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There's more information on what's happening around the 7stanes in our press releases section.
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If you've ever visited the MTB venues in southern Scotland, the Mountain Bike Business Network would like to find out about your experiences to help their members improve their services. All information is completely confidential and the MBBN will be very grateful for your input.
Take the 7stanes user survey.
We're having a problem with the external links in the nuts and bolts field on some of the pages. While we sort this out, note that you should be able to find links to the bike shops in the main body of the location pages for each site, and you can get to the weather forecast via www.bbc.co.uk/weather or the Mountain Weather Information Service's forecast for southern Scottish hills.
Apologies for any incovenience - we'll have it fixed asap.
Work is ongoing at Ae to get 'The Shredder' finished and it's now looking like late July before it'll be open for riding. We'll let you know here as soon as it's available.
This weekend coming, 5-6 July, the Tweed Valley will host the Dirty Weekend, a festival of adventure sport, including the classic Polaris Challenge (mtb) and popular ACE (adventure) races, as well a brand new event - the Dirty Dozen 12km trail run. More info at www.dirtyweekendadventure.com; entries still available.
The festival village will be based at the stunning Traquair House next to Innerleithen where there will be bike skills demos and workshops, a gear store, climbing tower, live bands, beer tent and more!
Dates for trailbuilding sessions up to the end of 2008 are now published on the trailfairies page. The Trailfairies meet fortnightly on Saturdays to work on new sections of handbuilt singletrack at Glentress as well as helping maintain the existing trails. It's a great opportunity to give some love to the trails and no experience is needed. The next 'fairy session is on Sat 5th July, meeting at 9am at the Ranger's Office in the Osprey car park, finishing up at 1pm.
23/06/08 Ae map - blue route errorThere's an error on the Ae map at the moment - the stretch of the blue route between junction 9 and junction 12 is shown on the wrong section of forest road. Full details are on the revised Ae Blue Route page. We'll get the map fixed as soon as possible.
Up is the new down... the massively popular Innerleithen XC TT returns this Summer, but longer, harder, more technical - and there are four of them! Innerleithen MTB Racing, in association with I-Cycles, brings you the Summer Series, from 6.30 on the last(ish) Tuesday night of the month.
The races will take place over the same circuit every month, all riders doing one lap of a long hard technical 11km route.
The first race is on June 24th - see http://innersmtbracing.blogspot.com/ for details. You can enter online, with entry on the day if places available. The organisers are looking for help with marshalls, and offering cash and series points to anybody that can help.
The Ae 7stanes centre is now fully up and running, with new toilet and shower facilities, bike hire, bike shop and cafe. The cafe is open from 10.00am to 4.00pm, Monday to Friday, and from 8am to 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays . See www.Ae7.co.uk for details.
As part of the 7stanes arts project, seven sculpted 'stanes' have been created and placed around the 7stanes forests. The sculptures reflect local myths and legends and can be accessed on bike, on foot or by horse.
To mark the stanes' arrival, we're running a couple of competitions. You'll get full details on the arts project page and for details of the stanes themselves see the revised what are the 7stanes? page.
Following the success of the inaugral Dirt Crit Series in 2007, the series returns with 6 events planned over the Summer. Dirt crits are fast, fun off road races that use a short course with multiple laps. It's great fun and a brilliant way for youngsters to try out mountain bike racing. Provisional dates for the series, organised by Peebles Cycling Club, are: 29th May; 5th June; 12th June; 7th August; 14th August; and 21st August - all Thursday evenings. For more info see www.peeblescycling.org , or contact stuart.gillies@tiscali.co.uk or paul.newnham@scottishcycling.com.
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There's been a change in the way that we are grading trails. Grades are now split between those for cross-country singletrack trails and those for bike parks (including downhill trails) and forest roads.
This is to highlight that forest roads can be of variable difficulty and are not part of a progression on to green and blue level singletrack trails, and similarly, orange-graded bike parks are not simply a progression on from singletrack grades.
You'll see these changes reflected in maps and on signage around the 7stanes. For a full explanation of what each trail grade means, see the trail grades page.
Harvesting operations will be affecting the red graded 'Ae Line - Scottish Power Renewables Trail' in Ae Forest until late Summer 2008. For safety reasons, sections of the route will have to be diverted during this period. For full details and diversion maps, please see the Ae section of the trail conditions page.
Preliminary work has started at Glentress as part of the new visitor centre development. Two ponds have been drained and a temporary bridge installed to allow construction traffic to access the site. There's more information on the Glentress Peel page.
As at Mabie, there's now a regular weekly mountain bike group at Dalbeattie. Organised by the Hardrock Cycle Club, the group meets on Thursdays at 6.30pm, starting from the Dalbeattie trail head. All abilities welcome. For more details, visit the Hardrock Cycle Club website.
There is a regular weekly mountain bike group running at Mabie on Thursday evenings, meeting at 7pm at The Shed. If you're new to biking there will be qualified leaders present to take you or your kids out. We would prefer if Primary School age kids rode with a parent/gaurdian. For more details call Greg Knowles of Dumfries Cycling Club on 01557 332034, or look at www.ddcc.ik.org.
Run as a partnership between Foresty Commission Scotland and Scottish Borders Council, this project aims to provide an introduction to off road cycling for young people across the Borders.
With a fleet of new bikes, expert On Yer Bike tutors can provide skills sessions for school groups and equipment can also be hired by qualified biking instructors for sessions with local clubs/groups. Contact the On Yer Bike Mountain Bike Ranger for further information on 07926 998121.
Press releases
There's more information on what's happening around the 7stanes in our press releases section.