drop offs - nothing too crazy apart from the avoidable fire road gap.
I dislike Ae and am actually pretty partial to drops and jumps. Just not flat sloggy "descents". Omega Man is one of the most overhyped descents of the stanes being a dull gravel strip with some blown out, poorly maintained jumps that are too short. That and it's got practically no gradient to it.
The DH track is fun, though. Specially when it's muddy.
deffo Kirroughtree, least risk of disappointment! (which would be hard)
as above kirroughtree for least risk of dissapointment ...
drumlanrig is excellent but several folk on here have shown dissapointment in that roots and technical riding are not their thing and thus gone on to not enjoy it !
AE is Pants it is just an up not much down then up again.We were expecting a big down but it never comes and then you are finished.
It does start good but it is more like a home made trail center.
Ae's by far the worst of the ones I've ridden IMO, but that's not to say it's bad, it's just outshone by its neighbours, something has to come in last. I don't ever see a day when I decide I'd sooner do Ae again than Mabie or Drumlanrig, if I'm in that area.
Personally of the ones I've done there, I'd say go and do Kirroughtree, it's not technical for most of it but it has some brilliant riding and Mcmoab is a unique feature- you can get singletrack, berms and dropoffs anywhere after all. A very close second is Drumlanrig.