Route guides Newcastleton

How to get there:From Glasgow, head southbound on the M74. Take junction for Gretna Green and follow signposts for Longtown.At A7 junction bear left (do not head for Longtown). Take junction for Newcastleton (B6357). Multimap

Newcastleton is a great biking centre for families, novices and those who enjoy a more testing time on two wheels. The centre has a short red route, two blue routes and a skills loop to learn some of the basics. There's also a black graded ridge just for experts.

Perhaps one of the lesser known Seven Stanes projects, Newcastleton has some great riding for those willing to make the journey. I arrived on a wet and windswept Sunday morning to find the visitors centre shut and no sign of the bike shop which was billed on the leaflet I had picked up earlier. Unperturbed I made ready and headed out to explore what Newcastleton had to offer, my spirits were lifted when I saw that I wasn't the only one making the effort when a transit van pulled into the carpark and started unloading bikers. The trail starts at the top of a small climb (nothing like the climb up to the red squirrel car park at Glentress), the signs were clear and from the map in the leaflet I had already decided that I would ride the red route first, this being the longest at 13km.

The trail starts with some nice fast flowing singletrack through the woods with numerous little wooden bridges crossing streams and gullies. The first thing that I found was that there didn't seem to be a great deal of climbing, in fact the trails seems to be cut into a wooded hillside switching back on itself more times than I could count. After crossing bridges, rounding berms, riding chickenwire-covered logs and going through some very fast sections I came out at a dirt track marking the end of the section. I could see the guys who arrived in the transit way up at the top of the hillside and thought I would wait 'n see how long it took them to get to the bottom, 5 mins passed and there was still no sign of them, I reasoned that it must have been a lot longer than I had imagined. I decided to head off along the red route.

From the map it looked like I was headed for a disused quarry and could hear MX'ers in the distance. The singletrack seemed to dry up and I ended up following a forest road for what seemed ages, I had started to think that I had taken a wrong turning at the last waymark. Luckily I was heading the right way as a red arrow pointed back into the woods about half a mile along the road. I took the opportunity to stop 'n have a powerbar and adjust my seatpost, the entrance to the next section into the woods looked very dark and was reminiscent of Chatelherault. The tree cover was the only similarity though as the hardcore singletrack and jumps proved nothing like the mud of chatelherault, this section also included a choice of stream crossing or 'laminate bridge', I took the bridge deciding that I was wet enough already. More log rides and wooden bridges as well as plenty of little jumps saw me to the end of the section where the trail opened up onto some heavy forestry machinery which thankfully was all still this being a non-working day.

Back into the woods then a climb up and round the quarry, I half expected to see the MX'ers I heard earlier but there were none to be seen (only heard). Once again I was on a forest road, this one must have been heavily used by the big machines as it was very churned up. The last section is a 2x2 race track which is more like a bmx track than mtb, it was great fun though full of jumps 'n giant berms, a great way to finish. I had enjoyed it so much that without realising it I had gone straight past the start of the trail and was about a mile into the red route before I realised it. I decided not to ride it again but head back to the start and try out the blue skills section. Why does it always feel wrong riding the wrong way on a trail and that bit you thought was flat turns out to be a slight climb? The skills section lies at the start of the trail and is quite exposed being on the top of a hill. By the time I had ridden it, it wasn't very long, the weather had turned quite nasty and I decided not to try out the black section as I had originally intended (the black is only a mile long and is labelled 'extreme' in the literature provided).

Overall it was great fun and is different enough from the other Seven Stanes to make it worthwhile and interesting. I'll be going back to finish the black route someday.