I did this 4 years back and every year since. Cant make it this year and I’m really disappointed 🙂 That there in itself should be enough of a review!
There is a lot of climbing – not as in rolling ups and downs – but bigish up then bigish down. It changed the year before last to have the biggest climb at the start so that the first downhill singletrack was less of a bottleneck. For folk like me (mid fielders) it still is a bit of a bottleneck to be fair. However 4 hours later you can have the course to yourself!
“Whats the course like” – A real mix of borders riding. Some of upland way, some off piste, some Innerleithen XC, some fireroad, lots of singletrack, some technical climbs, some guaranteed mud chutes, great views, very little of the climbs are wasted on boring descents, …..
Two things to note – the 100 (or recently the 85) isnt really the published distance. Secondly there are “unofficial cutoffs” – the feed stations will redirect you to the shorter course if you havent got to 1/2, 2/3 way round within a reasonable pace.
Overall – it’s a great event. Friendly, well organised. You can usually enter on the day.