The newest of the Seven Stanes MTB centres, this has some great singletrack through the forest. It's taking time to bed down as it's really a bastard to get to for Scots and Englanders alike, so the number of bikers treading it is much lower than the other 7Stanes trails.

One great attribute it has probably better than most, is that the trail builders have set out to keep you high on the Red Trail. This means that there's plenty of downward swoops but the nature of the layout sees the trails winding back and forth and gently up and down along the hillsides so you never feel that you have gone down for miles and need to climb miles to get out again. Very clever. Be careful in the wet or damp, though, as the flints are really slippery. Gazzaloddis are good but they can't do magic.

As well as the Red Trail there's a new Black route with some terrifying features - we just stood and gawped at one particular timber take-off platform which fires you between some stout looking evergreens, assuming you keep your flight path straight! Otherwise it's an awful long way to hospital from this place. I'm not saying God's forsaken it, but you do feel you're going up your own back passage by the time you get there. For anyone spending a few days riding around the Kielder area, however, it's the perfect place to extend your fireroad skills and get a taste of the sheer joy that lies a bit further up the kilt.

And just before you reach the end of the Red Trail, and you get a very slight feeling of disappointment, you come across Newcastleton's Treasure - a mini-Glentress right at the finish - great stuff Border Trailies!

Jason, Andy and Andy's son, 17 year old Sean, managed to sneak a day off work and do the trail again. Not once, but TWICE around the Red Trail with some Black Route thrown in. Things have been happening here, the trailbuilders have been busy again. Jason reckons it's a lot more interesting than the last time we went and they really enjoyed it, even missing any wet weather. It looks like Sean is another MTB racer in the making. This was his first real excursion, riding Jason's old FSR, but he gave it some welly. Jason had a small MidAirCrisis when his feet left the pedals on a jump, but that was as bad as it got for the three of them. Sods, wish I'd been there.

David's beer habit kept him away yet again but regulars Jason and Terry were joined by a fit-again John having shaken off his recent virus, and Andy whose triathlon season has just finished. Chopwell had been the original target but this was switched to Newcastleton after Jason's new Scott MC50 arrived and he wanted to christen it. Full story shortly (not much more to come then!).

It was grey but OK when we arrived about 12.15. Off we trolled up that horrible road climb to the trailhead. Jason forgot his camera and his Power Bar - oh, heck. It was fun from the off when the new Scott caused it's rider plenty of grief as he couldn't get used to Shimano's reversed gearchange mechanism. Not everything Japanese is wonderful after all. Word is Shimano are having second thoughts about RapidRise technology. Like "how can we dump it and claim it was ahead of it's time?". The suspension on the MC50 also caused concern for Jason but after pumping up the air shock before we left he managed to settle down on it. Hals way through Skeletor had to adjust the inner stop on the Scott's XT rear derilleur as it was also spitting the chain into the wheel at times - after that - magic.

Same can't be said for Skelly's Kona Bear as it's own XT stuff began jumping sprockets yet again. It was only stable when using the Granny ring but that reduced top speed quite a bit. One day I'll get it right. Andy and Jason were using today as a trial for the forthcoming "King of the Holm" commtb in a fortnight, while John was using it as a gentle re-introduction to the art and Thin Man was using it for pain infliction. After a largely incident-free and fairly brisk circuit of the Red  Trail, we rested at the trailhead picnic table for a minute before Jason and Andy set off to do a second loop. Ah, to be young again!

John and the Gollum decided to warm down gently by visiting the Black Route, which is only a couple of hundred metres long and consists mainly of North Shore timber platforms and a see-saw. Golly led off but stopped in the middle of the third platform because he didn't fancy the narrow board in the gale that was blowing. Unfortunately, John was right behind and, having nowhere to go, had to jam on the anchors and fell sideways the five feet to the ground below. Ouch. He said it was a soft landing but I think he was just being nice instead of punching me. We continued down the steep ramp at the end and down the mud chute where we then stopped for a netter with a fellow traveller from Blyth and his 3 foot son who looked demon on his little MTB. He showed us the route to the seesaw, so off we went gingerly over the boards in that direction. Just as we got to a fork in the wooden pathway, Golly got his front wheel onto the right turn only to find it shoot away from under him. Clatter, ouch, eek. Poetic justice was meted out as he hit the boards, managing to cling onto the Kona's back wheel until our traveller buddy lifted it down for him. Didn't fancy the seesaw anyway, crawl, crawl! It was there that we discovered a rather badly twisted chain on the Bear that was preventing all pedal activity, and it must have happened on the way down the mud chute earlier. So, just as the heavens decided to open, we headed back to the car, pushing the Bear of course. Thank goodness the trail allows a nice fast freewheel back to the Dykecroft car park.

When we got there, guess who was sheltering in the shed - Andy and Jason! Claiming they'd done the second loop in 20 minutes, but I think not. The rain eased as we finished packing up and by the time we got home around 4.00pm it was a decent afternoon. And all you could hear all the way back was "where are we going next week then?". Shaddap, young'un.