[Closed] Aaaaaaaahhh Golspie

Aaaaaaaahhh yes, Golspie is the best. It's about a 1400 mile round trip for me but I have to go at least once a year.

Only ridden there once around 2010 but absolutely loved it! Really need to get a few days in Scotland next. year.

It really is something special.

I drive past at least twice a month for work, I should really drag my bike up someday!

Is it that good?

I've never been, but now live within day trip distance, so am tempted if it's worth the trip. How does it compare to other trails in terms of technicality, climbs, jumps, drops etc?

It's techy in places and gradually less so as you go down.
The tech is due to rocks - maybe a little like Laggan Black, but a bit more slabby.
Great fun.
It's pretty much one big climb and one big descent when you do the black/red.

Descending, I found the upper sections fine but once in the trees I was all over the place on a couple of the rocky sections.

The climb though (Jacob's Ladder?)- fair play to those that can clean it, it damn near killed me.

Lactic Ladder?

Yeah its brilliant. Shame its a 4 hour drive away!

Sounds worth a wee trip then, thanks. Might pop over on Saturday if winter stays away for another week.

The best in the north of Scotland IMO. Definitely worth going out of your way for. I usually do it at least once a year.

I cleaned the lactic ladder when I was there last. Then I fell on my face from a decent height. Turns out here's a little minor injuries unit in Golspie.

Balblair can't be missed either.

Lost a day in Golspie, well I remember none of that one or bits of surrounding days 😉 According to my wife we'd ridden most of it then I decided to launch off the hillside on an easy bit, ride to Inverness leaving bikes with a nice porter in the Golspie hospital. But I walked out, smashed helmet, broken hand and stuck on repeat...

I've never been, but now live within day trip distance, so am tempted if it's worth the trip.

If you're that close then definately worth a visit.

Grew up in that area, folks still live local. I usually manage it once or twice a year when im visiting. Great place.
Some say longest singletrack trail center decent in the UK? 😀

Had a long walk down once tho after rear wheel ate mech landing at VTOL its further than you think!

Check out the golden sands in the distance!

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Lactic ladder climb fail.........

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Going up the ladder with VTOL in the distance

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One of the typical sandstone features.

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Its great, possibly my favourite, challenging but still fun.

Balblair is great too

Think I prefer Balblair tbh but they're very different so it's not really a better/worse.

Last time i was up I had time for 2 runs and it all works much better once you know where you're going, I suppose that's my only criticism of the place, it's not that well sighted so frinstance the first jump line, you're riding up to each feature with really no idea what it's going to do. Or once you're in the woods on the obstacle course quite often it's not really that clear where you're supposed to be going. It is mint though. And nice to see last year it was getting some love with woodwork repairs etc

I was pretty out of shape and on a borrowed bike when we went up there.. I'd love to go back and have another crack at the Lactic Ladder..

Being a bit of a philistine where trail centres are concerned, I couldn't help wondering what trails lay in the hills beyond..

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We were gonna do an afternoon at Balblair, and visit the 'peffer course, but with the DH World Cup, and with small babies in tow and lots of family sightseeing stuff to pack into the week, we didn't manage as much riding as we could have..

The local tipple from the distillery in Brora stole some of our time too 🙂

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I properly spat the dummy at lactic ladder last time, I'd forgotten that, got almost all the way up and still felt in reasonable shap and then made an arse of the very last, easy corner and dabbed it 😆 Nearly threw my bike up a tree.

I rode up Lactic Ladder having a conversation about how my style of slowing down to nearly a stop then accelerating over each obstacle was completely incompatible with the guy behind me 🙂
Second time up, he went ahead of me and it worked much better.

This is me at the very top
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One of our party nearly at the top
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Agree about it all being unsighted. Lots of is-it/isn't-it moments.