My spin today...

Yeah have been up to bstoe twice in past 3 weeks to get some training in for the blitz. on Saturday saw more clearing for new trail on the climb after the first or second trail.. pity about stage 3 as you say. but they must reckon they've still got 3 full runs as theres a gravity enduro running there this year.

anyway the existing trails are running well, ill add my +1 to those berms on house bound.. honestly think they are best I've seen so far

From the last drawing I saw there will be 3 new black trails and 2 new reds, but not sure if that is still the plan. This was on one of the webchats but not the most recent one.

From memory, there were to be 2 blacks from near start of pump and grind all the way to the bottom of expressway. A red from end of zipper (I think there is a short black link trail to expressway here too) to end of flatliner, which I presume is the one they are working on now.

Also a new climbing trail from middle of zipper to around start of stage 3/5 with a red and a black trail roughly following stage 4 to the end of flatliner.

One thing is for sure, they'll be great additions to Ballinastoe and will help to seperate the ability of riders as having people going for koms and kids barely off stabilisers sharing trails is a receipe for disaster.

Ah no. Is it the whole trails or the top sections?

I got out for first mtb spin post covid, took the hardtail to ticknock to try a fast lap in preparation for the blitz.

Ticknock was crowded as expected on a fantastic day. The trails were still wet in typical ticknock fashion. Did the first lap at a decent pace but what struck me is how some of the older coillte trails are really rubbish on a hardtail. Specifically eurosceptic descent.. and euroservices which is getting really worn. Metro 1 is great though!

Fitness seemed to be good, I flew up Toms and kept going without much in the way of stopping. on the second lap I decided to mix it up and tried shizzle/highline/homegrown which was eh, very wet and hence tricky. So after it I'm not sure if I'll bother with the blitz.

Did a solo GAP run yesterday on the ebike, first time I wasn't with anyone else so no hanging around.

Managed 32km with 1,150m of climbing in just over 2 hours, draining a 750Whr battery. In or around 12 pedals up (not always to the top and not always from the bottom). I could have got a lot more out of the battery if I hadn't used full power going uphill.

For comparison, the last time I had uplift I also did 32km and 1,150 vertifcal with 8 uplifts to the top in the three hours although I punctured twice that day.

Killarney over Torc waterfall.

I was up a couple of days after the work (It wasn't finished at this point). And its just the top sections, Disco Stu entrance is pretty churned up and wasn't possible to get into really. Irn Bru was still accessible but did require 1 minute of lugging the bike over some trees. I saw a ridelog from yesterday that did Irn Bru and they didn't seem to be wasting too much time getting in. They were no where near Aylings when I was last up.

I had the joy of going up todo disco stu and then had todo Irn Bru in its place in the soaking wet, was well sketchy. Theres a tree down on the first turn so watch out.

Am inclined to think Coillte going out of their way to put these trails out of action.

Where have they felled at ballinastoe? Haven't been there in awhile but some of the natural stuff had been closed off due to new coillte trails being built.

Top sections of stage 1,3 and 5 now felled. But as you say, a lot of the lower sections had been closed due to the new trails so nothing really worth doing anymore, or certainly for the next while until the next gravity enduro creates some new options.

No thats still there afaik. Well the lower section is felled but thats more than a year now

I don't mean hillwalkers themselves are destroying trails. The increase in walkers in the last 2-3yrs has led to clashes with mtb'ers and complaints to coillte. Hence removal of unsanctioned trails that exit on to fireroads or walkers paths.

Jaysus, more felling 😪

Glorious day at Ballinastoe recently, weather was beautiful. Midweek and had the place to myself.

And here's a youtube clip of the lovely XC trail around the back of Ballinastoe

https://youtu.be/nfrJVqjL7mw

Ah I know its unavoidable and part of the cycle, but always unpleasant to see the aftermath of coillte felling and the destruction of lovely trails. We will see a lot now over the next few years, a lot of mature trees now ready for the chop.

Lovely bike, what camera are you using for the video?