Hairy Coo Race Weekend
Glen Isla XC Loop, Angus, Sun 18-10-09

Day two dawned at 0630 for the Gollum. He arose and showered with a giant spider before returning to his tent being deliberately noisy. The plan had been to vacate the camp site nonchalantly as there was no dire panic to get to the start of our ride this Sunday 18th October 2009.

Tim climbed out of his Flowery resting place and rekindled the dying embers of last night's inferno so that seven pairs of damp shoes and socks could be dried. Golly's didn't get wet because after the previous day's result he can now walk on water. A hearty breakfast then followed under a dull grey sky, with a Masterclass in bacon cremation presented by Golly, much to the distaste of his MidAirCannibal colleagues who prefer theirs still pumping. Yuk.

Onward, Monsoon and GollyMobile packed, bikes stacked on, bodies rammed in, now where on earth is Kirkton of Isla? Well, it's just up the road from here. Actually it's 58 miles up the road, and how does the Gollum start off? By telling GM guest driver Ian to turn right and head for Comrie coz our instructions say "start at Comrie". We reach it after just a few minutes when Ian notices Monopoly's headlights flashing in his mirrors. So we stop. Jeff jumps out of the Mongoose and sprints up to our passenger window. Golly, sat in the back seat, cowers in case Jeff rains down blows on his head. Because as the Tall One points out, we're travelling in completely the wrong direction! Yes, we're on the A85 which is correct, but we should be travelling backwards to get where we want to be!

So Ian, in true White Van Man style, reverses into the churchyard where the High Priestess of Comrie is at the door to her church and now suddenly expecting a new flock. She must have been so disappointed we hadn't gone all the way. So that put the SatNav in the most logical place, out front in the Monsoon with Chris K at the wheel.

The next 60 miles was a wee bit tedious with a very tortuous route to follow on B roads and minors as we travelled north, sometimes getting closer to, sometimes further away from our destination. Eventually we pulled in at Kirkton, only to discover we'd overshot by half a mile. Backtracking for the second time, there we were exactly where we should have been, the web site and SatNav both doing their bit admirably. However, it wasn't until 11:55 that we were ready to start our epic XC ride across territory still undiscovered by the English. Or Irish (Chris D).

Still the Gollum insisted on taking what looked to him like the best path away from the cars, but after a few hundred metres he conceded and turned back to where the signpost distinctly read "MidAirCrisis - This Way". The start was a huge, yellow crushed Dolomite forestry road, easily thirty feet wide, stretching away in front of us on a slight upward incline. After a mile the incline began to increase into what we usually call a climb, so that's when Mick began to disappear towards the far horizon, he just loves the things.

Somewhere up there he paused to allow us stragglers to rejoin the party and take a couple of pics. Jeff was appointed map facilitator, pulling it from Chris D's backpack at fairly regular intervals to make sure we stayed with the route. We covered quite some distance on this impressive road, easily wide enough for eight abreast if we'd all been travelling at the same speed. Which we weren't. We could see plenty of forestry up ahead and to the sides but this road managed to keep avoiding it, until after about an hour when it turned somewhat narrower and grassy.

It was still climbing though, unfortunately, and now we were confronted by first a very narrow groove down to mud, and then what we hoped we'd been waiting for - a singletrack in the trees. Hooray! Well, not quite. Sure, it was in the trees, and sure, it was a singletrack. That's where the normal description stops doing it justice, however. Because it was pretty much like the worst case of push and carry up and down muddy dips alongside a stream you could wish for. Trying to bypass it by going through the evergreens simply caused your eyes to be poked out by branches, so there was only one way to go.

Fortunately, although it was a proper slog for some already tired legs (don't forget, yesterday was no picnic - well, OK, that's exactly what it was, but the race was hard) it wasn't that long. Once again, following the web site's written instructions we were deposited at a stone wall with a deer-proof stile over it. And now we had another choice to make, or should I say a definition of what the map implied. With bodies and bikes all over the place amongst the heather and gorse, we headed for the valley between the two large hills either side of us.

Once up there we took a breather and a quick snack before setting off on what we hoped was the fun part of this ride. It consisted of a drop much like the one we did on the early part of the Walna Scar ride in the Lake District.

A stream bed with a bit of water running in the bottom, only a foot wide or less in places, tall grass, extremely lumpy terrain and boulders hidden underneath the grass and heather, and very steep in places. In fact, the website described it as "unrideable" so if that didn't present an immediate challenge to Team MidAirCrisis I don't know what would!

Obviously we attacked it full-on, Chris D just ahead of the following pack. The top section was just hard. A hundred metres or so into it, the description would have to be "challenging". A little further down it became "dangerous" and that's when the Trance's front wheel found yet another hole in the Earth's crust which took it's front wheel and swallowed it, with Chris paying the ultimate penalty, flying over the handlebars in great style, but almost slow motion.

He landed giggling and the rest of us joined in as we all saw it happen. The giggles turned to belly laughs just as the Gollum drew alongside him and came to exactly the same fate at the very same spot. Impossible to script, this was to be the high point of the day and the howls of laughter and derision must have lasted a few minutes before we could resume the descent.

Tim took over at the front, managing as he always does to find a slightly different path to everyone else. The first part was a very off-camber traverse with a sticky end awaiting anyone who leaned the wrong way. We rode it, legged it and walked bits of it until we all successfully reached the river at the bottom and our next landmark feature, a crossroads. Well done Ian for getting the only hardtail successfully through this very rigid-unfriendly landscape. Back onto big fireroad now we stopped here for a break and a KitKat.

While we were milling around waiting for digestive systems to work, someone noticed bubbles emerging from the sidewall of the Gollum's rear tyre. He turned it over, gave it a spin to splash the Stan's fluid around and we were off again on the return leg of our mystery tour. Out on tarmac again some half hour later, he had to stop for air.

Super Skipper Mick volunteered the services of his two quid pump and his everlasting arm power and we were off again up another hill.

This was the start of a long tarmac return, Jeff doing the navigating with the map and his trusty, indispensable GPS, brilliant piece of kit in the hands of someone who knows how to use it properly. We made one slight error when we reached Prosen Village and went in looking for the Tea Room which was mentioned in our written instructions as a possible stop, but we (one of us) read it as part of the route. After backtracking out of it we were spot on again with only about half a dozen miles left. Most of that was relatively flat but a very boring plod.

Thankfully there was no uphill finish and we got back to the cars around 1630.

With hindsight, choosing this ride over somewhere we knew was a mistake. However, it was still a healthy 52Km run out with some beautiful countryside to take in and we'll never get back here again. There was simply not enough proper off-roading to be had, so we'll be a bit more wary of web site information in future. I've also said before (I hate repeats, but here goes anyway) that many of the so-called "Classic MTB Routes" we've done (in England) aren't really for headbanging thrill seekers like Team MidAirCrisis, and Scottish Mountainbiking is promoting this ride as one of theirs, but we beg to differ. It's a nice, long walk.

Here's Jeff's GPS trace for the route, here's the elevation profile , here's the speed profile and you can see his pictures via the Forum until the thread is deleted! And here is a Memory map 3D cruise around the trail!

Day One here.