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That was fun. Talk about (expletive deleted) exercise! Our first time at the Red Bull Downhill racetrack, but we weren't there to be silly, we went to try out the relatively new XC course. Gateway to Heaven? Or Road to Hell?   

Leaving the car park we soon wished we'd gone somewhere else. What a climb! This has to be THE hardest of the Seven Stanes trails to get started on. We climbed for what seemed like hours,   but actually it was only a few hours. We did see bits of the Downhill run as the cross country trail had to cross it once or twice on the way up this Everest-proportioned Scottish hilltop.   We could probably have done with the next morning's Big Breakfast from Glenlossie Guest House in Dumfries, but we'd left Jason's at 6.30 am and John's at 7.00 to drive over for an early start, arriving about 9.00 am on Sunday morning, 29th May, so breakfast was a forgotten event.

It was freezing hundreds of feet below, but it wasn't long before the sweating started and the extra layers came off. This is indeed a memorable walk, Golly's new Junior T forks on the Kona Bear making it a few more pounds worth of exercise to kickstart the weekend. We hardly noticed any descent worthy of mention, not surprising when you look at the map where every piece of trail has "climb" in it's name until you get atop Minch Moor, from where you can see Australia.   It was b****y freezing up there aswell, and blowing a gale. We hid behind the cairn marking the peak, where a few more hardy souls (real cyclists with strong leg muscles) joined us for a well-earned rest. After a brief exchange of pleasantries we mounted up, Jason leading John away and Oldie getting five metres before throwing himself over the handlebars, much to the delight of the applauding band watching us leave. That hurt, but you mustn't show it, so pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again, wincing with pain inside your tear-filled full-face helmet.

The first bit of down lasted about 1 minute 30, then it was yet another heave back to the top, from where we could see the snack stop we'd just left, a hundred metres away!   Nevermind, the next bit was real stomach-churning stuff - high speed field crossing on a partially overgrown dual track with hidden whoops to make it hard to stay on line and on board. This is the Enduro Trail   and we took to the heather once or twice because it looked like others had done the same, probably with good reason. Got no idea just how quick that descent was as my computer was on the other forks on the spare bike, but it was rapid and lasted a good few minutes this time. Of course, descents lead only to one thing...

One climb later we were downhilling again onto the Plora Craig Contour Trail,   some of which was fairly tricky and graded Black.   This was where Golly came a cropper again after running into John's back wheel on the very rocky section. Yet another aggravated scaphoid but the actual fall, with the bike pivoting around me on it's front wheel like a ballerina before dumping me on the rocks was funny, looking back. Good fun. On to Cadon Bank   and getting near to the finish, we were all feeling a wee bit disappointed with Innerleithen, considering the work we'd put in travelling skywards. And then we came to the final kilometre. Judas Priest, as the saying goes. This last section is FAN blinkin' TASTIC!!!   What a finish. Drop after drop on a massive roller coaster with a mixture of single and double jumps at the top of each rise, huge acceleration off the top of each one catapulting you to the bottom of the next drop. We didn't want it to end, it was so entertaining.

At least John and I thought so. Jason had led off as he'd done all day, and I stayed behind John so no-one could see how slow I was. When we hit the car park, Jason was nowhere to be seen. We checked the Portaloo - no Jay. He wasn't sleeping in the van. He wasn't practising wheelies in the car park. We asked a couple of fellow sufferers if they'd seen a fat lad on a Coiler Dee Lux  flash by but they hadn't. Then we got a bit nervous. We started to head towards the last section with the intention of going back to look for him when he appeared, flying over the last top. Thank God for that! Strange how he was behind us though. Had he found an extra bit of Good Stuff that we'd missed? Nope. He'd found some bushes to land in off the side of the trail, just 50 or 60 metres from the start, on the third of a set of three rock drop-offs!   A very rare and a real air trip. And worse than that, he'd hurt himself - not a common thing for Jason to do. Here's a shot of a nice juicy bruised hip, soon to turn yellow, purple and black as a keepsake.   Not sure if a lesser athlete could have completed the course after such a big get-off.

Apart from this obvious setback, we had enjoyed our first visit to Innerleithen, but we don't rate it in the top three because the payback is too limited for the effort it takes. A bit like Glentress Black route but worse. Obviously the Downhill is the exciting bit for muscle riders, and what we saw of that looked totally insane so it wins there. But as a cross country trail it doesn't stack up with the other Stanes for the average rider (we think). What do YOU think? email us - bailout@midaircrisis.org.uk.

See how we finished the day here...    and 20th November 05 ride and    3rd December 05 ride

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