Help & Advice • Alpine Bikes

If you're looking to visit the local area but don't have your bike with you, Alpine Bikes will be able to help you on your way! Our Glasgow Outdoor Experience, Inverness Outdoor Experience and Innerleithen stores carry a fleet of hire bikes perfect to get you out and about.

The Outdoor Experience stores make use of Gary Fisher Wahoos and Marlins which are pretty handy on and off road. This means you can explore all the local parks and not tire yourself out on the roads between them. Innerleithen offers the slightly more burly Iron Horse Sachem hardtail mountain bikes as the shop is placed perfectly for you to sample Glentress and the nearby Traquair Cross Country loop.

Prices:

• £20 per day
• £8 per half day

When you come to collect your bike, please have one piece of photographic ID with you and a credit/debit card for security.

Details for our Glasgow Outdoor Experience, Inverness Outdoor Experience and Innerleithen stores can be found in the shop locator.

The corner – a simple bit of trail that seems to pop up everywhere. I suppose we need them. The Romans did many things right, but they wouldn’t have built the most interesting of trails would they. So, cornering. If it appears that often, and is the key to riding smoothly, maintaining speed and keeping the ‘flow’, then why is it so neglected and abused? In this quick article I’ll go over the basics of this fundamental, yet often overlooked skill and give you an idea of how you’ll benefit from coming to a Dirt School/ Alpine Bikes coaching course.

Although no corner looks the same, the same underlying principles need to be applied. In the picture above, first look at the riders body position. As you can see, he’s looking ahead. He’s dropped his outside foot and is keeping his upper body stable and facing down the trail. The correct body position is crucial. Start using your shoulders and you’ll reduce your stability with a high centre of gravity (COG). To help this, dropping the outside foot will further lower that COG and help increase grip and balance. Finally, looking ahead will give you plenty of time to react and set-up correctly for the incoming corner.

Finally, learn to brake in time. Looking ahead as previously mentioned will help this. Slowing up before and letting off the brakes through the turn will undoubtedly get you going faster and decrease your chances of crashing. You don’t see Lewis Hamilton jamming on the brakes mid-turn!

So there you have it - the fundamentals of cornering. Get yourself along to a Dirt School/ Alpine Bikes class and you’ll learn this and much, much more. Everyone can learn something.

Please visit the Dirt School page for more information and booking into a Dirt School class.

Generally speaking I'm not a big fan of trail centers. It sometimes feels like if you have ridden one then you have ridden them all. Singletrack is often a scaled down fire road and technical areas are nothing more than off camber corners. Laggan is different, It does have a large boring fire road to get access to the trails but after that you are rewarded with some real Scottish mountain bike terrain.

The red run has a nice flowing singletrack with a few challenging features to keep you on your toes. There is a great mixture of rooty/rocky high-speed corners and the views from the top of the climb are amazing. The end of the red run has some northshore style elevated trails which spit you out onto the beginners level jump park.

The black run is pretty challenging even for some experienced cyclists. It is constant rock gardens almost the whole way down and once you start there is no alternative "chicken" route. Some knee pads would be advised if you are not a confident rider. If you have never ridden at Laggan I would recommend it highly. If you have ridden the black run at Glentress and didn’t feel challenged then head up to laggan and you will be in for a treat!

There are showers and toilets in the car park and a café that does an excellent cheese scone.

For more information visit the Wolftrax website

View location of trail on map

A Lengthy drive from Glasgow, Glencoe isn't a commonly visited place by me but is one of my favourites. A couple of hours drive will eventually see you on the A82 heading towards Glencoe Village. Parking before the road descent towards Glencoe (Altnafeadh (GR 221563)) A small track at a patch of forrest beside the main road is the start at will soon see you grinding a granny gear towards the start of the staircase. The path is an old Military road and switches from side to side as it snakes up the hill. Cue lots of pushing/carrying till you hit the cairn at the top. The views here are awesome spanning East and West.

Once at the top and after the obligatory photo and food stop, wrap up well. This is the start of the descent. Super technical and very challenging (rigid fork users can be crowned as both heros and fools), multiple water runs help add to the difficulty as you lift off and aim for the next corner. Pinch flats are common so running tubeless helps as will running your tyre pressures as hard as you dare. Full suspension helps both in comfort and control especially on long technical descents such as this ( 29ers work too!)

The Devils Staircase descent lasts roughly 5 intense miles and snakes its way down the other side intersected by river splashes and bridges. For the weak legged and hungover amongst the group a pumping station at the start of a fire road section provides a shortcut down to Kinlochleven. For the more inquisitive, a prod around the pumping station will find the pipe road which heads directly up to the Blackwater reservoir. This concrete pipe road slowly rises you up through the valley with tremendous views and scary drops each side at points. Bring a camera. Eventually you find yourself being spat out at the foot of the Blackwater dam signalling the head of the valley.

