Just back from a week in Scotland, four of us went looking for fun and excitement without too much trudging uphill. Definitely all from the mucking about on bikes school rather than the all-day epic XC one. Highlights as follows:

Glentress Red – Spooky Wood is ace, fast, flowing pumpy jumpy. The stuff in the woods (Pie, Magic Mushroom IIRC) is lovely too, fun in the wet. The switchbacks (after The Matrix) were the best bit of Red. Did a couple of bits of Black descent, also good and the last bit of the Blue descent too. Freeride park is great for a couple of hours, drops & funbox had to be done. Don't try the wallrides in the wet though…

Innerleithen Red – climbs suitably technical to keep us reasonably amused. Descents all cool, cracking bit of superfast singletrack about halfway down. Caddon Bank a splendid finale, hitting all the drops and clearing all the jumps straight out of the box was truly exhilarating.

Golspie Black – lactic ladder, great fun, none of us are really climbers so no-one cleaned it. The descent though is great, really rocky, really technical, proper Hans Rey type stuff, then into the fast flowy swoopy, pumpy, jumpy, hippy, drifty bit shared with the Red.

Laggan – Brilliant! – so quick and easy (on the legs), but really, really fun. Lower red is an easy climb, nice and rocky, lovely singletrack in the trees, nice bit of 'shore' that really flows, then the last bit of the Fun Park. Upper red again fast, flowing, pumpy fun. Black, probably the most fun I've had on a bike at slow speed. Super-rocky, grippy even in the wringing wet, just hilarious what you can convince yourself you can do. Fun Park, a great blast down the hill, flat-out berms and big lazy jumps and table tops.

Well worth heading up north to do Laggan and Golspie, really different in feel to Glentress/Inners. Short but very sweet too, so easy to fit in around travelling.