Look what they have they done to Carron Valley!

GHEY! PANSY! GIRL! etc.

onion – have you ridden it?

If this is red/black I dont know how anyone copes with other trail centres Seriously, if you don't get told where it is you wouldn't know you'd been over it. The whole grading system is to pot, a red or black in the alps is more like what you might consider realistic. The Alpine grading is very consistant and correct, a red is technical and hard, often long, but not impossible, a black is VERY hard. This trail doesnt even fit into the other red/black routes schemes in the same country. Sorry if it seems elitist etc (it shouldn't im hardly a God) but as a kid I was riding this sort of thing with non-biking mates from the age of about 10 without even considering it, I just can't understand the view that it's tough. I know how that looks, but someone has to say it rather than going down the oooh well it was a bit tough route.

Never been there, but looks pretty straight forward to me.

BAAASSSSTTTERRRDSS! 🙁

coffeking – having just watched that youtube clip IMO that is as tricky as anything on the red at Glentress – so are you saying all of GT red should be blue graded as well?

Not up to laggan black in terms of difficulty but with no chicken run?????

Yeah, have to say I agree with TJ there, it fits pretty nicely into the spread of reds I've done. Looks harder than most of the rock features on Kirroughtree red, before someone comes back with "Ah but GT red is really easy". It wouldn't even register on Nevis Red, but then Nevis Red is red like coca cola is red.

Bringing alpine gradings into it makes no sense, unless Carron Valley is now considered an alp.

Was up at CV last Friday. Yes the beginning of Eas Dubh is santisised and yes Kelpies is gone but personally Eas Dubh was never that enjoyable anyone.

Cannonball has remained the same but IMHO the last section is a massive improvement. It's worth of the tag "fun park". It's totally smooth now but it's packed with features from start to finish and for beginners everything can be rolled but hitting it faster will be rewarding for more experienced riders.

http://www.ecurieneep.co.uk/links/Sept_08_OGB_Cycle_trail_managment.pdf

Well time to eat some humble pie…

petey – Member

The new Runway is pretty much a re-build because the original trail disappeared into the mud as soon as the dumpers started to run. We’ve kept the original line, beefed up the drainage, laid a new trail base and finer surfacing and built a bigger variety of jumps. It has to be safe for Blue riders so there are no huge drops or steep ramps but I don’t think anyone will complain about a lack of action.

Pete

I rode the new runway / fun park section yesterday for the first time and I loved it! To be honest I thought it would be crap and hit at full speed and blasted down – I had a huge grin on my face at the bottom! It felt a lot like the top half of Laggan to me – fast and sweeping with cheeky wee drops! I was also loving the small kickers on the jumps. I really liked the drop off into the bomb hole as well – it feels very fast and flowing – its great!

My only comment is that it puzzles me why Kelpies was made a very easy blue (its pretty much a small flat hill) and the fun park was made a bit of a harder red? I don't really get that but if someone had come to me and said: "David, its up to you mate, we can leave CV as it is or we can making the fun park into this but you need to loose kelpies – what you going to choose?!?" then it would have been an easy choice! 🙂

It would be great to have a shortcut back to the top of the fun park tho – I nearly twatted a guy pushing his bike back up the fun park. But hey you always get one clown… 😀

Great work on the fun park Pete – thank you! I may have been a bit wrong with your intentions to CV sorry!

David.

April – end of financial year – lets spank some cash on nonsense and sanitize some more trail, could rant on for ages about FC wasting public money (GT wall ride – local forest road re-laid using granite) but it will get us nowhere, or will it? Facebook group, petitions, any suggestions welcome.
PS Love the motorway pic.

"April – end of financial year – lets spank some cash on nonsense and sanitize some more trail"

Take a deep breath, read when the first post was made 😉

I was there today. There's a bridge closed at the moment west of Fintry so there's a huge diversion from that side if anyones thinking of going soon I'd recommend going in from the east (not sure when the road will be open again though).

I've never been a massive fan of Eas Dhu or the Cannonball run but I did quite like the top section of Eas Dhu which was (until these 'improvements') nice and rough with the Kelpie's too. Kelpie's was quite easy and only needed a chicken run installing because it didn't have one before. I heard on the grapevine that there had been accidents so maybe FC were getting worried about being sued because some 'cyclists' have tried that.

I've always liked The Runway though as it gives me the chance to practice my jumps especially now it's smoother. I don't mind this trail being smooth because it's a jump park. Cracking weather today by the way.

Thanks for the note on the bridge GJ, that'll save me some time!

No problem. It may be open again tomorrow who know's? I came back via Denny.

We've only had two mountain-biking related injuries amongst the group of guys I ride with, and they were both at Kelpie's Staircase; a broken collar bone and a fractured wrist.

Seems there might be some truth in the idea that a couple of others have proposed; that an out of character feature like Kelpie's is more likely to cause accidents than the same feature on a trail where it would be in keeping with the overall level of difficulty.

out of character feature

Yeah I see your point. There used to be a small warning sign at the top of Kelpies but not sure it's there anymore since the changes. I think it was a fairly straight forward feature to cycle down once you had plucked up the courage and actually knew it was there but I can see how it could easily catch you out with nasty consequences. I had read about it and friends had warned me but without prior knowledge you might just think it's a drop off or something? I very nearly crashed today on the first jump which looks easy so you can't be too careful.