My employer had an arrangement with Evans, which kinda limited options. Paul @ Cotic pointed me towards the Green Cycling Initiative and our HR/finance people found them really quick & easy to process everything. And I got a lovely Cascade 🙂

Rob

No mention of Kisimul Castle in Castlebay on the isle of Barra?

Rob

i spent a long time next to that Jeht on the Cotic stand at Tweedlove, in the flesh that colour is stunning with a metallic fleck in the sunshine.

Rob

I was in an similar situation.  Check out 365 Cycles on eBay. Based in the USA but pretty quick shipping at reasonable price. I got genuine X-Fusion air spring and damper service kits for Sweeps from them a few months ago.

Rob

I bought a pair off the back of that review. Just ordered a second pair for the other bike!

Rob

Have been in the New Inn a few times over the last few years when camping at Masons campsite. Loved the old biking photos on the walls – one photo including a Cannondale mountain tandem I think? Now the biking connection makes sense. 

RIP John.

Rob

try making it with haggis instead of mince. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Rob

Sadly the Benmore cafe closed last year, but Jamie might have his coffee & cake trailer in the car park which is also epic. The people from Benmore cafe now run The Blairmore, round the Holy Loch at, errrr, Blairmore!!

Yes ferry (I commute on it every day) and yes definitely buy tickets onshore first. Typically 30 mins faster to Glasgow than driving round.

Rob

Hello, Dunoon local of 20 years here.

Yep the Dunoon Project is ambitious but it’s very well supported by locals and investors, and the Dunoon Grammar School who are heavily involved, and the community through them.  It’s objective is to develop sufficient local jobs in the zipwires, accommodation, café etc so that locals have job opportunities without the need to leave the area.

Cowal Mountain Bike club is 20 years old this year, and the existing trail network has been built by them with a bit of help from No Fuss and others.

Here’s a map of the plans-

Let me try and answer a few of the questions posed in the thread-

We are planning a family campervan trip up to Scotland this Easter, are the original trails suitable for mixed abilities?

I’d love to say yes, but the honest answer is we’re a bit short of ’blue’ & ‘red’ trails.  Loads of forest roads, and the built trails are steep & nadgy, but not a huge amount in-between.  Fixing that is one of the early objectives of the project. And accessible trails deliberately includes  handbikes / Bowhead.

Fair warning though, and it could stop this development in its tracks. The wee takeaway/cafe at the old Dunoon pier head – busy, great scran, lovely staff – uses paper bags that are too thin for their intended job.

lol!!  That’s the Rock Cafe, or should I say was the Rock Cafe, it’s closed recently.  But no worries, the Boathouse cafe just along from it does fab food, fab cakes, ice cream, sit in or takeaway.  And crazy golf!!

I would hazard a guess that the number of people they expect to be getting the train down is tiny. Do trains on that route have bike spaces these days?

Yep, lots of commuters do bike/ferry/train/bike into Glasgow.

I think the cable car is a non starter. 

It’s certainly the final stage but the earlier stages (trails, vehicle uplift, zipwires) work without it.

Where would you park? There’s nowhere near that Western ferry iirc?

There’s roadside parking on the shore road on the Gourock side of McInroys Point.

i go as a foot passenger and it’s £6.40 return. that’s stopping in at the co-op along the road and buying an “advance” ticket. You can buy a 10 ticket pack which drop it to £5.24 return. 

Yep, never buy tickets onboard the Western!!  As OmarLittle says, call into the COOP in Gourock or Wemyss Bay as you drive past and buy passenger or car tickets.  Calmac buy on-board. The passenger only Calmac Gourock to Dunoon town is very susceptible to disruption due to wind.  The car & passenger Western Ferry from McInroys point to Hunters Quay is bomb-proof – I commute on it by bike every weekday and can count on one hand the number of cancellations in 10 years.  The ferry crossing can be more of an adrenaline sport than the biking!

its not the spend in the trail centre that matters. And its not only the riders that matter if they travel with their families – MTB isnt necessarily a whole family activity. The benefit is more broadly about spend in the surrounding area – cafes, shops, over night stays. Innerleithen high st wouldn’t look like it does if the people who ride there only had a 10 minute drive home. 

Yep.  And as above – the visitor spend is only part of it – the jobs for locals is the bigger target.

I cannot see a gondola type uplift being viable and pay to access land is a tricky issue in Scotland.  But I have no doubt some good trails in the area would bring people and I don’t see the ferry as an insurmountable issue at all. 

Good thing we have in our favour is that while most of the Cowal landscape is active timber harvesting, there are only 2 landowners covering a huge area, and both are fully on-board with the project.

There’s more info here – https://www.facebook.com/DunoonProject and if you’re heading over, you can drop us a message here https://www.facebook.com/CowalMountainBikeClub/ and if you’re lucky one of us might be able to show you around.

