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Glentress Forest in the Scottish Borders is a deservedly popular riding destination, and with winter approaching so fast that the pressure wave is making our ears bleed, the benevolent Forestry Commission have chucked in a couple of handy extra facilities to make those cold, wet rides even more fun.
First up is a new changing room in the Hub car park. “We expect to see many bikers at Glentress over the Christmas period and before the really cold weather sets in we thought a nice warm and dry changing room would be a popular addition” says Jeremy Thompson of the
Commission’s Borders office. And he’s not wrong…
The new changing room is a blokes’ one, with ladies’ changing facilities in the Hub cafe itself. Or rather, in a separate room in the same building. On the subject of the cafe, we had an amusing press release from Cycling Scotland the other day about the revolutionary new activity of “night riding” as “introduced into Scotland by Emma Guy and Tracy Bunglar”. We think they probably mean Tracy Brunger, who runs the Hub cafe with Emma. Anyway, riding at night eh? There’s an idea, someone had better tell the light manufacturers to make special lights for it…
But we digress. Plenty of people night ride Glentress (indeed, Emma and Tracy run guided night rides during the hours of darkness, which at this time of year is most of them), and the FC’s other Crimbo pressie is a new sensor-activated light in the quarry car park from which the trails start, making that whole getting-bike-out-of-car thing much easier and giving you a considerably better chance of getting the front wheel in with the disc rotor on the same side as the caliper.
The final bit of festive Glentress-related news is that the Christmas tree sales centre at the forest will open on 5 December. This will make the forest car park considerably busier, and riders may have to park a little further up into the forest. There’ll be a parking attendant on hand, so just follow their waving arms and all will be well.
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