Glentress 7: living up to its reputation

BY: Sophie Halhead

Published: 31st May, 2019

After a few hectic weeks of racing (Belgium mountain bike challenge for me, Transversubienne in Nice for my husband Tom), and work trips abroad, Tom and I headed up to Scotland to race at Glentress 7 over the May bank holiday weekend. Tom had raced it as a solo last year, and after hearing him rave about the course and event vibe, I was super keen to enter! We teamed up together to race as a mixed pair for BW Cycling, with the fab support of family (who conveniently live about 20 minutes from Glentress) to look after our 7 month old baby, Sam.

Arriving on the Friday, the day before the race, we parked the van and soaked up some sunshine - conscious that all of the weather reports for race day were predicting rain. With a rocky and rooty course this could prove interesting…. After a ton of pasta, and baby Sam allowing us a good night’s sleep, Saturday morning arrived. Registration was swift , and our support team in the form of Aunt-extraordinaire Cath arrived to look after Sam. I attended the event briefing leaving Tom to warm up for the first lap; a shorter lap of a 4km savage fire-road climb up to the highest point of the course.

Typically having lost track of time, I managed a couple of token sprints on the road before heading to the transition area. To my horror I could see Tom’s distinctive BW jersey heading into the arena... As it was early in the race, the transition area was full, and it took a bit of hollering to prevent Tom from heading off for another lap. Fortunately, the ‘transition-jam’ parted to let me through, and I gratefully got to the front, grabbed the timing card from Tom and hopped on my bike.

From here it was a pedal through the solo riders’ pit stop area, and on to a short singletrack path into the Glentress Forest Lodges campsite. Here, the course went through a gate and climbed through a grassy field. I confess that I had a bit of a sense of humour failure at this point – the climb was horrid, and my legs felt equally tired and horrid! I recall momentarily cursing Tom and how he thought how I would love the course. However….as the course passed over the remains of a dry stone wall and into the woods, my cursing stopped, and I started grinning… Some swoopy, undulating loamy sections followed, then a couple of short single track climbs before we joined a fireroad for a 2-3 minutes. Here, the course turned onto the ‘Magic Mushroom’ section of the XC trail, a gradual descent through the trees with berms, little tabletops, roots, a bit of northshore and definitely big grin factor!

The next 3.2km was all uphill to the highest point of the course. This was initially a short section of singletrack with an A/B line option (the A line consisting of a couple of rock step-ups) before joining a fire road for about 300m. The course then turned left on to a short but steep singletrack climb over roots, then right again for a nasty drag up a fire road. Here, there was a helpfully sign to ‘Dig In’. I tried my best to follow these instructions, although this became progressively more challenging throughout the race! This then turned into a flowing single track climb with switch back corners, some of them with short cut lines on the inside. There was another A/B rock step up line (see pic), which required a bit of grunt to get up and over – and certainly became more challenging in the wet and with tired legs!

After a final short section of single track climb with switchbacks, the course popped onto a fireroad climb for 1km to the highest point on the course, the start of the main descent, and the cake shop. Tom had been raving about the feed station nearly as much as the course - as he raced solo last year, he could use this as his pit-stop, and was able to indulge in some the tasty treats on offer. Unfortunately, as we were racing alternate laps as a pair, neither of us stopped there for refuelling (well.. so I’m lead to believe….) We did, however, sample some of the cakes from Loulabelle’s bakery at the finish, and they were so tasty that we HAD to pop into their Innerleithen shop on the Monday too…

The descent started with perhaps the most technical section of the course – a steep and loose section called ‘The Tunnel of Love’, which I focused on taking steady each lap. After the the sharp corner at the bottom, the gradient became less steep, and the trail became loamy and flowy. I loved this section, well – mostly… Unfortunately, in my first lap, a stream crossing in a gully took me completely by surprise. I was riding too fast, took a rubbish line, and hadn’t dropped my saddle in time. The result was a spectacular OTB which nearly propelled me over the border into England. I landed on my elbow and hip, resulting in twisted handlebars and a buckled front wheel. I stopped for 30 seconds or so to sort out the mess, then jumped on my bike to complete the lap, conscious of there being a lot of blood running down my arm. Focussing on the amazing course definitely helped! After navigating the roots of the ‘Horse’s Tail’, and riding through fantastic features like the super dusty ‘Bomb Hole’, it wasn’t long before I was riding the slalom down the grassy field and back into the event arena. I handed the chip over to Tom, who looked rather horrified at the state of my right arm – as did the other riders in transition.

One of the marshals whisked me off, getting me to drop my bike off at the awesome Alpine Bikes stand for a check over (great thinking and great priorities J), before I was checked over by the medics. After a brief clean up with some saline and a toothbrush (ouch), we agreed that it was unlikely that we’d get all of the loam and gravel out of my arm, so I was bandaged up, and went to collect my bike which was thankfully rideable. There was just enough time for me to grab a clean jersey, put arm warmers over the dressing (the theory that if I couldn’t see the injury, it wouldn’t hurt so much!) and write a quick note to Tom to say I was ok before heading to the transition area.

Subsequent laps were fortunately less eventful, although the forecast rain made an appearance and certainly resulted in making the off camber roots more challenging!

Towards the end of the race, despite the rain, we were both holding fairly consistent lap times, and were feeling strong. With each lap taking 38-42 minutes, we had decided to ride alternate laps. This sounded like a nice break between efforts on paper, but by the time we’d got back to the van, checked that Baby Sam was behaving, re-filled water bottles and had something to eat, it was more or less time to go again. Our ‘alternate lap’ strategy seemed to be working, as Tom and I had built a decent lead in the mixed pairs category.

As I went out for my 5^thand final lap, I was conscious that it would be tight on time for the cut off to get Tom out for another lap. Still on my lap, with just 7 minutes to go, I had resigned to myself that it was unlikely that I would get back in time – but gave it everything and was astonished to get back 30 seconds before the cut off. I’m sure that Tom was delighted to get the opportunity to ride the awesome course again…….!!

We were stoked to complete 11 laps in 7 hours 9 minutes, winning the mixed pairs category.

However…my day was far from over, as after the podium (including a very thoughtful and useful spot prize of elbow pads!), a trip to A&E beckoned. My elbow was xrayed a few times, detecting that I had chipped the tip of my elbow, and in the words of the medics ‘had half of Glentress trail’ sitting in the wounds. Although sore and swollen, after several flushes and xrays, I was discharged at about 1.30am – a long day in the saddle and nearly as long in A&E!

Big thanks to the guys at Alpine Bikes for checking my bike over, and the medics and marshals for patching me up. The Torq fuelling system worked a treat too – if you haven’t tried the gels and bars then do, as they not only work but are super tasty.... And a massive thank you to Andy and the BW Cycling team for your continued support – apologies for attempting to add red to the BW Kit!

Tom and I have raced a few pairs races together before, however Glentress 7 was the first event that we have done since Baby Sam made an appearance. I spotted lots of other riders with young families, and plenty of teams made up of families too. This created a really relaxed family vibe. It was also great to race alongside well respected riders Tracey Mosely and Jane Barr who both teamed up with their husbands to race as mixed pairs.

Glentress 7 certainly lived up to its reputation and it was easy to see why it is Scotland's most popular MTB endurance event. A fantastic day of riding, with a super helpful, friendly and fun event team. Now I am also raving about the course - and know that we will certainly be back!

Main image: @lewisgregoryphoto

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