Cubist
Still wavin'
- Location
- Ovver 'thill
Just back from a week in a cottage near Wigtown, and what a great few days it was too. The cottage was on a farm surrounded by wildlife, no internet, no wi-fi, no phone signal, just hares, roedeer, and Belted Galloways and Angus as far as the eye could see. Being a family holiday I self-limited to three Stanes trips.
Family walks limited by Mrs Cube's leg (she has some form of tendonitis across the top of her foot) but thanks to her immense patience we were able to have walks on the beach interrupted by bait digging so that we could fish off the pier at Port William just the other side of the Machars Peninsula from where we were staying more or less every evening at high tide. Dozens of dogfish taking the bait, plus a pollack for Cubester, so that itch was scratched for another year.
The three Stanes we would ride would have to be good 'uns, so we planned to ride Kirroughtree first, which we rode on the Monday. Now, I like Kirry, it has enough challenge on the red, mostly singletrack, and that day it was dry, dusty and fast. Cubester is reaping the rewards of six months in the gym packing on meat for the rugby season ahead, and has discovered that enormous arms and chest on a prop's 17 and a half stone frame is not conducive to cycling endurance. So for the first time in ages I found myself leading him up the climbs. He's still braver and faster on the technical descents, but frequent pauses were the order of the day. Rocky and engaging, Kirry is a great red route. It has loads of steps, rocks, and drops, but also my personal nemesis which is a series of little climbs with rock features at the top, needing a lofting of the front wheel just at the point where I'm running out of momentum. This robs me of flow, but nevertheless it's a great ride. The final descent/run through the mixed red/blue mix trail with all the berms and smooth fast singletrack led to a chase with me breathing down Cubester's neck shouting "Come on you wuss" as he flogged himself to stay ahead was comedy gold. He rolled out of the trees and fell onto a grass bank not realising he was in full view of the bike shop staff. Revenge is sweet!
We persuaded Cubette to ride with us on Thursday at Glentrool. It was crap. The blue route is 50% closed due to harvesting, so you get to ride the first third, then a massive lump of fire road, then the last engaging bit of singletrack, named Curly Wurly where we realised we had missed the top two good sections of singletrack and were back at the trailhead. Disappointed we found a fire road climb back up and repeated it, but the rest of the time waiting for Mrs Cube to return from her walk was spent eating cake at the excellent trailhead cafe. It wasn't worth the second lap we'd planned.
The weather forecast was poor, and it rained most of Friday morning, so we planned to ride Dalbeattie on the way home if the weather held. It certainly did and Cubester and I rode Dalbeattie red yesterday. The last time I rode Dalbeattie red was as a novice, several years ago, on my Cube Hardtail. I remembered it as a few hours of misery, underskilled and underbiked. Yesterday however proved to me that it is a brilliant, challenging ride of massive rock infested awesomeness. We both voted it the best trailcentre ride we'd ever ridden, and despite overcooking one rock garden and battering my right testicle into my chest cavity in a scrotum/stem interface, we had an absolute ball. We both bottled out of the black "Qualifier" which leads to the fearsome "Slab" , but Cubester pushed up and rode the half-slab drop, just before breaking his chain. A quick link repair and we were underway again. What a trail!
Family walks limited by Mrs Cube's leg (she has some form of tendonitis across the top of her foot) but thanks to her immense patience we were able to have walks on the beach interrupted by bait digging so that we could fish off the pier at Port William just the other side of the Machars Peninsula from where we were staying more or less every evening at high tide. Dozens of dogfish taking the bait, plus a pollack for Cubester, so that itch was scratched for another year.
The three Stanes we would ride would have to be good 'uns, so we planned to ride Kirroughtree first, which we rode on the Monday. Now, I like Kirry, it has enough challenge on the red, mostly singletrack, and that day it was dry, dusty and fast. Cubester is reaping the rewards of six months in the gym packing on meat for the rugby season ahead, and has discovered that enormous arms and chest on a prop's 17 and a half stone frame is not conducive to cycling endurance. So for the first time in ages I found myself leading him up the climbs. He's still braver and faster on the technical descents, but frequent pauses were the order of the day. Rocky and engaging, Kirry is a great red route. It has loads of steps, rocks, and drops, but also my personal nemesis which is a series of little climbs with rock features at the top, needing a lofting of the front wheel just at the point where I'm running out of momentum. This robs me of flow, but nevertheless it's a great ride. The final descent/run through the mixed red/blue mix trail with all the berms and smooth fast singletrack led to a chase with me breathing down Cubester's neck shouting "Come on you wuss" as he flogged himself to stay ahead was comedy gold. He rolled out of the trees and fell onto a grass bank not realising he was in full view of the bike shop staff. Revenge is sweet!
We persuaded Cubette to ride with us on Thursday at Glentrool. It was crap. The blue route is 50% closed due to harvesting, so you get to ride the first third, then a massive lump of fire road, then the last engaging bit of singletrack, named Curly Wurly where we realised we had missed the top two good sections of singletrack and were back at the trailhead. Disappointed we found a fire road climb back up and repeated it, but the rest of the time waiting for Mrs Cube to return from her walk was spent eating cake at the excellent trailhead cafe. It wasn't worth the second lap we'd planned.
The weather forecast was poor, and it rained most of Friday morning, so we planned to ride Dalbeattie on the way home if the weather held. It certainly did and Cubester and I rode Dalbeattie red yesterday. The last time I rode Dalbeattie red was as a novice, several years ago, on my Cube Hardtail. I remembered it as a few hours of misery, underskilled and underbiked. Yesterday however proved to me that it is a brilliant, challenging ride of massive rock infested awesomeness. We both voted it the best trailcentre ride we'd ever ridden, and despite overcooking one rock garden and battering my right testicle into my chest cavity in a scrotum/stem interface, we had an absolute ball. We both bottled out of the black "Qualifier" which leads to the fearsome "Slab" , but Cubester pushed up and rode the half-slab drop, just before breaking his chain. A quick link repair and we were underway again. What a trail!
