Just outside of the city, Kirkhill is a popular destination for locals. Although the way-marked trails are very limited, with a bit of exploration or some local knowledge, there’s plenty of great riding to be found.

How to get there

From Aberdeen, head north on the A96 towards Inverness. The forest is on the right-hand side of the dual carriageway, about 8 miles from Aberdeen, and a short distance before the turning for Blackburn.

The trails around Kirkhill pass through dramatically rural countryside.

Sat Nav: BLACKBURN

Facilities

Just parking.

Trails

Riding in the forest. Image Marc Roberts via Flickr

The main trail is the blue grade 12 km Kirkhill Loop. It’s mostly easy (dull) fire road but it’s a good way to recce the forest and find the hidden trails. There are two spurs off the trail. The North is fairly tame double-track but the South is more fun with some steep rooty and rocky sections and it spits you out next to the Fun Park.

Although only 2 km long, as the name suggests, it’s fun! It’s never too steep and all the jumps are rollable so, how fast you take it and whether you get airborne, is entirely up to you.

Nearest bike shops

Alpine Bikes, Aberdeen
Edinburgh Bicycle Co-op, Aberdeen

Other info

Parking is £2 for the day

Useful sites

Forestry Commission guide to Kirkhill
Cycle Grampian’s guide to Kirkhill

Location map

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POC Trail shorts £75

I’m a fan of lightweight baggy shorts and POC’s new Trail shorts fall squarely into that category.

They’re unlined which is preferable if you have a favourite pair of padded Lycra shorts to wear underneath, but does mean they look expensive compared to shorts that are supplied with a liner.

The fit is generous but they don’t feel too flappy when riding. My only gripe is the lack of waist band adjusters that let you tailor their fit. I found the medium size a little loose around the waist – they didn’t slip down during riding but being able to easily adjust the fit would have been a nice addition. The only provision is the belt loops, but who wants to wear a belt when they’re hitting the trails?

Durability is sometimes the price you pay for lightweight fabrics. The thin 100% polyamide fabric is breathable, not that the weather has been kind enough to really test that to the limit. The fabric, despite being so thin, has so far stood up to plenty of riding – we’ve practically been living in them since they arrived for testing – but we’ve yet to test them in a crash. Construction is top-notch, with smooth seams throughout and high quality stitching apparent.

Features are kept to a minimum. The aforementioned belt loops, two side pockets and one small zipped pocket at the bottom of the short. POC branding is discrete; a large contrast logo runs up the side of the leg and some small rubber tabs dotted about. Understated and cool looking, they go with any outfit.

Three colours are available in size sizes from 28 to 38in.

Verdict

A really nice high quality baggy short that has been let down by the lack of waist adjustment, but the price is somewhat on the hefty side.

www.pocsports.com

www.2pure.co.uk

After much digging and elbow grease, work has nearly been completed on a brand new red-graded trail at Queen Elizabeth Country Park, Hampshire. It will officially be opened on Saturday 19 May.

It’s been a year in progress as the QECP Collective trail builder, all of them volunteers, have sculptured the new 5 mile trail. Graded red, it replaces the old orange ‘advanced’ route.

As well as the new trail, the team have worked hard to renovate existing trails. But don’t take our word for it, have a watch of this little video:

Queen Elizabeth Country Park is easy to get to, located just off the A3 south of Petersfield. Connect the collective on facebook and twitter

Shimano XT Trail M785 SPD pedals £79.99

It seems like an eternity ago that Shimano released the DX M636 pedal, a design so obviously simple that you wonder why no-one else thought of it sooner. The big red pedals combined the advantages of SPD and flat pedals, and unwittingly launched the concept of the platform SPD pedal.

Many design iterations later and we arrive at Shimano’s newest incarnation of the platform pedal, which is gaining fans with ‘trail’ riders who want race-bred lightweight components endowed with a little extra burliness. First released with Shimano’s XTR groupset and since trickled down to XT level, we’ve been testing the XT PD-M785 SPD Trail for the past few months, and to say we’ve been impressed would be an understatement.

The bigger platform makes locating the pedal far easier. That’s something especially useful on fast downhill runs where you might want to get your shoe clipped out and clipped for foot-out sketchy corners and steep drops, the platform makes it a doddle to located the pedal when your attention is elsewhere. Not once did we have a problem with clip-in, even when we were in a rush.

Clipped in and riding the difference is noticeable, with a considerable improvement on how supported the shoe feels. I tested the pedals with carbon soled race shoes and more flexible Five Tens. The extra surface area is appreciated with the more flexible shoes (especially the Maltese Falcon shoes) where speed isn’t your priority, and you want a well supported set up for harder riding.

Cleat engagement is very positive, with a nice audible, and satisfying ‘clunk’. There’s four degrees of float, and the tension can be adjusted with an Allen key. That platform comes with only a slight weight penalty: 408g compared to 343g for the race-ready PD-M780.

Such is their performance that I’ve even been using them on cross-country rides. Even at the last  XC race I took part in felt happy to use them in preference to my lighter SPD pedals. The weight penalty isn’t all that much of a penalty really, unless you’re a hardcore weight weenie: the improved performance easily offsets the weight.

After several months of abuse through a range of conditions, they’re standing up just fine. No sign of play at all, with the bearings still running silky smooth. If previous XT pedals we’ve used are anything to go by, we expect the reliability to be bullet-proof.

Verdict

There’s simply nothing to fault with Shimano’s XT Trail pedals. Great performance and value make them the must-buy product of 2012.

www.shimano.com | www.madison.co.uk

You need to crane your neck a little – we’re still playing around with the chesty camera mount to get the right setting, and as you can see we got it a little wrong, with the camera pointing down just a little. That aside, you can still see the work that has gone into this new trail. What do you think?

More Mountain Biking Videos

Do you ride at Swinley Forest? Have you ridden this new singletrack? Let us know below?