Alistair Lees Memorial XC Time Trail



28th March



Innerleithen Forestry Commission Carpark




It's back and it's better ! Voted for recently in an online poll we started as the Best Course Ever, the traditional early season XC Time Trial will be held on Sunday 28th March.



This year we will be using a 21km course, and all riders will complete one lap. This is a great event if you are just starting out at XC, with all riders leaving at one minute intervals from 11.01 and no start line tussles.



The trophy, in memory of our friend Alistair who died of cancer in November 2007, will be awarded in the Vet category. We will be taking a split time at the top of the course and a prize will be awarded for the fastest male and female riders on that section.



Full catering services will be provided at the event, courtesy of the Rice Risotto van.



Event website www.innerleithenmtbracing.com

Posted by Rob, alpine Bikes

posted by glenmore @ 12:07 PM  0 comments

After securing lottery funding towards the end of last year, with the help of Alpine Bikes customer base, the project team are proud to announce that they broke ground this morning! I'll try and get some photos uploaded when we have them, but our anticipated completition date for this to be built is the end of the month.

This'll be great for the Tweed Valley as it will give another superb facility within stones throw of Glen Tress.

I shall post a formal announcement when it's all up and running.

Rob
Alpine Bikes
Innerleithen

posted by glenmore @ 12:02 PM  0 comments

This has been one of the best Scottish winters in living history! This week alone we have had blue sky perfect conditions followed by over 3ft of fresh powder dropping. It has been perfect for skiing and all the winter programme although yesterday and today has called on all our instructors to be creative with how they use so much snow!

The snow plough has been going full time to keep the road clear although some of our guests would cleraly like the opportunity to be trapped here in this winter wonderland. Some of the instructor team stayed over to make sure they could get in for the last day of their five day courses and helped to make sure the bar takings were not falling behind.

These shots show the variety of conditions in one week here in the Cairngorms.

posted by glenmore @ 3:39 PM  1 comments

Uplift Scotland is aiming to run uplifts almost every weekend!!

Just in from Tally, “Uplift Scotland are aiming to run uplifts almost every weekend throughout 2010. Bookings will only open 6 weeks before the uplift, this is to allow events to still take place at the venues. We will endeavour to give as much notice as possible to any weekends that will be events not uplifts. Once bookings open the uplift will definitely run. Go to www.upliftscotland.com for more details!”

Rob

Alpine Bikes

Innerleithen

posted by glenmore @ 2:47 PM  0 comments

“IMPORTANT RACE INFORMATION – CHANGE OF DATE Due to Forestry Enterprise double booking Pitfichie Forest we have had to change the date of the first round at Pitfichie to the 24th/25th April, one week later. We sincerely apologize, we booked our date some time ago and Forest Enterprise acknowledge this but the Granite Rally is using the forest on the same dates and unfortunately we are lower in the pecking order.

Why the FCS accepted our booking last December we don’t know. Anyway, we have to change because both events cannot run at the same time.

We are now racing at Pitfichie the following weekend APRIL 24-25

Sorry about this, but it was out of our hands. We realise that this new date clashes with an SXC round, but we cannot swap venues on the original date. We can only offer our apologies to those who are inconvenienced.

Derek”

posted by glenmore @ 2:47 PM  0 comments

Sponsored by Alpine Bikes, Buff, Trek, Fox clothing and Borderline Events

After the unfortunate cancellation of round 1, Round 2 of the Alpine bikes winter Series race took place at the weekend. As the name suggests it’s a winter race and the weather definitely kept it’s end of the bargain, with an overnight low of -15 and -7 showing on my car on Sunday morning.

The track at first appeared to be a bit sketchy and some big names decided that rather than risk a pre season injury, they’d watch from the comfort of the side. As the end results proved, the brave would win spectacularly. Total entries for the event were over 300 but only 203 raced, which at least kept proceedings a bit shorter.

Don’t get us wrong, there were some quite spectacular crashes, and our local A & E department will undoubtedly have been grumbling about the number of biking injuries (one of the consultants thinks mountain biking should be banned), but at least we’re not dying of heart attacks on our couches!

As I say some of the winners did it with great style.

Lewis Buchannan, his first ride as a junior goes and beats the field by 14 seconds on a borrowed bike from us. Lewis beat all comers last year, and looks set to do it again this year – if you want to sponsor a highly talented rider, this is your chance. He’s a great ambassador for the sport and is worthy of the attention.

