Day One - Saturday 21st June 2025 - Laggan Brown
And so it came to pass that the Midaircrisis Annual MTB Holiday kicked off on. A decent morning weather-wise. Participants this time around being regulars Peter Whitworth, Colin Mitcheson, Ian Mundy, Steve Bowden and TeeKay. Completing the party a bit further north would be Adam Helm, bravely joining us as the only non-eeber on his S-Works Spesh. Somehow we managed to get away from Goonbase Alpha early, at around 08:45. Pete carried Colin in the shiny little black T6 with his own bike and some pies, Terry carried Ian in the vast emptiness of the Tcaddy with three eebs and Asda's grocery department, while no-one volunteered to enter USS Beemer with Stevie. Dunno why. However, a suitable, innocent, unknowing victim awaited just north of the Forth.
The usual dead-slow-and-stop on the A720 passed relatively quickly and we were over the bridge looking for Adam's new home in Inverkeithing without incident after a short pause at Dunbar's Maccy D's, the run up the A1 passing nicely and all at legal speeds. Adam's bike was hoisted on Stevie's roof to keep the Santa Claus company and off we went up-the-way, but not before a quick visit to his local garage in Dalgetty Bay to fettle the flat tyre alarm on the Caddy. I obviously hadn't put enough Stan's in the nearside rear when I plugged it a few days earlier and it was down to 22psi now from it's recommended 46.
Ian drove it from there and we arrived at our primary target Laggan Wolftrax at 3:00pm and unloaded the bikes ready for trail number one. We set off around 20 minutes later but only got 300 metres away from the car park when, due to the very slight incline on the gravel path, I tried to fire up the Merida's motor. The display lit but went off again. Three times I tried it but still no motor engagement. Strange. Had the good old Shi[mano EP8 black screen of death finally caught up with my 4 year old powerplant? One thing to check though, this could well be no coincidence as I'd just bought a new battery, the original showing definite signs of degradation now. Could it be I hadn't hooked it into the frame properly? Highly unlikely due to the failsafe design. Anyway, I dismounted and removed the battery cover, only to reveal - the total absence of anything to fill the space! Er, duh, fu$&^ng moron had left the battery on the floor of the van. Now revealing this here for public consumption is quite brave of me, but I know that if I don't I'll suffer even more humiliation from the hyenas that surrounded me. Luckily Stevie hadn't switched on his new Insta360 thingy so couldn't post the action before I hereby confess. Anyway, back to the van, battery in and off we trolled;
To further embarrassment for Yours Truly...
Why? I'd heard quite a bit about the stuff "over the road", known as the Brown Trail, so really wanted to try it out for a change, and the master plan included a return in a few days anyway to do the Wolftrax trails we know so well and finish the job. Unhappily, only Stevie had previously sampled the Brown side Blacks in an Enduro event and he was the only one capable of riding the bulk of this "thing" while the rest of us hiked most of it. I accept full responsibility, and apologise to the squad for this monumental cockup. Time to quit, but not until after one quick but very satisfying run down the Wolftrax Orange. The Visitor Centre had closed (at 4pm) since we arrived so we just packed up and headed north again to our base at Forres. And once again the house didn't disappoint.
Chippy for our tea on the way home.
Day One - 10.84 miles, 1hr41m 1,631ft of climbing.
Day Two - Sunday 22nd June - Learnie Red Rock
There'd been some light drizzle as we set off from the house at 0915 but it was fine, and very windy with a threatening sky. Today's target was Learnie Red Rock trails on the Black Isle, around an hour north of base camp. Our second ever visit to this one. After the obligatory trip to Greggs we set off in a westerly direction and arrived at Fortrose to start the ride at 11:25.
Pretty straightforward at this compact but excellent little trail centre. The nature of the place encourages (or requires) that you do laps, and that's just what we did after the initial climb where Adam again excelled amongst the eebs who were able to travel at reasonable pace behind him. We kicked off from the central crossroads (a word on that in a minute*) with the Blue Downhill which, like so many of the "modern era" Blues is just great with little jumps, fast, flowing berms and no speed restrictions other than grip and fear. Back up each time we looped it to the crossroads for the superb Red where it took a while for some of us to follow Steve over the handful of bigger drops, most preferring to skirt them on the bypasses (OK, chicken runs).
