Fanylion Mountain Bike Team
Official site of the Fanylion Mountain Bike Team. Includes mountain bike ride guides, gear reviews, bike maintenance, team reports and rider profiles of the Fanylion Racing Team.
Scottish Borders
November 14, 2009, Scotland
What could possibly go wrong? After the majority of the rides this year were blessed with fantastic weather, I concluded that the weather gods were currently in favour of Team Fanylion and decided to ‘upgrade’ the November ride into a three day festival of trail shredding. Team’s Love Rant, Hagen Daz, Bear, Techno and myself agreed to convene at Innerleithen on er, Friday 13th November, to get a good day of riding in before travelling to Dumfries for the weekend to be joined by Downhill Maniac and Auld Yin. The plan began to unravel on Thursday evening when Starkey and his passenger Techno advised that they would be late due to problems with Team Bear’s cash flow. Bankers have copped some flak over the past year although Bear’s problem seemed to arise from the fact that his nearest bank branch was in Estonia. He and Techno were ruled out although advised they would ride in the Lakes after Bear Bank faff was resolved. Meanwhile, all I had to do was drive 60 miles to Innerleithen to meet up with the Carlisle faction. Multiple traffic jams, accidents and road closures meant that the journey took just short of three hours – it was midday by the time we began the slog up the xc route climb.
Depsite professing a chronic lack of fitness and form, Love Rant took the lead up the steep bottom sections of the climb. I was happy to follow with James bringing up the rear panting like a tired Labrador. We regrouped a couple of times with the warm sunshine resulting in layers being stripped off as our internal theromostats struggled to adjust before arriving at the steep quarry section. I felt a little radical so dropped my saddle and did the steep chute down to fireroad and coasted to a stop by the others with air pissing out my rear tyre. A quick tube change meant we were on our merry way again spinning up to the top of the Minch Moor. A quick stop at the top for some grub and a look at my watch revealed that my original plan of a long-ish ride over to Selkirk and back would be at the mercy of the light. As a result we decided to go down the xc route instead and decide what extras to do when at the bottom. The top section was ace, a very groomed trail with some easy drops offs but quite fast. I got at least 7 inches of air on three distinct occasions but sadly struggled to stay with James and Kieran aboard my Motolite. If the truth be told I have struggled a bit with it since I bought it and am pondering selling it on. It just feels a little short and steep to me after the slack and long Ellsworth’s I was used to riding – having the ‘wrong’ bike is a great excuse though.
The trail continued and we rode some quite techy bits resulting in a couple of spills for myself – (see, the bike’s rubbish) before we reached Caddon Bank. We took James down the rooty and slithery section that avoids the top drop offs and Pottsy’s rockTM to rejoin the trail halfway down. Despite staying with Kieran and James on the tight rough stuff as soon as the trail opened up on the motorway of Caddon Bank I struggled again to stay with them. Grrrr.
At the bottom we had some food before pushing/riding to the top of the downhill trails. Inners was deserted aside from a couple of other downhillers pushing up and after chatting to one we couldn’t help but conclude he was trying to warn us off the tracks, perhaps noting the dominance of lycra and our ‘skinny’ 2.3 tyres. He did advise that the trails were pretty sketchy – despite the sun the ground was very wet – and reckoned we’d be best of doing ‘Make or Brake’ which was pretty wide and smooth with all drops rollable. It sounded rubbish but we agreed to do the top section and decide whether to do the whole thing. In our favour was the network of fireroads which meant we could do the top section before going back and trying another trail if we wanted. The top section of Make or Brake was good, like a steeper and faster ‘Spooky Wood’, but we wanted something gnarlier so we pushed back to the top and began the ‘Cresta Run.’ Taking little heed of the warning at the top ‘All routes are graded ‘extreme’, with small, medium and large features. Full face helmet, gloves, body armour and a Downhill specific bike are strongly recommended for all trails’ we dropped our saddles and got on with it. It was just what we were looking for – steep, rooty and muddy with multiple line choices meant we had to concentrate fully on the task in hand and rely on a combination of skill and luck – mainly luck – to get us down the hill safely. We managed just fine although all got some pretty bad arm pump at times and I think Love Rant stacked it into a tree halfway down. I was loving it and managed to pull away from the others, strangely more at ease on the steep and tight stuff than the smoother, faster decents. That was until the bottom, where things steepened up even more and the muddy, wet soil meant maintaining grip was optimistic at best. Both wheels were locked as I tried to ‘surf’ round the corners. Predictably, a couple from the end it became too much and I ended up over the bars eating dirt. Regrouping at the bottom we high fived etc and concluded that we need to try the courses on downhill bikes although via an uplift day as there was no way we could face pushing to the top 5 or 6 times in a day - downhillers must be fitter than their reputation among jeyboys as tab smoking layabouts.
After getting home the news from Team Bear was good – bank faff had been sorted but had a resulted in a 'rear-end-shunt' by a lady motorist in Preston. Thankfully Bear and Techno were ok but her car was virtually written off! After this slight mishap, Techno and Bear enjoyed a good couple of hours at Whinlatter before meeting up with Kieran and James in Carlisle. The weather forecast for the weekend was bibclical rain and although it was dry when I got up I soon drove into some quite hideous rain. By the time I got to Dumfries a lot of the roads were covered in extreme surface water and I began to phone round the troops fearing the worst. Only Bear answered and he and Techno were already through Dumfries and en route to Dalbeattie so I swallowed a MTFU pill and drove on. On arrival there was not one mention of bailing at all from the crew – rspkt, rspkt, rspkt – although we did agree that we needed a nice cafe to start and end the ride. Cue Team Auld Yin, aka the trail doctor, John Henry. He quickly took control and guided us to a cafe at Colvend where we parked up and huddled inside a cafe. The usual formalities were exchanged with much amusement being made of Techno’s face which Kieran’s dog had taken a dislike too and bitten the night before!
