Well, you missed a treat. After 6 months in the planning and not knowing who would be going until the last possible minute, it actually happened. The journey up to the Isle of Arran was interrupted on Thursday 9th August 2007 when only the original MidAirCrisis Crazy Gang, alias Jason, John and Terry stopped off at Kirroughtree to do the Red Trail at this Seven Stanes centre. The late bonus of an empty seat in the car made it a bit easier to stash all our gear in the GollyMegane - a brilliant motor but sadly lacking a boot inside it's "Shakin' Ass" - and almost made up for the extra cost and complications of cancelling ferries and rooms without notice. A week on and the fourth bod still hasn't told me he's not going, not a tweet!

This ride once again confirmed that Kirroughtree gives you the best MTB experience overall of all the Stanes rides. It starts immediately at the car park from where it has you meandering fairly subtly up the first climb before teasing you with short downhill sections while still carrying you up to the high points as gently as is possible. And it's just loaded with singletrack bliss, some twisty, technical stuff and loads of flat out flowing blasts. Much less fireroad work here than at the other Scottish Border trails between the run-for-your-life bits.

It also confirmed that if you ride too close to the bloke in front, and if you don't pay enough attention to the trail ahead, and if your name's Johnny, and if you're trying to stay with Jason on the twisties, you're gonna moon it over the bars on a rock drop-off and slide your face up the trail instead of your tyres! John was OK after a few minutes to get his breath back but emerged from this brush with the scenery with a real beaut of a bruise inside his left arm and a coating of mud any Stealth Commando would be proud of. That pillow under his shirt saved him. It was lucky for John that the Gollum, following very close behind as usual, remembered the old cycle speedway quick lay-down-get-off procedure, otherwise his wheels would have surely been ploughing John's quakin' ass aswell. The latter's Kona Kikapu Deluxe also suffered a bit with a smashed right gear changer, but thanks to Golly's little tool and a bit of gentle persuasion by Jason we got the selectors working again.

The Scene! The Stump! The Takeoff! The Detail!

The Interrogation! The Post Mortem! Back to Business!

We managed to get to the end in reasonable time without further (major) incident and packed up around 4.00pm. That gave us a couple of hours to meet our ferry over to Arran at 6.00 pm, I figured, although we were due there at 5.30 to sign in. Somehow the Gollum allowed the in-car chat about Kirroughtree's delights to overtake his navigational concentration and before we knew it we were almost at the ferry port in double-quick time. Unfortunately that port was Stranraer, and the one we should have been at was Ardrossan, the small matter of 75 miles north of here! Dick. However, not to be beaten by mere physiological attributes such as distance, time and space, the old idiot set off on a white knuckle ride back to Newton Stewart, then north on the A714, his two trembling, terrified passengers squeezing their bum cheeks together as the GollyMeganes' wheels barely touched down. That is, until it ran out of diesel, but at least the remaining fumes were enough to get us to a fill up at Girvan, the first garage for a million miles! That also became the point at which we gave up the race and had a nice relaxing cruise up past Glasgow with the dark, evil-looking Isle of Arran's black peaks and the strange popup island of Ailsa Craig looming out of the flat calm sea like a giant coconut haystack through our nearside windows all the way up.

Goodness Gracious! Have you any idea where Ardrossan is? Bl@@dy miles away! We thought it would be midnight before we got there, it just didn't seem to get any closer. But all bad things come to an end, and so did our journey around 7:45 pm. We made our way to the ferry landing to find out two things:

how far up is the other ferry to the north end of the Isle of Arran                 and

will our tickets still work tomorrow

Answer One - 2.5 hours and a long way and it's closed now anyway         and

Answer Two - yep

One out of two's not bad, so we set about looking for somewhere to stay. The very first building you hit entering Ardrossan is a large B&B so we stopped there and Gollum entered to case the joint. "Can you put up three good old Geordie boys for the night please?" "Och No. Fool ap. On yar beyk, Jimay". However, the wonderful landlady spent 10 minutes on her mobile ringing around for us and sure enough came up trumps. So we set off 3 miles up the way to her mate's at West Kilbride, first right then immediate left under the power lines. That left us at a farm (Auld McDonalds?) where the owner wouldn't take smokers (he sniffed us all) and eyed us up from head to toe in case we were smuggling something or carrying baseball bats. He offered to house our bikes in the stable or washroom attached to the house. Golly chose the latter - don't like horse sh@t all over the Mutha.

After we'd stashed the bikes and locked them together, we were shown our rooms and presented with 3 nice pieces of paper with breakfast choices printed on them. The owner asked if we wouldn't mind filling them in straight away so he could go out, so we set about looking for a pen. At least John and Terry did - Jason had vanished! Had he been abducted? What was that swishing noise on the landing? A mincing machine? Nah, it was Jakey already in the shower ready to go supper hunting. We filled in his form for him and then got ourselves cleaned up, joining Jay a short while later to go looking for food. We were accosted in the hall by our host Basil who gave us another nice printed sheet of paper containing a list of eating houses nearby. "Nearby" meant within 10 miles, and he was recommending a couple in Largs, about 7 miles up the road. We headed that way but noticed a hotel Bazz's wife had mentioned earlier so we stopped.

Gollum also rang the hotel on Arran to explain why we weren't checking in there by now after the last ship over had been put to bed. The very pleasant young lady on the telephone didn't make too much of that, at least I don't think so. I couldn't really hear her properly for the racket my two "mates" were making as they were in hysterics listening to me spell my surname 9 or 10 times to the canny wee lassie. G-O-L-L-U-M ...easy, no? Anyway, this eating house looked deserted, but in we went. A couple of people in the bar but no-one eating. We decided to risk it and it turned out pretty good. At around 9.30 pm we were back at the B&B and retiring for the night at about ten. Jammy Jason got two beds and Sky telly to himself. We got one crappy, unwatchable BBC channel so just went to sleep.

The Fawlty's had offered to get up early for us so we could try for an early ferry in the morning. We had breakfast at 8.00 am and reloaded the car with bags and bikes, and got to the port for 8.35. The young lad on duty asked if we'd like to take the 9.00 am small, extra summer ferry so we jumped at the chance, and boarded at 8.55. Luckily for the Gollum, the sea was still flat and the little 25-car ferry chugged over the crossing without making him hurl up.

Episode Two

Keep watching and if you fancy a ride out with us, drop us a line here: bailout@midaircrisis.org.uk