NMBC/Midaircrisis Does the Highland Fling Thing

June 2023
Cast of 7 starring Grant Austin Brooks, Steve Bowden, Ian Mundy, Terry Hewison, Ray Foster, Tim Burdett and Terry Kirkup

WARNING! some video excerpts contain adult foreign languages. They are marked like this.
WARNING 2! If you're a decent MTBer look away NOW!

OK reader, first the bad news. 

1. Tipperary is a really l-o-n-g way. 

2. I snapped my rear brake lever immediately before the first descent on Day One at Tarland. And NO! Not because I tipped off, for once. We'd stopped to regroup for the drop and I had leant Terida's saddle against a tree only to hear it crash to the ground when I turned my back on it. The lever was badly bent downwards at close to 90 degrees and virtually impossible to use [safely] especially on the super-loose berms all the way down this place. What a silly sausage I am.

3. The spare bike was rendered unusable when I had to pinch its rear brake the next day for my own bike.

4. Just before we set off on Day Three at Glenlivet, Grant discovered a nasty crack in his Yeti 26er's right chainstay close to the pivot. These particular frames did have a bit of history in that regard (actually a lot), and over the previous three days it probably had the biggest thrashing of it's somewhat elderly but distinguished life.

5. We were determined not to repeat last year's dietary disgrace by eating fish & chips every night but relented just for once after the initial Day One ride at Tarland on Thursday 15th and the food was terrible.
 
6. We didn't get to do Fochabers due to time constraints.

7. We didn't get to do Dunkeld due to time constraints and we'd wasted an hour the previous night getting the spare bike ready for Grant with the rear brake off his Yeti, duh.

8. We didn't get to do a night ride due to the overriding need of my six alcoholic colleagues to imbibe [so hence no Fochabers ride at all].

9. Despite what Tim Burdett says, Tesco's was NOT visible from the road.

10. My co-pilot was drugged up to the eyeballs with hayfever defences on the final day so I had to do the whole stint home, and I'm no Ray or Stevie so that hurt.

So was there any Good Stuff to report? - Wey aye man!

Day One - Thursday 15th June 2023 - Tarland 2 Trails

1. The drive up. No drama but plenty of laughs when the entourage got split up several times, even to the extent of:
a) Stevie and navigator Tim taking the scenic Coast & Castle route to the Forth Road Bridge via the Seafield Seaside and busy streets of the City, rather than the A720 bypass. And the accidental stop for 2/3 of the party at Dunbar. 
b) Ian's call from Ray's van - "So we're stopping at Dunbar again" [reference to our last Cycle Speedway trip to Edinburgh] - but they drove straight past it. 
c) Tim's decision - "We'll see you at Dundee Services" - what kind of Satnav does Stevie have? With added thanks to Ian for not knowing the difference between Asda and Greggs (but why were we even there, travelling 45 miles out of our way?).

I absolutely REFUSE to carry the blame for any of this, and I have a solid witness (Terry H) to all of these publicly, wirelessly transmitted transgressions.

***footnote - if you need rapid transit a big Beemer would be a good starting point. But don't put bikes on the roof.

2. The accommodation. Just Wow! First of all the trust, leaving the door open for us with no-one staying over the agreed arrival time to meet us (we were MUCH later than I'd communicated to the Owner - 2 1/2 hours - thanks to the scenic route we'd used). What a living space! What a garden! What facilities! We all shared the same thoughts on the place, simply fantastic. And also where it was - part residential and part holiday home, and dead quiet until the Midaircrisis Mobsters arrived. Even though I had to fight off Ray for the second ensuite and he never stopped whinging about sleeping in the Boiler Room.

3. The weather. Could only have been 0.5% off absolutely perfect at most, although maybe a wee bit too warm on the climbs.

4. The trails. With the possible slight exception of Tarland, see below. 

5. The crack. Or craic if you prefer, but I'm a Geordie so I keep it simple(toon). Never laughed so much. Really. 

6. The Staff. No, not those at the venue, only one of which we really communicated with on Day Four, I think, when I had to pay for the extra night (She'd lived in Chester-Le-Street and her Geordie twang was pretty canny!). 

No, the "Staff" I'm on about is the gaggle I rode with. What a bunch of heroes. Come tidy-up day (Monday) I never noticed anyone not doing their bit. And all the way through I saw much more domestication than I'd expected. These folk can fend for themselves, unlike me. I would starve if left to my own devices, and have nowt clean to wear after two days. I haven't the faintest idea of how to use a dishwasher or a washing machine, although I did push a brush around the kitchen and hoover the ground floor carpets, whose very light colours somehow survived our visit unscathed. I can wash dishes manually but the super efficient NMBC fairies always got there first, leaving me with nowt to do but whinge and lay about doing nowt.

