Tuesday March 9th 2011 Night Ride Report by Ewan
Colin lost in the woods
Just a few words to describe last night’s outing. Colin , Digby and I started out from the Distillery about 7.30 (This is the usual time and place, if anyone out there wants to join us on a Tuesday night) We crossed the river and headed down Lovers walk for a quick blast along the riverside roller coaster before climbing back up the hill towards the Hydro chalets. From there we headed back towards the Hydro, passing the Jesus well and taking a left on to the west side of the Knock. Once we crossed the Hydro golf course road we did a gentle(ish) climbing traverse of the west facing slope before a brief downhill run through the trees on the south slopes to the forest track above the Crieff golf course. Followed the track east then took a left for our first serious grind. This was on the track that runs north to south between the upper and lower Knocks and it seems even longer and steeper at night. Having crossed the shoulder we turned right up the forest road again, before leaving the road for the rooty path that heads towards Monzie. It was while descending this that Digby had “a bit of excitement” as his lights failed momentarily. Once Colin had sorted his lights (only a loose connection thankfully), we headed back up the east face of the upper Knock before turning left near the top, down the narrow singletrack on the south side for a fast descent. I came off twice during this, carefully choosing my landing spots to miss both a large tree stump and a wheel sized rock respectively. With no more than my pride damaged (and my Cateye rear light lost!) we headed east back up the forest road before taking a (new?) path off to the right towards Gilmerton. Looks like the trail fairies have been busy here, as there are a few jumps and berms on this downhill section. However it could do with clearing as the snow seems to have brought the foliage down and we had to fight our way through at the bottom to reach the Gilmerton – Hydro track. Headed back along this towards Crieff before turning right again for our last big climb of the night over the upper Knock. A fast descent of both Knocks followed before we went our separate ways at the car park above the Hydro.