Either crossing the front of the dam or crossing at the top you can pick up the next trail head almost directly in front of the security gate on the far side of the dam. This winds its way through year round bogs and eventually follows a river bed down the side of the valley once again aiming towards Kinlochleven. This trail carries on from where the Devils Staircase leaves off and provides a very technical, very tiring trail which can chew you up and spit you out. If you master the trail it provides a good hour of descending back towards Kinlochleven and a real sense of achievement. The trail eventually ends in the heart of Kinlockleven itself where the Ice Factory, a local climbing and activity centre, provides toilets to clean up and change in and that all important pub. From here there are two options. 1. A 15 miles road ride back to the car on the main road OR 2. Have a sneakily placed car in Kinlochleven itself to save those boring miles. The road itself involves two big climbs.

This can turn into a long day so make sure you have a big capacity camelback with a good first aid kit, plenty of energy food and fully operational bike. This ride will eat brake pads, tyres, tubes and rims. Did I mention tubes? Bring spares. Lots.

View location of trail on map

“We've just finished building 1.7km of new red singletrack descent on the XC Route. The first new section (1.2km) comes after the Minch Moor descent and is packed full of jumps, berms and cheeky rock features. It will be open on Thu 20 March in time for Easter weekend. This section will replace the 'natural' loop back up and down the Minch Moor and link straight into the 'Enduro Track'.

The other new section, named Oh Deer!, is open now and provides an easier red-graded alternative to the hardest section on Plora Craig. There are still several rock sections to keep you on your toes!

With the addition of these new sections and tweaks to the more trickier sections of Stell Burn Climb, we are now able to convert the whole route to red grade, making the Innerleithen XC Route a great alternative to the Red Route at Glentress. Waymarking conversions and adjustments to the climb should be completed by the end of April, and updated maps are at the printers as we write.”

This press release from the Forestry Commission/7stanes is what we have been waiting for at the newest Alpine store at Innerleithen. As these are our local trails I felt I had to find out if the changes are any good,

After you have ridden the initial descent off the top of Minch Moor, You hit the first section of new trail. This is an excellent combination of jumps, berms, rock causeways, drop offs and stepdowns. For those among us who prefer wheels on the ground, all these sections can be easily ridden without getting airborne. At the moment the trail is quite loose surface, which can make for some interesting high speed slides though the corners. After 1.2km you join up with the old trail which takes you back down to the forest road, and the short uphill stretch to the Plora Craig section. Here is where the other work has gone on, in building red graded alternatives to the more technical sections of the descent. These new red sections follow a similar theme to the new parts of trail that you have just come down, off the back of Minch Moor.

When I rode this The Forestry hadn’t quite finished all the signage, so it made for some interesting riding thinking I was on a red section when in-fact it was black and vice versa. After this the trail is unchanged and finishes as normal with the high speed descent down Caddon Bank back to the start. Overall I would say that the changes are well worth it. Innerleithen has for a long time been overlooked by many riders because of it’s reputation for steep, technical DH riding. The changes will make the route here more accessible for a lot of riders who would otherwise simply default to Glentress. Come down and see what Innerleithen has to offer, I can guarantee you won’t regret it.

P.S. Signage according to the local MTB ranger should be finished by late April. Trail maps are available in the shop at Innerleithen; the updated ones should be with us shortly.

For more information visit the 7 stanes website

Buying a kids bike is a big decision to make. Everything from the fit of the bike to safety is always on the list of considerations for parents. Of course, you child is also going to want to ride the coolest looking bike too!

For younger kids, the best bet is to keep the bike as simple as possible. The less things to go wrong, the better – especially from your point of view. The more your child is out riding, the quicker their confidence grows and the more they enjoy being out on their bikes.

The best way for your child to start riding bikes is the Ridgeback Scoot. This wee bike has no pedals and relies on the rider pushing the bike along and freewheeling. The Scoot promotes balance, is easy to ride and comes in 4 different eye-catching colours. We’ve regularly had kids flying about our stores on Scoots within minutes of sitting on them.

Eventually, your child is going to want to start pedaling properly and this is when you start to look at the larger kids bikes that Alpine Bikes carry. At this point, it is worth noting that kids bikes are not sized by frame size (like an adult’s bike), it is done by wheel size. An outline of how the sizing works is:

• 12 inch wheel diameter : 2 - 4 years
• 14 inch wheel diameter : 3 - 5 years
• 16 inch wheel diameter : 5 - 7 years
• 20 inch wheel diameter : 7 - 9 years
• 24 inch wheel diameter : 9 - 11 years
• 26 inch wheel diameter : 11+ years

Alpine Bikes offer kids bikes from Trek and Ridgeback which means we can be sure to supply you with a bike that fulfils your needs as well as putting a smile on your child’s face!

