Looking awesome! Canny wait for a wee gondola day when it opens
Oh, sweeeeet!! It was being dug when I was up a couple of months ago.
By 'eck it's needed - and it looks brilliant.
Looks brilliant. I'm a total wuss when it comes to the scary stuff so this will be perfect.
If you could make sure it's ready for the World Cup weekend that'd be great ta. It would be a good yardstick for the red.
Looks awesome, I love nevis range already but this adds a ton of extra variety. I see they've officialised the Blue Crane as well, and they seem to have unofficialled the 10utb route they had, which is probably good as it was mostly crap. Though, you could include the good bits with the world champs and with a wee loop down to the auction mart from the car park, so hopefully that's still as easily doable
(@ joat, they re-graded the "red" to black btw, long overdue)
This will really make the trip south worthwhile, the kids can lap the blue and we can alternate turns on the red. Happy days 😊
Agreed, it opens the gondola up to a whole new audience, I love Top Chief, quite enjoy scaring myself shitless on the WC (always seem to cane myself on the easy bits, and always in view of the gondola!) but this will add a whole new dimension to a weekend there.
Hopefully Glencoe will up their game a bit too, as they have a captive audience driving past for Nevis.
They should make that a climb for the next tour of Britain 🙂
(@ joat, they re-graded the “red” to black btw, long overdue)
I'll save it for the end of the holiday then, the missus can drive home. I've watched a few GoPro vids of it and think it's within my skill level, as long as there are no compulsory gap jumps.
It's all rollable Joat, no gaps mate.
Should be absolutely brilliant. Any ETC?
Top Chief is totally rideable, just follow the dots on your first run and you'll be fine.
Mate of mine works at NR and reckons ready for start of next summer TG.
Really looking forward to this one, I think when it was first announced they thought maybe May next year for completion.
joat
Full MemberI’ll save it for the end of the holiday then, the missus can drive home. I’ve watched a few GoPro vids of it and think it’s within my skill level, as long as there are no compulsory gap jumps.
No worries there, you can get wheels off the ground but it's never required. It was the hardest thing I'd ever ridden when it first opened so I couldn't attack it, but I could puzzle it out and find the ways down. If you've done Laggan black it's a little easier imo, just because of the much better visibility- you're always riding down onto the main features rather than having a horizon ahead with doom on the other side. But it's a bit more unrelenting than laggan. And it's pretty high consqeuence for the same reason, there's quite a few bits where a mistake can lead to you falling a fair way onto a massive rock. But, a reasonable level of technical ability combined with a good sensible head and you'll be absolutely fine.
And of course with the uplift you don't have that pyschological effect you sometimes get at a trail centre where it's like "must ride it first time"- on my first visit I did 8 laps, first 2 or 3 were cowardly sighting lines with some pushing even, by the end of the day I was pretty comfortable and having a blast, and genuinely was a better rider.
Still absolutely love it. The DH isn't that much harder (the public route skips out the big doon and there's a legit chicken run on the river gap) and awesome fun on a trailbike too. And the woods are just full of excellent peril.
It'll be quicker finished if its a shite snow season.
Yeah they opened in March or even Feb 2 years ago didn't they?
Aye, that they did, they're a lot more fluid now as their switched on to how much income the biking brings in.
Top Chief is probably at the top of my skill level. I find different bits of it challenging each time I go.
If its windy, then the boardwalk can feel like an arse puckering ordeal, but mainly its trying to puzzle out the best lines of the big exposed rocky bits, which are big, steep and very hurty if you land on them.
Nice to see them adding a blue though. It should be the longest "flow" track in the UK when its finished