Cheers,

Rob

Another early Sunday start here (8.20am), another ‘hardly ridden this year’, and another Cotic (black Rocket)  !!!  We can suffer together 🙂

Rob

I’m in Dunoon and have seen Golden Eagles around Cowal a few times (one close enough to be worried I may be it’s next breakfast!) so yes.  They really are a beautiful and privileged sight.

Last saw one being mobbed by a pair of buzzards from the High Road to Otter Ferry, guessing a territory dispute. We have loads of buzzards around here which tourists often mistake for eagles, but when you see them together the size difference is significant.

For sea eagles the Seafari RIB tours out of Easdale are ace.  Been twice, seen 3! And they are bl@@y huge!

Good shout, just been scrolling down all message apps to find those who had gone quiet. 👍

You’re not being pedantry at all. I was an ADI for 8 years and would emphasise the difference between “I can’t see anything” and “I can see it’s clear”.

You can close your eyes and confidently declare that you can’t see anything.

Rob

Brilliant, just tried the same on the Gigantic site and got my 2021 tickets.  Thanks.

Oooooh, childhood flashback!  That fork truck was my first Technic 🙂

In exactly the same boat – 20+ years on spuds and was only prompted to try flats by going on a DirtSchool course 2 weeks ago.
Look up the Ryan Leech 12 week flat pedal course, and get some sticky shoes to go with the pedals. I tried with my Shimano AM9 spud shoes and thought they were ok, then got some 5 tens – like night & day, so can safely say you won’t get the proper flatty experience without committing to it. You could say you need to jump in with both feet 🙂

Rob

It’s a blue Ventana love-in tonight on STW!! Here’s Nancy-

She’s had a shorter stem since that photo. Homebrew drivetrain using 22t timing rings for max ground clearance, and a DIY remote lockout on the RP23 driven off a gripshift on the stoker handlebars (because Sandy can’t reach the Propedal lever!).
And a wee run down the Glentress freeride park-

Rob & Sandy – who are pretty gutted Tweedlove won’t let tandems enter the Enjoyro 🙁

Nice trails in the arboretum too! It’s home to the slippery singletrack of doom,
clicky

Rob

As one of the Cowal Mountain Bike Club members who was marshalling all weekend, really glad you liked it and said nice things about us. I was the marshall at the start of stage 3 (the pedally/uphill/burn-crossing start that got such stick!). Was great to chat to everyone and to have loads of people coming to ride in our back garden.
There’s a hardcore of about 5-6 trail builders who have handcarved most of the routes and built many of the bridges (including the slippery one at the bottom of ‘Burnside’).
There’s other trails that weren’t used (including ‘Hobo’ which was used for the SXC and did indeed scare the bejesus out of plenty of riders!) and more if you head south towards Innellan & Toward, or equally north over to Sandbank & Kilmun.
Have a search for the CMTB facebook page[/url] and give us a shout if you’re thinkin of coming over, there’ll probably someone happy to show you round the trails. And the coffee & ice cream shops!

Rob

“Trouble is front shifting really sucks on a tandem”

Never had much of a problem after we sussed a technique. I’ll call “going down to granny / going up to big ring in 1…2….3”

On 1 & 2 we push a stronger pedalstroke, then on 3 we back off the pressure as I shift chainring.
We’ve run a few homebrew drivetrains over almost 20 years, currently running 20/34/42 on the front with an XT mech & SRAM X7 shifter. We have run 20/36/48 up front for many years and that worked fine too!

also I think the wee traverse in the middle is going to see some enormous crashes

Agree with that. Rode it this weekend too and that bit is properly quick and ever so slightly off-camber, and a lovely tree ready to collect anyone drifting too far left. Thought it was a great bit of trail, loved riding it on the Soul, then we took the tandem down it – them berms look even bigger sitting up on a 13.5″ high bottom bracket waiting for the back wheel to get round the corner!

Rob

loved it. loved every brilliant minute

This.

Absolutely marvellous!!!

This too

Loved it!!! Smiled, cried and laughed all the way through. Scene when the x wing fighters come in across the lake are awesome.

Oh yes oh yes

When the falcon appears I gasped and was in tears. The whole thing was such a big part of my childhood.

Loads more welling up moments.
Yes this too.
Just loved “You’re cold???”

Still buzzing.

Yes I do, well Sandbank, a few miles outside Dunoon on the Holy Loch. Been here 12 years having left Nottingham.

He reckons it is a total hole, never had any investment since the US left and he hates the place.

Possibly harsh but not far from the truth.

It’s not a good place to get out of, if you know what I mean; either a ferry across the Clyde or a long drive to get anywhere

Mmmmmm, its all relative.
Glasgow airport is 55 mins from my house. Plenty of people commute by ferry/train in Glasgow.
First ferry is 6.10am, last ferry back is 10.30pm or midnight fri/sat/sun. I commute by ferry, only 1 day in the last 12 months it didn’t run.
It’s not perfect, but then no-where is. Local employment is a challenge but if you’ve got that sorted then there’s a lot to like.

Happy to discuss further.

