The road to the SSEC pt2, Scotland

Tags

7 stanes, angus 29+, Grip Grab, Malteni, scotland, Singlespeed, singletrack, SSEC, Travers Bikes

I have wanted to travel to Scotland for many years, a return to some distant roots for me, and now here I was. The weather on our day of arrival was not exactly inspiring for a late afternoon ride so we opted for checking out the offerings from some of the local pubs instead. The first place we visited I asked what beer they had on cask (we had been enjoying lovely cask beers since landing on the island). The response was that they only served it during the summer, ‘and as you can see it isn’t summer yet’. We had been lucky so far with the weather in Wales and it seems like we were about to pay for it in Scotland.

Any break in weather was a cause to start taking photos

The riding however would make it all worthwhile. There is a series of mountain biking areas in Scotland called the 7 Stanes and they would provide some of the nicest single track any of us had ever ridden.

A typical trail map from one of the ‘Stanes’

If anything the 7 Stanes are very well organized

When our road trip first began the short breaks that we held were often filled with enthusiastic renditions of the last section of trail and the various experiences we had on it. This morning as we took our last ride we were strangely quiet, not because the trails were any less amazing than our very first day, but I think we had simply run out of descriptives for what we were feeling. In the two days of riding we had here we rode 3 of the 7 Stanes, Mabie, Ae, and Kirroughtree. Each with it’s own charm and style.

One of the actual ‘Stanes’

I cannot recommend the riding in Scotland and Wales highly enough. The 7 Stanes especially, with long single track loops, amazing facilities (varies a bit from place to place) and even skills areas where you can test yourself before you hit the trails to figure out which level of difficulty you should choose before you head out. The best thing of all of course is that they are all very single speed friendly 🙂