All our kids bikes are available in boys and girls versions – which means different frame shapes and, of course, differing colours. Also, bikes with 20” wheels and above come with gears. This allows your child to go for longer rides with you as well as make things easier on their little legs. All the bikes make use of Gripshift gearing which is generally easier to use and a bit tougher than the adult equivalent. To keep weights down and make the bikes more weather resistant and durable, all our bikes are constructed with aluminium frames.

Finally, and most importantly, make sure your kid wears a helmet at all times. We offer a full range of helmets to make cycling safe and fun.

When I first started racing mountain bikes competitively I was excited at the prospect of my first team kit, then I tried it on…they were all men’s garments – too large and baggy in all the wrong places! The surprising thing is that this was only 3 years ago, but recently there has been a large influx of different ranges of equipment and clothing designed specifically for women. And the best thing about the boom is that the products do as the say on the tin; they fit a lady’s anatomy properly, are made from the best material and look pretty (don’t listen to the guys – it is important!).

One of my favourite pieces of kit is Fox Ladies Incline Gloves; they fit perfectly, give plenty of grip regardless of the weather conditions and although thin, protect your hands well. I also use a wide variety of shorts and tops and all have different features and benefits, whether it be pockets or the way zips are positioned (think about it ladies!). It is great that there is now such a wide choice for us biker dudettes and even though we’re all a bit different you should always be able to find something that suits from specialist retailers such as Alpine Bikes. The best thing to do is head down to Alpine Bikes, talk to the guys in the shops and try a whole lot of kit on to find what works best for you as an individual.

Ladies specific designs don’t apply only to clothing ranges; manufacturers have long been designing bikes and components for us too and it’s come a long way since the days of dropped top tubes. The aim behind most of these bikes is to distribute your weight more evenly between the hips and hands, hence making riding more comfortable. Saddles have been designed to aid comfort and brake levers and such have been developed for maximum performance and comfort. You’ll find an extensive range of bikes and components at any of the Alpine Bikes stores so again I would suggest you pop down, speak to the experts and try a demo bike if one is available to ensure you buy the product that is right for you. Their experienced and trained staff will be able to help you decide on best frame size, tyre choices, stem sizes and other areas that you may not even have thought of.

The Alpine Bikes team have provided me with some of the best advice and kit that I have come across and so I have no hesitation in recommending them to you ladies.

Cheers to the guys and gals of Alpine Bikes!

Lesley Ingram

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7 Stanes – www.7stanes.gov.uk

Big country riding, rolling hills, views to die for and mile upon mile of technical singletrack – it's all here in the south of Scotland.

Come and spend a while in Scotland's biking heaven!

Carron Valley – www.carronvalley.org.uk

Carron Valley mountain bike trails are fast, fun and purpose built for year round use - guaranteed to entice you back for more! The routes feature testing singletrack climbs, flowing descents and stunning views of the reservoir and surrounding areas. There is something for everyone at Carron Valley - links provide a short fun route or something longer and more challenging. Whatever you choose the emphasis is firmly on fun!

Moray Monster Trails - www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-6MRFE5

With 30km of fun-packed singletrack mountain bike routes, there’s something here to feed the monster in everyone!

Whether you’re totally new to off-road mountain biking, or a seriously expert rider looking for big thrills, there’s a trail here that’s just right for you, from easy green-graded tracks to severe black-grade trails.

Learnie Red Rock - www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-6NZE9W

The Red Rock trails at Learnie: 16km of trails for all skill levels, combined with some of the best views from any mountain bike trails, anywhere!

There are green, blue, and black graded trails, with a bike park and a dirt jump area (both graded orange). Even our green grade singletrack is not 'billiard table' smooth - it gives a sufficient challenge for those wanting more than just forest road-type mountain biking.

Golspie Wildcat Trails – www.highlandwildcat.com

Expecting to become one of the best mountain biking destinations in the UK, the first £0.5 million phase of Highland Wildcat Trails in Golspie was officially opened in November 2006 by Rhona Brankin, Forestry Minister in the Scottish Executive.

Located in a superb coastal location adjacent to the East Sutherland village of Golspie, within an hour's travelling time from Inverness via the A9, the trails have been designed and constructed to the highest standards

Drumlanrig Trails - www.drumlanrig.com

Since 2002 Drumlanrig has played host to the National Points Series and Scottish Cross Country Mountain Bike Championships. A Mountain Bike Trail was constructed for these events and is now way-marked for everyone to enjoy. The course is constantly evolving with new sections of singletrack being added to extend the overall distance and add to user enjoyment.