After a while we had to face the music and quickly shimmied into our wet weather gear and set off. The rain was hammering down with much of the trail sodden although luckily the going was pretty good due to the underlying rock at Dalbeattie. The trail doctor stormed off like Fabian Cancellara on a ten mile TT leaving the rest of us gasping along in his wake. The pace did not relent for a couple of hours although enabled us to get a bit of warmth through our extremities and included several excellent descents, the majority pretty natural and hidden away in the woods. For locals and friends of locals only. As we headed north toward Dalbeattie town itself we reached the Town Wood and passed a pile of hay bales. We climbed, decended and passed them again. We rode on, back a bit, left a bit and reached the bales again. We went down, up a bit, down again, over some tricky roots, alongside a small loch, only to meet up with our friends, the bales, again. Was the trails doctor lost?? Of course he wasn’t!! The trail doctor doesn’t do lost! He was merely maximising the ride time by showing us all the little gems in a very small area, like all good trail doctors do! Happy to follow him, the pied piper of Dumfries, we ground on thoroughly soaked but somehow enjoying the day’s riding. Even Bear – in conditions that usually lead to the ejection of all his toys from his Santa Cruz pram – seemed to have a semblance of his infamous mojo intact. Special mention should go to Team Downhill Maniac who cleaned a slippery, slithery climb despite running the crappest tyres ever, Conti Vertical’s. Given the decline in his lunatic descending I hereby propose he be renamed Uphill Maniac. Eventually we were back at the cafe having spent a good 4 hours of riding in pretty dismal weather. Although the rain stopped after halfway we were wet through and needed tea and cake. The cafe at Colvend obliged.
After meeting up with my soigneur at a nice hotel in Dumfries I met the rest of the team for a pint in the Cavens Arms. We have eaten here a number of times in the past although unfortunately it was so busy there was little chance of a table. Instead we went to a nearby Indian – curry comes a very close second to steak and chips. Mindful not to get food pissed we decided to forgo a starter and concentrated on the mains instead. The curries Techno and I ordered were a little fiery but nothing that a few pints of lager couldn’t resolve. Food eaten it was time to head to the Hole in the Wa Inn for Hagen Daz’s initiation ceremony. Disappointingly I forgot the cheese grater, Bear forgot the gerbil and the Hole in the Wa was not its usual sweating, heaving self. Rejoined by my soigneur we headed off to a new bar, the Granary. By now full of lager I was ‘feeling it’ and beginning to struggle. Living a life of domestic bliss I can’t remember the last time I was allowed out and had so much to drink – Shack’s wedding maybe and look what happened then – and even my soigneur seemed unconcerned at my drunkenness. Team Fanylion hit the dance floor with numerous shapes thrown although I was swaying rather than dancing. We were led by Love Rant who my soigneur commented has ‘pure, natural rhythm.’ Guess he’s got something going for him then.....
Sunday dawned and the gerbil intended for Hagen Daz’s initiation seemed to be charging round my skull. It’s a bad day indeed when I don’t get my porridge and although the hotel served up a grey bowl of sludge it was left me quicker than it had gone in. I couldn’t even keep water down and the prospect of riding was simply unthinkable. Fortunately the alternative – attending a children’s birthday party with my soigneur was even more horrific so I had little choice but to grin and bear my worst hangover in living memory. I’m sure kids are great and that but you can’t go anywhere without someone in Fanylion mentioning what noise their’s made last night, what it had for tea, the colour of it’s turd etc and that’s before you log onto Singletrackworld and witness Mastiles’ witterings on the subject!
My hangover was made worse by arriving at Mabie and everyone else looking remarkably fresh. Gits. Experience told me that going riding would improve things although I was empty of both food and water and had two days riding in the legs. Things were not looking good but thankfully the pace was far slower than the day before and I slowly began to recover. After an hour I could safely drink water again, by two hours I could talk and by three I nearly smiled. The riding helped – the trail doctor of Dumfries took us round some lovely forest trails off the beaten track, some of which had been crafted by his own hands. There were some nice tricky climbs on sodden pine needles and some truly great descents - off camber, rooty and sketchy but which rewarded a bit of nerve and staying off the brakes. Aside from Techno ejecting the previous night’s curry – apparently like liquid lava flowing from his behind (I could empathise having had a similar experience earlier in the morning) – there was little to interrupt us. Bear and Uphill Maniac sloped off early but we didn’t stay out much longer. Thankfully as my hangover eased everyone else’s seemed to be kicking in and by the time we reached the cafe I was cured and able to eat again! Rspkt.
So, despite some biblical weather, a lot of faff, and far too much beer the weekend’s riding had been an undoubted success. Proof really that you’ve just got to get out there and ride. It’s never as bad as you’ll think it’ll be.
Shortbread
OUT.
Riders present
Shortbread
Bear
Techno
DHM
Auldyin - The Trail Dr
Love Rant
Hagen Daz
Enjoyment level
Wet!