And then it was time to branch out and for little old me to locate the "other" crossroad we'd arrived at 6 or 7 times two years earlier (see pic). So off we went, the Brethren following like dutiful, mindless sheep, right to the bottom of the fireroad and out into No Man's land, aka God knows where. That's when rumblings of a mutiny started, and not for the first time. Oops-a-daisy Terence, you've royally fu<7£d up here, inchya! So after entering someone's farmyard and back garden with no way through and no more forest in view we went into reverse before I decreed an upward diversion was necessary. And this was a nasty one, straight up, rough as my plastering and pretty steep for all but ebike riders. How our purely mechanical Spesh rider made it up here in decent time I do not know, very impressive again Mr H.
While the team took a wee break and a wee break I shot off up the hill to seek out said second crossover point and hopefully save face, but it wasn't anywhere to be seen so I didn't. I cruised back down to the waiting hecklers (no, not the Santa Cruz variety) and accepted defeat, following their proposed, much easier escape route.
Remarkably, we soon found our way back to the Callachy Hill Crossroad again and that's when I was presented with a great revelation*. A local rider just happened to meet us there and when I asked him where the "other" crossroads was, the one with the sign for the Orange Bike Park I'd now wasted half an hour searching for, he said the Orange was no more, it was now called the Red Bike Park and the sign had been taken down! Yes, it did remind me of the old starting point but I'd been looking for a sign with "Orange" on it, dummy. So here we were, standing at BOTH crossroads, one being entirely fictitious and in my tiny little mind only.
Well, shut up TK and just follow the others, this time down the boggy-looking Rockit Trail, very short but quickly turned dry, lumpy and bermy until it joined the Red just ahead of those bigger drop-offs, which of course we attacked once again. If you study the piccy above from 2023 you'll see that the "new" Rockit was still there just above my right mitt but looked much more groomed than it does now.
If I had to have a dog it would be a pointer, like this one>
The Blue Downhill is behind Colin, above.
Getting near finish time now but Adam agreed to another haul up to the top for our final run down the Blue Downhill, relished by all. Fortunately the Blue climb was labelled "moderate" and proved to be exactly that, or easy, even. As far as I was concerned, from Day1 Adam set the uphill pace and led us up as many climbs as he could cope with, which happened to be every climb we did. No "I" in Team. Light rain arrived near the end but it didn't last long and we finished in decent weather again for loading up. The Black trail was closed, if you're wondering.
Day Two - 17.25mi, 2hrs3m, 2,037ft of climbing.
Day Three - Monday 23rd June - Glenlivet
So far weather and distance had determined my overall plan, obviously subject to change depending upon those criteria. Thus the forecast forced me to alter the much anticipated trip back to Laggan (to do the proper stuff this time!) in favour of Glenlivet where there was apparently a gap in the cloud layer today. And so it proved. There was no shortage of wind though, it was ferocious. My other fancy had been Aviemore but the lad we chatted with yesterday reckoned it wasn't that good for a bunch of has-been lily-livered XC riders, although we did rattle a couple off a few years ago with Mr Browning at the helm (excuse that term please Adam). The only problem with the revised destination was that it wasn't well fancied by Steve (answers on a postcard?), so we had to lace his breakfast caviar with Calms before slipping him into the F15's driving seat, pointing him south east and lighting the blue touchpaper. Only after we'd made the daily pilgrimage to Greggs again, of course.
There was only one other vehicle in the car park when we arrived, an obvious advantage of riding midweek, and no chance of bike jams and embarrassing overtakes by 12 year olds on hardtails. The other occupant of said car park was a somewhat unhealthy pheasant which had Stevie begging me to provide its dinner, so I duly sourced an oat bar and off he trotted to do the Vet bit. Ah, sweet.
