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Met with some pals for our first ever trip to Dalbeattie. Been to Laggan / Glentress / Innerleithan before so I thought the red would be fine. Wrong!
Took a big fall early on on one of the granite outcrops - bridged the tandem and left stranded in the air resulting in a heavy fall which meant my bottle escaped!.
Still - really great trails - much narrower and more "natural" than the other trail centres - no lumps of rock put in the way to make a dull trail interesting - instead using the natural features of the landscape and taking the trail interesting routes over them.
No way were we going to attempt the slab as we were still looking for our bottle at that point. We did recover it later on the ride however and cleared some stuff that just did not look possible.
I have never felt so beat up after a ride tho - shoulders and hands sore from the effort needed to control 30 stone of us and long bike over all the rocks.
The bike held up well - just a load more hits on the bashrings - at GT we rarely hit them - at Dalbeatie we must have done so 20 times. Some of the obstacles could have been tackled easier with more speed - but the penalties for getting it wrong would have been more severe.
2 falls and 3 submissions ( chickening out and walking short sections) Dalbeatie won! But we will be back for the return match and out for revenge! Time to jack the bike up another few inches
tj, sounds like me on the ventana.
wheelbase must be nearly as long as your tandem.
i love dalbeattie, it is very natural.
even the area with the bits of woodwork after the huge ofcamber rock lump is good.
Saw your rig last year in the Qs in passing, I think you've a lot of bottle riding a tandem offroad at all, but your stoker must be absolutely nails!
TJ, good effort, all those rocky bits near the start would be a blooming nightmare on a tandem. I was going to come along but lift issues meant i had to go to innerleithen instead.
cool pics TJ, Dalbeatie bangs you about on a HT, so a tandem must be worse
Certainly does give you a bit of a battering - thank Gawd for strong wheels. Checked the bike over - bar a few more chunks missing from the bashrings no other damage - wheels still straight!
i think out of all the trail centres i lost the most skin at Dalbeatie, no denying it's fun though
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Sounds like a killer TJ. Reckon you could get round now you know where the obsticles are?
We usually only take the tandem to rides that I've done on the half-bike, so I know if its do-able. However we did Kirroughtree blind, and we had a similar experience to yours. Like you we find GT red is fine by tandem, but Kirr' was too technical. Our bashring earned its money on that day. We got round, but not sure we enjoyed it, more like we survived it!
Rob
Part of the issue was being with a group - some of whom had been there before - it meant I couldn't really stop o check bits out beforehand as we were playing catch up half the time.
I think there were probably 3 things that were unavoidable on the red that would be really tricky to do
I reckon dalbeattie is the most physically demanding of all the Stanes.
The natural scattering of those rounded felspar rocks throughout the trail makes you have to work continuously to keep your momentum up and keep the line right. A very rewarding trail and very different to Mabie or K'Tree for example.
I always thought Dalbettie was one of the under-rated Stanes. In 2004 it was very chilled (i.e. not many people went there) but they have added more bits I think since then and more people are "getting" it yeah?
TJ
Where would you recommend to get tandem spares online? Seatpost mounted stem, looong cables etc. Just reclaimed ours after 4 years and it needs a few bits.
I got my last stoker stem fromn CRC. Long cables from Edinburgh bike shop, [url= http://www.jdcycles.co.uk/ ]JDcycles in Ilkley[/url] have a very good reputation but I personally have not used them
TJ - I doff my cap to you doing Dalbeattie on a Tandem. Will you be doing it again be a nice basis for a STW Social there?
Ah, keeping up with a group is tough on a tandem. That's how we were at K'tree. The line the solo's use is sometimes a bit misleading too, the long bike needs a different approach. So I won't write-off Dalbeatie, just save it until we're feeling fit and got time to experiment on each section!
@ boxelder; JD Cycles will have everything, and know pretty much everything too! Not used their online service but we did get our Ventana from them plus the odds & sods we needed to convert from the Cannondale. Highly recommended.
Rob
The lines thing was part of the issue. One section had loads of rocks on tight corners - with the long bike and narrow trail I had no choice of where to hit the rocks - hitting the rocks at the right point would have meant running off the trail - and there was a big drop at the side.
I'd go back again - but its a 2 1/2 hr drive from Edinburgh and there is a lot of other good riding in 2 1/2 hrs drive
Have you tried Newcastleton red route on the tandem yet? I rode it on the solo a few weeks ago and think it'd make a great wee tandem ride. I'm pretty sure all the singletrack would be rideable. Tight in places, but not too tight, nice twisty trails, some optional wee steps/jumps and not too long.