The club hosted an evening of biking and al fresco dinning at Comrie Croft last Tuesday as part of the Highland Perthshire Cycling Festival. The sun god took pity on us and the rains parted during the morning to produce a superb, clear, although somewhat chilly, evening. Burgers and sausages were abandoned to the BBQ, whilst a good number of the adults and the kids went round the red route. There were a few ‘moments’ on the Croft’s very own mini-moab (see the vid!) and a few of the kids were atempting the red for the first time – good effort by all. We returned to the Croft and enjoyed a good meal of perfectly q’d meat and free beer from the club. Many thanks to everyone who came along and to the chefs for a quite different Tuesday evening ride. When is the next one?

A brief rest at the watersplash

 Here are a couple of videos from the evening:

http://youtu.be/FA04fcrhR-g

SXC 2012

The race season for 2012 has kicked off and the SXC dates are as follows:

 Round1: Kirroughtree (1^st April)

Round 2: Gleniffer Braes, Paisley (29^th April)

Round 3: Aberfoyle [also Scottish Champs] (3^rd June)

Round 4: Forfar (1^st July)

Round 5: Perth (5^th August)

Round 6: Drumlanrig (16^th September)

NPS: Kirroughtree (16^th June)

 The club has been to these first two events:

Kirroughtree:

In the age Junior category, Andrew Lamb came in 18^th, whilst in the 11-12 category, Craig Dobbins and Gillian Dobbins both came 5^th. Derek, as wll as acting as coach, also competed in the ‘Grand Male Veteran’ class and came 12^th.

 Gleniffer Braes:

Craig Dobbins, Charlie Aldridge, Jamie Stewart, Gillian Dobbins & Iona Aldridge all competed at Round 2 at Paisley.  In the 11-12 Boys Race, Charlie Aldridge got a great 3^rd place and Craig Dobbins a 5^th. In the Girls Race Gillian Dobbins came 7^th in the 11-12 whilst Iona Aldridge came 3^rd in the 9-10 Girls Race. Jamie Stewart did exceptionally well in his first Elite Course Beginners Race [1 lap] finishing 2^nd. Well done to Jamie and all the kids, they have improved enormously over the winter months.

Glennifer Braes , Paisley: left to right are Craig Dobbins, Charlie Aldridge, Jamie Stewart, Gillian Dobbins & Iona Aldridge

Welcome to a new blog covering all manner of biking competitions and similar events (roadies, time trials, XC, downhill, free-ride, adult and junior, even BMX!). We will post reports of what club members have been up to as regularly as possible. We shall include our very own Hairy Coo event here in October as well. Look out for news reports in the local newspapers as well.

 There are a few adult members competing on occasion, despite saying they were retiring, and of course there is always the Etap! But we have a very active junior section, coached by Derek Dobbins every Sunday, and who have competed in the Scottish Cross Country Series for the past year. So, to get us off to a start, here’s brief a report of how well our juniors did last year in the SXC.

SMBC Junior SXC Competitions 2011

The SMBC junior members took part in the SXC Scottish Bike series from March to September. In the Under 12’s categories, based around school age groups, Charlie Aldridge was second overall in the P4-5 boys and Iona Aldridge won the P1-3 girls. Gillian and Craig Dobbins both competed at P6-7 and finished sixth. Andrew Lamb was competing in the senior course and was never out of the top three in his category all year. In the Scottish Championship race at Drumlanrig he narrowly missed first place!

There has been quite a bit of activity on the build of the bike park over the last few weeks. The bad weather over Easter stopped work a bit, but there have been several days / evenings raking from club members since. Rick has also been back, adding more of the raw lines with the digger:

Most of the pump track in the centre of the park has been formed, but still requires final raking and wetting to get a hard surface.

An outer circular ‘natural’ style trail has been laid out, with rock-gardens started. Its intended that this can be ridden both directions.

The ‘freestyle’ tabletops and rhythm sections are in place, although only half is fully formed and the big table-tops require more digger work.

Two inner berm and drop-off lines have been laid out and are beginning to look exciting.

A mini freestyle circuit for toddlers (and oldies?) has been started.

We hope to have the park ready for riding in the summer holidays, but as it needs to be left to settle and harden after construction for about a month or so we really need to crack on with the finer raking works. If you would like to play a part in constructing your very own bike park look out for notice of raking evenings and days on the Forum and come along with a garden rake and get stuck in. Here are a few pics to show what has been done so far:

You go away for a day and when you get back Rick has built a berm: this will form part of the central berm and drop-off section

Niall and George fine tuning the table-tops whilst the other is tested on a BMX

The pump track's final bermed corner gets formed

Easter Sunday saw 27 riders gather at the Laggan Car Park in Comrie for our first ever Easter Meet (with cake!). We had ageing members of the club, some of the young XC whippits, a family down from Killin for the day, and a few ‘tourists’ visiting from London. Billed as an ‘all abilities’ meet we followed Colin on a great little singletrack circuit around Dalginros along the Water of Ruchil and by Muirend and back to the cars. With some of the younger children being no more than 7 years old, this was quite a challenge – the path was rooty and close to the river edge, but everyone managed it well, only Digby had to pull out with a spectacular tyre blow-out that sounded like a bomb going off.  A second, harder circuit for those who wanted more, followed tracks in the woods behind The Milton and Fordie and down singletrack in Laggan Wood to see us all back to the Comrie Croft buss. Here Colin brewed up teas and coffees and we all stuffed ourselves with the multitude of cakes that everyone had brought along.

