Had a day with some mates at the Lecht today. Had a right hoot trying to out “gnarr” each other on a mixed bag of XC bikes today. Some neep turned up in armour, full face and rear mudguard on his stumpy 🙄 It’s hardly Laggan, but still ok to kill an afternoon on.

neep? (Scots word I guess)

Yes neep=turnip.

Turnip.

The pics I’ve seen of it look insanely wide, someone said they reckon they used the piste bashers to grade it… Did it seem like that to you? Any more info on what it’s like to ride, etc?

Buzz, apologies, I’ve been up here too long. Only another 80 or 90 years and I might be just an “incomer” 😆

Northwind, don’t know if you’ve been to Laggan, but the Lecht is similar to the Blue funpark section as you come off the Red towards the carpark. They appear to have followed the erosion in the peat hags, so it twists and turns in a very fluid way. Don’t think they used the piste bashers, as there was a tracked digger parked up just off the run, ready to start work on the blue track. The Lecht has some very good berms linking up various doubles and table tops. It’s not that long, approx 1.5km (not sure of height loss). We had a good laugh even though we all felt £25/day £20/4 hour ticket was a bit too much to ask. I believe the Gondola at Nevis is only £17. Still it is only 30 minutes from the house and will give us some fun for a quick blast after work.

It’s worth coming up and maybe doing a half day linked with something more natural locally. Oh, and the bacon and egg rolls are fantastic 😀

Do they hire bikes? The road riding up there’s magic, it’s a bit far from here for what you describe but if I could burn up on the motorbike and have a play, then muck about on a mountain bike, that’d be a pretty grand day out…

Northwind, the LBS in Ballater is in discussions with Tosh, the man @ The Lecht. As yet they don’t hire bikes on site, but will be doing so soon.

who are you calling a neep? nothing wrong with being a neep!

http://www.ecurieneep.co.uk/

Notlocal, cheers! Course, that leaves the inconvenient possiblity of snapping my arms like twigs and having to ride home steering with my mouth.

I went up to check out Lecht when I was in the area. I’m glad I didn't fork out £20 for a lift pass for 4 hours though! I ended up biking back up to the top on the quad/landrover/go cart/fire road track to the left hand side.

I did about a dozen runs but think I would have got pretty board if I had purchased a lift pass. I rode it on a 69er with the seat down and it was a great little run to get your confidence up on jumps and it's all very smooth and flowy. One nasty little table top at the bottom which spits you into the heather if you aren't carful but I reckon I probably would have put one in like that if I was the digger driver stuck up there for days on end!

Skills park was fun but they are having a laugh if they think people are going to pay £10. I was purely exercising my right to roam!

General consensus from people I spoke to around the area is that it is a good start but they haven't quite got it right yet when compared with other centres. Loads of potential though…