Rob

5 second rule Joh?
Rob

I’m having a vision of Hans Rey and Greg Herbold in Tread!

53mph on the rigid Clockwork. Where the southern end of the Roych Clough track emerges onto the road to Rushup/Winnat’s Pass there’s a wee road dead opposite – Rushup Lane. Straight as a die and drops steeply downhill. I remember 3 or 4 of us together, all tucked down and praying nowt came the other way.
I suspect you may have been one of them JonEdwards, and I suspect Paul@Cotic was the other.
Happy days 🙂
Rob

We stayed HERE for a week last summer in the T25. Great site, excellent showers and a permissive path into Hawkshead village for the pub that keeps you off the narrow lane.

Easy access onto the Claife Heights trails too.

Rob

I’d just go for cake satch 🙂

Rob

Have had a couple of tandems in the past with just cantilever brakes, scared the **** out of me

amen to that! We had V brakes on the Cannondale MT1000 that we bought in about ’98. First time out in the Peaks, the grassy trail down to Black Harry Gate – we were keeping up with a motorcross bike, and I had the brakes on full! Probably wasn’t the brightest idea to then go down Eyam Quarry! Thankfully the barrier was up, otherwise we’d have gone into it at 30mph with the brakes on full 🙂

Hope Ti6’s with 203’s front & rear here. Only time they felt near the limit was the bottom of the Glencoe red run.

I’ve heard JD Cycles tried Hope V2’s on a mountain tandem and they we’re pretty effective. The old magura Gustav was their brake of choice IIRC.

Worth noting that on our Cannondale a 203 rotor wouldn’t fit on the rear, it fouled the inside of the chainstay, so 180 was the biggest we could use. The Ventana is fine for 203mm.

Happy tandeming.

Rob & Sandy

Perfectly reasonable question Butcher.
I started shooting 10 metre air pistol at 14 or 15 after pestering my Mum for ages. Via the school DofE scheme I was put in touch the local club in Nottingham. Shot twice a week and did weekend competitions until I was mid 20’s. Also discovered MTB’s when I was 14 or 15 (around ’87) so that saw a decline in the shooting!

For me it was always the challenge of the next personal best. Could I get another 10? Could I regularly get each card of 10 shots into the 90’s? Could I hold my nerve under pressure in a competition and perform my best? I look back and believe that the discipline and responsibility of shooting was a huge influence on my growing up, and firmly believe I am a better person for doing it.

Rob

Several Steyr LPs due to two of my kids being involved with the Junior GB Pistol squad.

Do they still run the junior squad out of the range at Bedford? I was in the junior squad development group around 87′ to ’90. Was spotted at an LNER shoot at Chesterfied and invited to join. Turned up at Bedford with my Daisy Powerline 717 and cheapo Gamo wadcutters, which got sniggered at, until they put it in the vice and it’s grouping wasn’t far off the new fangled (at the time) CO2 FWB’s 🙂

Rob

I’m actually coming down to Cockermouth on Wednesday!
rob.cooksley@ (you know the rest)

🙂

AD, you still at James Walker? I’m up at JW Devol.

Rob

Walther LPM1

Lovely target pistol, replaced my FWB 65.

Oric 1 emulator installed on my work laptop..

I replaced my C64 with an oric Atmos, which then got replaced by an Acorn Electron when I started GCSE computer studies.

Happy Days.

Happened to us 6 weeks ago- 07 plate Saab 93 1.9TiD. Almost empty tank filled with £40 unleaded. Driven 1.5 miles home before spluttered & stopped.
Towed to garage, drained, new fuel filter, good as new.
Keep fingers crossed.

Rob

Back in the day when there were no cartridge bearing hubs, I made 2 thick washers out of 10mm steel plate.
Assemble & adjust hub, put thick washer on each end of axle to simulate dropouts, add QR & tighten skewer so it clamps the washers just like the dropouts and adds the preload. Check for play. If cones need a tweak, open QR, get in there with spanners, tweak, tighten QR, check. Repeat as necessary.

No vices, on extra hands, no hassle.

Rob

Go visit Club80-90[/url]where you’ll learn all you need to look out for. We’ve had Vinnie (a B reg 1.9 petrol) for 3 years and love him to bits. Yes dog slow. Yes only 26mpg on petrol. Yes demanding on maintenance. But would we get rid of him? Never!

If you’re mechanically mined they are very simple to work on (edit- that’s the petrol engine, can’t comment on the diesel) and parts easily available. If you aren’t, then you need a garage who understand these vans and deep pockets.

Rob

Had 4 as driving school cars. Superb. The earlier ones had the option 1.5 engine, but the later model with the 1.2 felt as nippy. 45+mpg easy. One had a battery which failed after 6 months, but considering the grief they got from pupils, they never missed a beat.
And following from Waderider, a kindly Argyll policeman stuck his Mitsubish Outlander into the side of Swift no2, which did an excellent job of looking after me. Very highly recommended. My dealer (Pearson Suzuki of Largs & Wymess Bay) were brilliant too.

Rob