THE CLACK-CLACK-CLACKING you'll hear on the videos is the USB cable from my GoPro to it's battery pack whacking against the harness!

And now, the riding.

In my humble opinion as an old, fairly experienced MTBer, four things get you up a hill better than most others:-

1. Strength aka Bike Fitness
2. Determination
3. An eBike
4. A helicopter

I'm pretty sure 1 and 2 can override each other and the sheer effort put in by our three non-assisted riders Steve, Grant and Ian would bear that out. In the heat we experienced they were exceptional, as the majority of our ebikers (75%, aka the Youngsters) just wanted to gain ever more height to get even more downs, but there was no mutiny and the three hard lads just kept going, very impressively, at their own rate (Grant's being measured, Ian's being steady as she goes and Stevie's being flat oot until it caught up with him). I know I was as knackered as any of the pedallers by the end of our stay regardless of my little electron buddies' help and so were the other battery boys, Tim and Terry; never can tell with Ray though, his endless enthusiasm and energy seem to keep him going whatever the terrain. Gotta be on something. (4's a no-no for me!)

The Tarland 2 trails are very new and already the upper set of berms are chewed up as badly as the ageing Red at Glentress and will be completely destroyed very soon. That's because unlike the much faster, stretched-out lower section they are far too tightly grouped - a bit like the bottom of the old Chopwell Powerline, where you simply HAD to brake hard to avoid overshooting. (see pathetic, slo-mo action video off the top). Although I just said the lower berms were much faster, on this day they were very loose and quite slippery.

After that opening section I lost a lot of time behind the throng after the well-bent rear brake lever finally snapped off and flew back to Nature somewhere, and there was no way a front brake alone would allow me to safely get up to speed with so much loose gravel on every turn. If it had been slightly damp the grip level would probably have doubled, no doubt, but from that point on I was severely hampered for the rest of the trip. Never satisfied ?

Day Two - Friday 16th June 2023 - Golspie Highland Wildcat Trails and Learnie Red Rock
Part 1 - Golspie

Can't remember what time we set off for Golspie, but it was a very pleasant drive up, the scenery is fantastic and the driving was shared by Terry (I now let him drive only on the wider roads after witnessing his impressive 0 to 100mph times on skinny ones) so all good. Stevie was also sharing the driving variously with Grant and Tim over the five days while Ray remained permanently glued to his steering wheel, no idea how. Today's venue was Mr Hewison's idea originally, so when he mentioned it some time ago, and after a bit of Googlified research, I stuck it on the list. Did I do right?

The first thing I noticed, shortly after we'd been craning our necks looking up at the grand old Duke of Sutherland's statue miles up in the sky from way down in the car park, was how extremely kind the climb was, at least the first big slice of it. A really gentle, twisting ascent through the trees covering the foot of the hill. It did get a bit more engaging further up but still not the same killer as the more commonly visited trail centres. Even so, If you turn the sound up you'll hear my eeb-assisted ticker when we paused and you can see the cable bouncing lower right corner!

There was also plenty of plant life close to the skinny singletrack which suggests to me the place isn't massively utilised. Here's Tim having a moment.

After displaying my first attempts at videography back at the ranch I was criticised a lot for the angle my GoPro was aimed at, but what the gang didn't realise was that I wanted to collect data on the trail content and flora and fauna, not the bods in front of me (liar). However, some of the shoot did display the terrain pretty well and here at Golspie it it was some of the roughest I've ridden so I'll include a(nother) boring video . I was shaken to bits from the start of the first drop. With that and the wee issue of not being able to retard the bike safely (see my crowded handlebars).

because my fingers were in the way, and the borrowed brake needed full travel (It's fine now, bled it back at home, a wee bit late), and my desire to have the full fork stanchions displayed at all times (hence slightly firm front suspension), I had a bit of a struggle. However, had everything been normal, two working brakes and a bit of sag - what a trail the Higland Wildcat is! So I couldn't help but enjoy it anyway. I did have another problem which didn't help - I couldn't stop glancing away at my fantastic surroundings, particularly that stunning coastal view and south over the Three Firths. Another highly unexciting video here as we come off the top. A bit lower doon here. And slightly later here.

Definitely not recommended while descending with zero retardation but oh, so beautiful to see on this, the longest descent ANYWHERE (in the UK).

Way back down below there were a few weary bodies, pretty understandable, and I was one of them.
But yes, I did right.

