Reviews for Innerleithen Mountain Bike Trails

Summary:
Uphill hell

Review:
I was not psychologically ready for the climb which is pretty much the entire first half of the trail.
It just keeps going and going and going and going. There is a small down hill section half way through the climb to boost your spirits but its not enough.

Once at the top you pray for some awesome down hill worthy of the monsterous 5 miles of up hill and it just about delivers. its very fast and flows well, I am by no means an expert but still managed to do some pretty impressive jumps over drop offs on the way down.

After i finished the trail i had pretty much decided i wouldn't do this trail again as I'm a much bigger fan of Glentress, but I think I'm over the shock ofthe up hill now and think I probably will do it again sooner or later.

A word of advice though, i wouldn't try and do this trail followed by glentress black route the next day its just way too much up hill. i would have enjoyed the Black trail more had my legs not been suffering from Innerliethens up hill assault.

Summary:
Fun Fun Fun

Review:
if you are riding innerliethen then you should chekc this one out, its not as tecnical as the others there and makes a great break for just flat out fast riding, jumps,drops and berms...excellent

Summary:
Some of the best XC downhills anywhere

Review:
The track is realy just a long climb followed by a long descent, with a small discent half way up the climb.

The climb is hard but good as it requires a lot of bike skill to get up it. It is made hard by rocks and rock steps that mean someone with poor ballence will strugle.

Half way up the climb there is a very god descent with large rocky berms, a few small jumps drops and a large bombhole. It works realy well and is a great break from the climb. It realy keeps you motivated up the long fireroad climb as a taste of whats to come.

The rest of the climb isn't to bad and you get to the top fairly quickly for a large mountain ascent. The veiw from the top is great. Don't take the shortcut inless it snows or something as it is probebly the easiest bit of the climb. On the way down the start is also easy and smething you just don't want to miss.

After this the trail flattens out and it gets a little bit ordenary for the next 2 bits of single track.

The Last descent is a very strange thing to find on an XC track. It is more the end of make or break than the xc track. Make or Break is like Scotland's answer to Dirt Merchant. There are 4 drops back to back between 4 and 6ft, there not realy rollable, as they jump larger rocks than you would like to land on and the first one does not have a line around it. The rest of it is just flows nicely, where you want to stay off the breaks as much as possible. As the table tops at the bottom are hard for any one to clear.

I think the reason it hasn't got 10s from everyboady is that it does not realy suit anyboady. A downhiller will strugle to get up and a cross country rider to get down. But if you are an all round bike rider then this is a track if not the track for you. Also, you realy need to look at everything to get an idea of whats ahead to have a lot of fun with it. But it is not something that most could do twise in one day.

Summary:
TECHNICAL HEAVEN

Review:
This trail is slower than Glentress but far more technical and will massively improve your biking skills. There are one or two steep climbs on way up and the extra 90m climbing to the top of Minch Moor rather than the short cut is not as bad as I was expecting.If you miss the decent from the summit you are missing the best section of the trail which in my opinion is better than the Caddon bank section. I had pals with me who had never done trails before and they all managed bar one or two mishaps. I am now in a sticky position, every time i drive the 90 minutes to Scotland do I now go to Glentress or Innerleithen ???

Summary:
Amazing

Review:
One of the best tracks i have ever ridden (only Fort William beats it), and there is so many different and brilliant tracks, racing there is awesome, such good fun, definably my favorite trail.