[Closed] last year's ews tweed Valley route

Pretty much all doable apart from

Some bits go the opposite way along trail centre routes

One route was so twisty even I can't remember where I went (Inners Face)

Apart from that it's all rideable. Nothing is closed off or destroyed.

check on Strava too as most of the stages are named

I rode stages 1 and 2 last week, not having ridden Caberston side before, and they were pretty clear with the map from last year. I did ride past the link trail off the main fireroad up to the top, but it's pretty obvious that you've gone too far (fireroad starts going downwards).

Glad I tested them out - had idly thought about turning up with spds and whatever the minimum pad requirement is. Specced out some body armour and flat pedals on CRC today 🙂

It's pretty reasonable to ride down the black climb from the mast at GT, to access Mast of Zorro- it's not a busy trail and the visibility's perfect so there's no danger. I'm usually uptight about this sort of thing but this is how we do it. If you don't want to, you can totally access it up the black climb instead.

I suppose the same's true of descending the red route climb at Innerleithen to do pre and prospacker but, on the other hand, it's pretty much completely shit. So I'd just go up the red climb and then down prespacker, rather than pissing about riding down the climb

There's a bit of line choice etc at caberston but even if you wander off the exact stage, you'll still end up on something pretty much like it.

And yeah, the second they took the tape down on inners face, I could no longer ride it 😆 Trail spaghetti

Northwind, i'm after a bit of advice. Ill be living like a tramp in my van on the thursday night and saturday night. Parking at Glentress with access to a shower suits me but i am not sure if its allowed. Obviously will pay any parking but is overnighting ok?

Cheers

No idea, sorry, I am not a tramp 😆 I think officially you're not allowed, but I've often seen vans and campers parked overnight in the top car park

Yeah, shower at the bottom and park at the top. Done it myself and never heard of anyone having problems

Except when it snows and they close the road and lock the gate 😆

Thanks for the pointers, I might give day one or other a go this weekend if I've got a long enough pass. (maybe both if I'm very lucky) I'm intrigued to see what it is like and maybe have a [s]ride[/s] walk of the e1 only decent.

Unfortunately no strava or giving their website my traffic as the concept of Internet willy waving over something I do solely for fun offends me, so I'll just be tracing the little maps onto an os I think.

Even without inners face it'll be a learning curve I should think!

Unfortunately no strava or giving their website my traffic as the concept of Internet willy waving over something I do solely for fun offends me, so I'll just be tracing the little maps onto an os I think.

Perhaps login to have a look at the routes you're interested in, plus all the other trails you'll be right beside, and keep your nob inside your trousers?

[i]I suppose the same's true of descending the red route climb at Innerleithen to do pre and prospacker but, on the other hand, it's pretty much completely shit. So I'd just go up the red climb and then down prespacker, rather than pissing about riding down the climb[/i]

Eh? The climb is a super descent, especially at night when you've little worry of others climbing - then drop into Nania.

Really? Can't see what you see in it! YMMV I suppose but to me it's just no gradient, no technicality, no features... no fun, just a drab pedal down a metre wide path

The walkers path off the mast road in the area of the red climb is more interesting and brings you out at the start of Zorro without having to climb up from the bottom, or climb up and drop down.

The path does take longer, and has a couple challenging climbs, but it provides a bit variety. Just remember and be nice to any walkers you might happen to meet!

[i]Really? Can't see what you see in it! YMMV I suppose but to me it's just no gradient, no technicality, no features... no fun, just a drab pedal down a metre wide path [/i]

Hmm, I'll better go check Strava to see that you are quicker than me then 🙂

I wouldn't mind riding the stages myself when I manage to get up to the Tweed valley later this year. Would anyone be willing to send me the course/stage/route map?

and keep your nob inside your trousers

PDFs of the map here if any use:

What's Zorro like, it's one of the few trails in the forest I haven't ridden (that I'm aware of at least!) The headcam footage of it looks ok, but nothing that's worth the grind back up the road at the end. Top in the open looks nice but once it gets past the tree line it looks a bit uneventful, and lacking in gradient. But also aware that headcams aren't always the best measures of steepness, nor is there any guarantee about the speed of the rider who's headcam I watched, I just stumbled upon it on Youtube.

What's Zorro like

Top section is rough and rutted. Absolutely brilliant.

Bus stop section is slippy as hell in anything less than a parched summer

1st bit after the fireroad is steep and loamy

Short fireroad sprint into a fantastic rooty natural old school XC section

It's well worth the climb back out

Cool, sounds a lot better than it looks.

Well worth checking out- it does waste its height a little bit to be fair, but really nice riding. And quite unglentressy.

There's a trail that goes down further from the bottom to the shieldaig centre but I keep missing it (I can find the bottom but not the top!). Then that links quite nicely onto a bunch of wee climbs and descents that leads down to behind the hydro. Not sure how practical that all is to navigate unless you know where you're going though...

Short fireroad sprint into a fantastic rooty natural old school XC section

When approaching from the Zorro side, take the 2nd (original) entrance rather than the first (new for EWS) though, better trail that way imo (misses a wee climb)