Day Two Part 2 - Learnie Red Rock

Back at the cars there were some questions about the next phase of my plan, but I wasn't phased, so I held out and an hour later we ended up in the car park at Learnie Red Rock trails on the so-called Black Isle (not really an island) just north east of Inverness. This one provided more of what we're used to with a hard climb to reach the top but once again stunning views over both the Cromarty and Moray Firths. If we'd known where to look we'd have spotted our temporary home in the distance over the latter. I'd probably liken this to something like the Hamsterley Blacks but a fair bit rockier. This trail really did hit already tired legs hard, but we all got it done.

That is until, somehow, the four motorised bandits got separated from the others who had stopped for breath (more crap video here) and proceeded to loop around the Orange and Red soaking it all up on their own, selfish s@ds. I was quite amazed to discover that my three sweet, young, naiive companions thought an Orange was one down from a Green? They know better now! This was at the bottom of it, begging me to let them do it again ? Orange vid here, and Tim takes command here.

Here's an interesting object that we passed on one climb, see if you can spot it - 

Here's our e-Group navigator Tim, pretending to search for our temporarily detached, non-assisted members but in reality just looking for some off-piste enjoyment. This was the Blue trail. It was some time after we'd regrouped when Ray took a tumble after clouting an object at the trailside and jarred his shoulder which would punish him on the final descent at Glenlivet on the last day.

This is the aftermath, Stevie is using the offending obstacle to remount! Too fast, too furious ?

And here's the traffic jam he caused:(Grant looking down at Ray on the floor before throwing an e-insult).

I blame Ray for the split, our thrill-seeking wheelie man wanting to seek out ever more dangerous stuff to try on the Black, and us following him (to the top only!). He did one crazy looking drop in particular that the rest of us shied away from. My video does it no justice at all, as usual, but it was steep as frollicks, and looked totally gripless. Great trails, emminently repeatable (so we did), great fun, more great memories. These two climb better on their pedalos!
There were a good few tired bodies again after this one.

Back down at the cars, we'd lost sight of Stevie, but we soon discovered where he was...

I've superimposed the ride we (well, the eBikers at least!) did over the top of the published trails from Trailforks web site to show the Black sections we missed at the bottom end, but we didn't do too badly for a bunch of guessers (Tim's hunches were pretty good) and best of all, we stayed intact. Our route is shown in red dots.

And here is the route taken by the Three Lost Souls as they attempted to find the motorists! Purple dashes show their plot, so we lost them on the south side of Learnie Hill.

Back at the ranch Tim was first to try out the hot tub and was kind enough to share it with our nearest neighbour.

Day Three - Saturday 17th June 2023 - Laggan Woolftrax

Half way up the first climb and feeling right at home - interesting stickers!

Today for the Laggan Woolftrax ride I tried the universally acclaimed - nay, they INSISTED I try it - "two finger, upside down" GoPro setting and it was much worse, I could only see my cockpit (!). Just look at the faces of my accusers!

There'd been suggestions online about trail closures but we encountered none that would interfere with another excellent ride. I think it was somewhere on this trail that Young Terry had a small whoopsie when he and Ray went off-piste but was unhurt, and also where Ray took a tumble and jarred his shoulder, which would punish him on the final descent at Glenlivet the following day. Tim decides which way we go.

Stevie managed to capture Grant's amazing roly-poly escape after he'd clouted a trailside obstruction (very easy to do - there are many!

While I managed to almost totally miss Ian taking a fumble for the same reason. We all cleared it on the second run down though ?

We gather at the top of the Howling Wolf Red trail


The trails were superb and it was hard to resist Tim's suggestion of doing another loop after we'd finished and pulled into the cafe for our refreshment rewards. When I think back he did this at a few other trails too but only got his wish at Learnie. I nipped along to see the resident mechanic in the bike shop first to enquire about a brake lever. Amazingly he had two full brakes in stock (SLX 4-potters) but wouldn't split a lever off the caliper and wanted £120 for the whole thing, duh.

And yes, Steve was also present!

Day Four - Sunday 18th June 2023 - Glenlivet

A bit cloudy at first, how dare it!
Last year our very own Midaircrisis Meteor, Ian Browning, introduced us to the new trails at Glenlivet and that was today's target, totally unmissable. Once again the drive there did my head in, just a really horrible little road in, even though I was at the wheel this time. On that subject, having the extra vehicle there this year definitely speeded up the loading/unloading and storage process over the 2022 trip, as well as enabling a spare bike to travel. {err, a spare back brake, at least}.