Steve again took the lead and we attempted to keep pace, or at least stay in the same postcode. The Mini Downhill was first on the agenda, then a quick run down the little Blue. Once we'd all done a lap or three of these dinky little blasts we were off up the Red climb to tackle this super bunch of trails. Yep, super. Dunno why the Southerner expressed negative vibes about the place, it's brilliant, and that view was shared by the other four. Mind you, I've always said I hate the drive in, it just seems to take yonks, although not as bad as the waste of effort getting to Kielder, for example.
That evil wind slowed our ascent up to the bench atop the Red but what slowed us even more were the antics of Ian and Pete who stayed up there to take panoramic shots of the valley below and long exposures of an orange bike. By the time they got down where I'd waited for them it was me suffering from exposure, but did they care? Nah, just blasted straight past with no aknowledgement or thanks. Bum holes.
Once again we did as many runs as we could manage without melting the Specialized's wheel bearings on the repeated climbs, the highlight for half of us being the two decent sized drop-offs at the foot of the long Red, where I dared myself to follow Ian and Stevie off the take-offs to add to my growing (semi-airborne) confidence. Three rides now and no injuries, quite remarkable. Below - Colin's missing again, he kept trotting off early.
Day Three - 19.1mi, 2hrs18m, 2,831ft of climbing.
Day Four - Tuesday 24th June - Tarland 2
The Weather Gods were in charge again the night before and first thing, forcing my hand once more to change tactics for today's ride. And where was the sky going to be kindest to us this time? Tarland. Or more precisely, Tarland Two. Hopefully the black sky surrounding us as we set off wouldn't head towards Aberdeen and drown us on its way.
Now then, our first excursion to this particular plot a few years back was memorable for a couple of reasons, none of them that good. First off, it cost me a new rear brake as I couldn't buy just the lever or blade at the time (my fault, I leaned the bike against a tree and it fell over). So riding with just the front stopper was, er, scary, and thus pretty sluggish, hence not enjoyable. Also, the top berms were simply way too tight, as if built for balance bikes, so we were all slow on those. Added to that, the trails were newly laid and just hadn't been given enough time to bed in at all before opening. Fast with working stoppers but scarily skittish.
Enough of that though. This time, all change (except for the final drop to the car park, still thick with loose gravel). Absolutely brilliant! And more trail mileage than the original layout unless I'm mistaken 🤔. Fast as owt (see the Yorkshire or Geordie Dictionary) and extremely satisfying. Again we couldn't get enough of it and clocked up several varied laps of the thing. Nearing the conclusion of our day but only after three and a half fairly heavy climbing days, Adam finally succumbed, and prior to our final descent of the day decided to await our return to the Red junction from the topmost Black section before we were all off for the Grand Finale all the way back to the cars.
What became very noticeable, however, was the racket my Merida started making midway through this ride on every climb. None of us could clearly pinpoint the problem out on the trail, was it motor or drivetrain? However when we got back to the car park Colin and Pete suggested I try circulating in higher gears so they could give it a listen, and that seemed to reduce the noise considerably, so hopefully it's a back end issue and not time for another whopping bank loan (but if it is, Bosch here I come).
*update - it's the motor!
Another dry day, more fast-as-you-like trails, four out of four can't be bad. Smiles for miles as we loaded up and headed back to the ranch, going the slightly longer way back to reduce the avoidable stress of skinny Highland roads trying to keep the Beemer in sight, but still with breathtaking views in all directions. I think we used the wonderful A97 Old Military Road, or some of it, to get back, fantastic route. Ian had to pull us into a Shell garage at Elgin, only 2 litres left in Tcaddy's tank at 545 miles after brimming it at home on Friday night.
Before we set off for the house we called into Tesco to get a couple of trifles and a birthday cake for Peter to round off our brilliant second stay at Forres. And guess what, he doesn't eat trifle, reckons it's Sh:[£ 🤣
Day Four - 18.3mi, 2hrs19m, 3,346ft of climbing.
905 miles travel, 66 trail miles covered and just shy of 10,000 feet of climbing. Nothing special to most, but to me, dead good.
We've already decided it's about time Steve had a shorter trip to join us for a change, so for 2026 we're heading down to Wales via Sandbach, it's been far too long.