Lewis’ 14 second gap is impressive, but Alpine Bikes Sponsored rider, Joe Connell took a further 3 seconds from that, taking the youth win by 17 seconds over Stuart Wilcox with Gregor Notman in 3rd. Who says there was no grip to exploit out there? As I say victory was for the brave (or insane).

Juvenille class was won by Niall Morrison, Dan Farley in 2nd place with Frazer McCubbing in 3rd.

The hardtail category (big respect to these guys, especially on an icy course) was won by Steve Larking with Stuart Black in second place and taking 3rd spot on the podium was Tom Cleave (who’s forks snapped in practice and were replaced by us overnight to keep him riding).

Masters category was won by Daz Westwood, Sion Jones in 2nd place just in front of Erland Mowat in 3rd.

In the vets class Pete Hoggan was the victor over Stevie Boyd with Seb Ramsay in 3rd.

Unfortunately for Harriet Latchem riding in a field of one meant all she had to do was get down the hill to win the Elite women’s, but her time did put some men to shame, which has got to be some consolation.

Bex Reilly took the women’s win,from Angela Coates with Mairi Gillis in 3rd. Mairi was riding her new BOS Idyll forks for the first time in anger and reckons they were awesome, which is good as we sold them to her! Her view on the forks when she came in was “They’re amazing”.

In expert riders, it was Alasdair Maclennan with the second fastest time of the day that took the win over Dale Russell with Eliot Machin in 3rd place.

It was a fantastic day, and again thanks to the following sponsors:

BUFF
FOX CLOTHING
TREK BIKES

And of course, BORDERLINE EVENTS, for organizing the whole thing and more importantly, getting the first round in at the pub on Saturday.
3 weeks till the next one, and we’re all hoping to have slightly better weather and more people down the hill.

Rob
Alpine Bikes
Innerleithen

posted by glenmore @ 12:08 PM  0 comments

When the weather's like it was this weekend there is no where better to be! Forget the alps, go to the cairngorms! Saturday and Sunday had to be one of the most spectacular weekends I have ever seen up here. The hills were plastered in snow and ice, we had blue skies, sunshine and no wind!

The weather is set to continue like this for the next few days at least so what are you waiting for?!

Here's a couple of photos from sticil face on Shelterstone, taken on Sunday the 21st of February.

posted by glenmore @ 12:43 PM  0 comments

Fred and Dougie set off to paddle Up a Long Creek in the
freezing cold for Sport Relief


A stand-up comedian and a drummer in a rock band sitting in a boat sounds like the set-up to a joke. But Fred MacAulay and Dougie Vipond are about to put mind, body and reputation on the line by taking on the biggest challenge of their lives in aid of Sport Relief 2010 – traversing the length of the Caledonian Canal, from Fort William to Inverness in a tandem kayak.

At 8am on Monday 22nd February, with temperatures due to be below freezing, Fred and Dougie will set off on their extraordinary journey. Before them lies three days of extreme paddling right across the heart of the Scottish Highlands, through some of the world’s harshest wilderness landscape. This is a seriously difficult undertaking. Rising to the Sport Relief challenge, there will be no glamorous entourage, no frills and absolutely no creature comforts. They will be literally thrown in at the deep end, going back to basics carrying all of their own food, drink and equipment required for the duration of the trip. They will be camping at the waters edge and cooking for themselves whilst attempting to keep up the motivation to get through a challenge that would be extraordinarily tough in the bright summer months let alone in one of the coldest winters in history.

Taking to the water near the west coast at the top of the world famous Neptune’s Staircase, the cross-country trip will see them having to negotiate a number of un-navigable locks along the way where the paddling pair will need to lift and carry their 25 foot long kayak in and out of man-made waterways and freshwater lochs. Fred and Dougie’s punishing schedule will involve them spending a night on the exposed shores of Loch Ness and finishing in Inverness on Wednesday evening.

The team will be accompanied by kayaking expert Neil Baxter who has given them essential technique and safety training, but it will be up to the brave duo to work together as a team to complete the challenge which will be both mentally and physically punishing.

With such a mammoth challenge ahead of them, Sport Relief is calling for people across Scotland to get behind Fred and Dougie and show their support by donating at sportrelief.com/creek. Every penny donated to Sport Relief will go to transform the lives of poor and disadvantaged people both at home in the UK and in the world’s poorest countries.

