Broon Troot overrated IMHO.Muddy ,rooty ,slippy ,twisty,technical yes,but hard to get any speed up and no real flow.

GT black is, by modern standards, a red… Except for the bits at the end, wormhole etc. OTOH, it’s pretty lovely. Harder work for the amount of reward, compared to many trails, but still well worthwhile. And it has an excellently shagged out feel.

nick1962 – Member

Broon Troot overrated IMHO.Muddy ,rooty ,slippy ,twisty,technical yes,but hard to get any speed up and no real flow.

OK, I just read this again and I sound like a ****, but I can’t find any way of saying it that doesn’t make me sound like a ****… I used to think the troot lacked flow, then I got better at it. Now, it’s pretty much my definition of seamless flow, except when I screw it up. Each section just trips into the next.

I love BT but I do tend to take it slow – I couldn’t ride it fast. Think you’d need to be pretty good to leather the troot. 😉

Don’t worry Northwind you’re not a **** unlike many others on here 🙂 You are probably right and I just need to ride it more and get into the zone so to speak.

After all this chat, I decided to take a spin round GT black this afternoon. I’ve been on the Boundary Trail, Deliverance/Redemption in the last couple of years, but it’s probably 5 years since I did the outward section (to the mast).

As usual, I prevaricated about which bike to take – the Ragley HT with 150mm up front, or the Blur XCc with 120. I’m very glad I decided on the latter. The track was much more rocky than I remember it. It’s as if all the graded surface has been washed off. Not a problem to ride it, but I’d have definitely taken more of a battering on the Ragley. That first big feature on the Goat Track has certainly changed. What was a rocky staircase has now become overgrown with grass, and there’s a loose, muddy chute down the side of it.

Britney Spears was a hoot – I’d completely forgotten about that section. The Boundary Trail was very wet – some of the puddles seemto have grown into Lochans. Deliverance was great – I really felt I was flying along it today. Redemption was OK too. I think the new fire road has an affect as it just breaks it up a bit. Having said that, i was very glad to finally see the signs for the old Ewok Village section. I skipped “The Bitch”, opting for the Red at that point (Lombard Street?) and carried on down the Red back to Sair Fecht before climbing back up Dougie Bank to Buzzards and then taking the swoopy Blue back to the Peel.

I was a bit surprised to find that the whole thing had taken me less than three hours and was very tempted to head out again after a cake and a coffee but I got a text message requesting my presence at home.

Conclusions?
(a) It’s not as long/hard as I’d recalled.
(b) I need coaching.
(c) My Blur is fantastic.

Just an update after I did the black on Friday for the first time. I had obviously made the distance seem much greater in my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I was on the haribo after the Redemption climb and I was tired by the end, but it was nowhere as difficult as I was expecting. I had to push two sections on the uphill because it was just too steep and I had to walk one of the log drop offs on The Bitch because I bottled it. I’m glad that I did it on a full sus as it’s a fairly rough ride on some sections. Overall, I was slightly disappointed. The smiles per miles ratio was very low in comparison to the red. I’m thinking of maybe doing a mix of red and black next time I’m there.