The day was a great sucess and obviously cake is the way forward!

Meeting at Laggan Car Park and delvering cakes to the van

The all-abilities meet meant catering for a wide range of bikes and ages

Everyone takes a breather at The Water of Ruchil

Thanks to Comrie Croft for use of the van

A few of use returned to Comrie Croft later in the afternoon to get to grips with more raking on the Bike Park: several hours later a berm was looking more or less finished!

Last Sunday a few hardy souls braved the scorching sun to get raking on the pump-track section of the bike park. Trails designer Rick had already marked the track out and dumped the piles of earth ready to be moulded into a smooth bikeable track. Refreshments and cakes were supplied throughout the day by Comrie Croft and as the sun began to lose its strength the random piles of dirt started to look like a bona-fide track.

Rick and his digger

Start of the day and it really just looks like someone has had fun in a digger!

digging out a steep berm

Ewan spent most of the day designing a main berm, now to be known as "Tav's Turn"?

Near the end of the day and its beginning to take shape

Half the pump track has now been raked and there is more work being done on Tuesday Night (tonight) by club volunteers. Anyone interested please come along at 6pm. If anyone would like to be involved in the development of Strathearn’s very own trails centre, then keep an eye on the forum for notification of volunteer work days over the coming months.

Night Ride on Comrie Croft Black Run

Report by Kevin

The Strathearn Mountain Biking Club has entered into a partnership with Comrie Croft Bikes to develop a much needed new series of trails.

Together we have developed a project to create a regional mountain biking centre. The vision is to build a compact trail hub that attracts mountain bikers of all abilities and ages, locally and from across Scotland. There is a glaring gap in trail centre provision in the central part of Scotland, with Perthshire being a prime venue for a dedicated trail centre.

 The red / black route at Comrie Croft was hand-built by the lads at The Croft and volunteers from the club. It has gained a great reputation as a challenging ‘natural’ trail, quite different to the sort of thing you get at say, Glentress or Wolftrax. However, it is clear from the competitors attending the Hairy Coo competitions and speaking to current visitors from afar that it does prove to be too demanding and technical for novices.

There are also a lot of people locally who are interested in trying mountain biking, but find them too difficult. We would also like to encourage more people to join the SMBC and having facilities nearby at our spiritual home at Comrie Croft would help us offer beginners suitable trails to get started on.

The Trail Centre project aims to:

• Help make the current trails sustainable
• Add to the natural trail, a dedicated blue-grade circuit that novices, young children and families will find appealing
• Create a ‘cycle hub’ that links to the wealth of natural paths and trails in the surrounding hills

 So, we have completed a development plan and have secured funding from:

• Perth & Kinross Countryside Trust
• Scottish Rural Development Program

The Bike Park Plans

The money will be spent developing a bike park near the bunkhouse and new trails on the hill above.

The project is fortunate to have secured the services of the experienced and respected bike trail designer and builder, Rik Allsop. Rik has built mountain bike trails all over Scotland, not least at his home base on Drumlanrig Estate. Rik’s trails are known for their excellent riding characteristics, natural feel and look, sustainability and cost-effectiveness. Rik has designed the trails layout for this project and will be the lead trail builder.

Work has already started, with the Bike Park growing on a daily basis and there will soon be a new café installed with home backing and quality coffee. We hope the bike park will be open for business by the summer. Keep an eye out on the blog for regular updates.

Comrie Croft Trail Centre Development Plan

A last minute decision to head down to what we hoped would be good weather, saw me, Ewan and Alistair Todd having a cup of awful coffee in the new cafe at Glentress: what a pity The Hub did not get to run it! Al wanted a long easy route  as he was recovering from a back injury, and Ewan fancied something less gnarly too, so Innerleithen XC it was. As usual, as the others shot off uphill, I slogged along in extremis miles behind, only catching them up at the ‘fun’ bits. A sort of quarry part-way up the forest grind towards the Minch Moor was fun (and very steep) and then finally to the summit. It was cold and windy with intermittant squalls.

Al Todd on Minch Moor

Ewan pushing hard on Minch Moor

The Summit of Minch Moor

The descent off the summit is brilliant with berms and drops and quite a lot of rocky sections. Dare I say better than Spookey Wood at Glentress? Although a lot further to get to! Caddan Bank, near the end where it meets the downhill runs, saw us sessioning the drops. I first came here with a freind years ago when we first started and what looked so impossible then is actually now quite easy! We must be getting better.

Unknown biker takling the chicken-run on the Caddan Bank section

New Years day was Sunday and no-one felt like moving, but come the Monday a call went up and 9 keen members met at The Famous Grouse Distillery in what can only be described as fowl weather. Deep snow from the days before decided against heading up to Turret, but it had started melting fast down low. Digby blazed the trail from Currochs Farm up deep mud and snow and over Laggan Hill. Despite this, and driving rain, concensus saw us heading to Torlum, where it all turned simply to horizontal snow. Adam peeled off to be late for a family doo, whilst the rest of us braved it over Barr Dubh towards Auchingarrich. By then the cold was to much for most of us and an escape to the Glascorrie road and home followed. I gained a lift home, via the car wash, for the bike and myself: on hot wash of course. We should have stayed at the Grouse!

Looking quite happy before setting off into thick mud and snow.