With less than three days to go until the challenge, Dougie Vipond said: “When Sport Relief asked me if I was up for a challenge, I had no idea that I would end up in the Highlands in February paddling my way through freezing cold waters with Fred MacAulay, then having to share a tent with him - but I am ready to rise to the challenge!”

Fred MacAulay added: “This will certainly be one of my greatest challenges yet, let’s just hope we don’t end up the creek without a paddle! Get behind us and show your support by sponsoring us now at sportrelief.com.”

The pair’s water borne adventures will be aired in Up a Long Creek, an hour-long documentary special for Sport Relief due to transmit on BBC Scotland on 17th March.

Fred and Dougie are rising to the challenge as part of Sport Relief 2010. You can rise to your challenge by entering the Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Mile on Sunday 21st March. Glasgow is playing host to one of the largest Sport Relief Miles in the UK, with other Miles happening all over Scotland. To find and enter your nearest Mile visit sportrelief.com.
ENDS


For more information, photographs and interview requests contact:

Fiona White (Project Manager) – f.white@comicrelief.com – 07931 384 001

Elise Clayton – e.clayton@comicrelief.com or 0141 422 6847/07507 597102

posted by glenmore @ 12:06 PM  0 comments

Jim Hutton, Gary Green John Clare, Willie Hannah, Clive Wilson, Bernie Shrosbree and 6 Officer's/Marines from BRF and 45 Cdo are doing a 1000km ski across Norway in 20 days (circa 50km a day) to raise money for the Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund, Macmillan and CLIC Sargent. Please help to raise money for these worthwhile charities by making a donation at www.bmycharity.com/rm1000kmski

posted by glenmore @ 3:48 PM  0 comments

Ben Nevis is a special place to climb in winter. It has so much history surrounding the routes and the scale of it is relatively unique when compared with many of the popular Scottish winter venues.

Dave Chapman (Nightwatch) and Scott Webster (Marketing) headed up for a few nights inthe CIC hut with a view of doing some on the Ben's classic routes. The CIC hut was refurbished last year and now includes two toilets, a drying room and a large kitchen. It has been really nicely done and has a very alpine feel to it.

Conditions were less than ideal with a large dump of snow falling over night on Monday. This meant a lot of the classic ice routes were dangerous or too difficult to get to.

Instead Dave and Scott stuck to the ridges and climbed Tower Ridge, North East Buttress and Ledge Route. These are all classic mountaineering routes that are well worth doing and provide pleanty of interest along the way.

posted by glenmore @ 12:55 PM  0 comments

Throughout the winter season Glenmore Lodge employs several freelance members of instructional staff to help run our courses. One of our top associate members of staff is Alan Halewood.

Alan keeps a very up to date blog on all his climbing activities. It is a fantastic resource for seeing first hand what conditions have been like and what routes are being climbed as well as being interesting reading.

Check it out! http://alanhalewood.blogspot.com/

posted by glenmore @ 12:32 PM  0 comments

If you want to see Ian Sherrington on full screen moving pictures - watch the Adventure Show Sunday 28th Feb on BBC 2 at 7pm.

He takes the the Adventure Show team with him on one day of a five day course. See how they all get on in the Scottish winter wonderland.

The equity card is in the post Ian!

posted by glenmore @ 7:14 PM  0 comments

Just to give a bit of an update on the trail conditions in the tweed valley. There is still some snow at high levels, but most of the trails are rideable. The top of Minch moor is possibly best avoided for the next week or so as this still has a reasonable covering of snow, but all the downhill courses from the top fire road are fine. Just be aware that if it has been freezing overnight (which it quite regularly is) then there will be ice on the trails so approach with caution especially rock climbs.

Rob
Alpine Bikes
Innerleithen

posted by glenmore @ 5:12 PM  0 comments

Minister for Public Health and Sport and UCI Downhill World Champion Launch National Framework to Develop Scottish Mountain Biking

The Minister for Public Health and Sport, Shona Robison, and UCI Downhill World Champion, Steve Peat, today (10 February) launched Scotland's first framework for the sustainable development of mountain biking, at Bannerman High School in Glasgow.

To see the full story follow the link below:

Rob
Alpine Bikes
Innerleithen

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/site/SCU/scu/ScottishCyclingNews/20100209_National_Framework_to_Develop_Scottish_Mountain_Biking_Launch.asp

posted by glenmore @ 5:10 PM  0 comments