After forgetting to take any snackery out with me on this ride and probably suffering a bit because of it I made sure to make a mental note for the following day. With heat like we had up here it's extra important not only to stay hydrated but also keep the energy levels up. Whether you believe me or not I swear that riding an e-bike can take as much out of you as piloting an unassisted one and weirdly, especially when dawdling slowly uphill trying to stay behind a struggling straggler, that always hits me hard with the extra weight to keep upright.

Our second disaster (after my brake lever episode) struck in the car park just as we were about to start the ride. Somehow, and extremely fortuitously, Grant spotted a crack in the right side chainstay just behind his faithful (so far) old Yeti 26er 's BB. The more I stare at this pic (taken the day before at Laggan) the more I think I can see a crack just behind the chainring (and something's caught Ray's eye but he's keeping schtum!).

There was no way to tell just when or where it first appeared but once he and the Royal We knew about it, it was terminal. Scratch one bike, but hey, 
KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON because we have a spare! 

Er, no we don't, because some wally broke his rear brake and stole the one off the spare bike! ?
Ian to the rescue now. He was still suffering from the previous days' climbs and exertion due to a  lack of outings over the last month or two so he suggested he'd hire an e-bike to ease his pain. Grant, therefore, was able to use Ian's Boardman 29er. Job's a good'un. The substitute bike was a fairly new Marin E1, with just a wee bit lower spec than the matching pair of E2s Ray and Terry were on, so the powered to manual odds were now up to 5:3.

Here's the first long Red down, I thought I'd leave the full length video here for posterity and total recall [7mins 31 secs]. One tired eBiker near the bottom! Sorry for the blurring, I never look to see if the screen is clear ?

With another scorcher looming it was good to clear the long drag up the first climb with a bit of cloud cover and were well rewarded with that lovely, long, flowing descent. It took Ian a wee while to get into the cadence thing with the Alpine Trail eeb, but by the end of the ride he was desperate to find a shop selling lottery tickets. Grant also managed quite nicely on the Boardman's huge wheels, completely alien after jumping off his sadly smitten, possibly end-of-life 26er, and although you wouldn't have known it he swore he was being extra careful with Ian's bike.

Here's the crew arriving at the highest point before the very long Red descent from the summit of Carn Daimh (pronounced Cairn Dye).

It was so hard to concentrate on riding with all this beautiful scenery to stare at.

But a nice cake and cuppa at the cafe got our minds back on the job. Oh, wait... I think we have a stalker ?

Anyway another brilliant ride and at the end there were still seven of us almost unblemished after five trail centres, amazing!

Here's the glorious final stretch of Red that resulted in Ray's arm and shoulder getting a good old bashing when he overshot the final drop-off. You may hear his explanation if you listen carefully at the end of this vid.    [6min 47secs!]

EXTRAS!
Tim and Ian leaving a big gap to the Squad! (added 30/10)

Day Five - Monday - not much stomach for my proposed Dunkeld ride, and it was raining most of the day and had only eased a bit when we passed through.

CAMERA  ANGLES - DISCUSS (various different results over the 3 days and 4 trails I used the GoPro Hero8 on after I'd forgotten to wear it at Tarland - just as well!).
In mitigation of my somewhat crappy-and-slightly worse shoots, there simply cannot be one position setting for all, so bollocks to this "2 finger" crap. All the other bikes I've owned since Time Immemorial have been medium frame size. Yes, there'd have been some slight differences between manufacturers but generally they've all felt the same to me. BUT - that was until I got engaged to Terida - she's a Large, my first. That's meant a whole new "feel" for me on the bike, and I'm definitely a bit more stretched out than ever before, which feels perfect but the difference manifests itself when I get back on another bike. Point being, fairly obviously to me, the angle of my rib cage to the horizon is not going to be as it was previously, and not going to be the same as every other "2 finger" GoPro wearer. I therefore accept all criticism of my video attempts but at least you can occasionally spot the odd back wheel ahead of me ?
The final test, it was still crap. 

So, my friendly GoPro advisers,

As I start to scribble this it is now Wednesday 5th July, some SEVENTEEN DAYS since we came home, and I've just learned something I was probably better off not knowing. Should you ever find yourself in the uneasy position of having to confide in someone knowing you'll cause them severe pain and angst just take a leaf out of Hewison's Handbook for Heathens ? [this relates to food, and in particular a missing (believed dead) peanut butter sandwich, the truth of which emerged at the cafe in the Exhibition Park today].

Grant says this.     Here's a random gallery of piccies, just for the memories.