Day Six - Drumlanrig Castle Blue

Of all the days we spent riding last week (we've now arrived home), Drumlanrig is the most difficult one to write about. It's nothing to do with the route, and everything to do with my body finally crumbling under the pressure I'd put it under the previous few days.

Drumlanrig Castle is, I suppose, predominantly just that. An imposing pile of pink stone, parapets like icing with a sweeping pink driveway to match. The mountain bike trails are famously built and curated by Rik Allsop, an ex XC and DH nutter - as a result you'd hope he knows his trail building. As it turns out, he does.

The Blue starts innocuously enough - the ascent somewhat predictable by this point. Except, actually, it's not. The surface of the Red route is much talked about, involving as it does most of the tree roots on the estate in one way or another. The surface of the Blue is never mentioned and it's a shame. It provides certain challenges, especially if you are used to ascents being on fire roads, and lets face it, Blue routes rarely ascend on anything else apart from Glentrool's. Drumlanrig's is a fascinating mixture of broken rocks embedded in compacted mud but where the rocks protude just enough to throw you off if you're not careful, the odd root here or there, surfaces akin to cobbles and many others besides, and on the descents it veers from gentle swooping compacted mud and track sections to bits where a trailer-load of fist sized and bigger rocks have been dumped, providing a somewhat moving sliding surface to try and find traction on. It's an interesting lesson in weight distribution, not being lazy about picking lines when ascending, and letting go and having faith on the descents.

The other thing I learnt was that sometimes you need to get off and smell the coffee. Drumlanrig is a working estate, but there's a reason someone decided to build a massive castle here and I'm willing to bet the beautiful River Nith, plunging in places and meandering in others though the ravines it's etched out through the years, was one of them. It's stunning, and both the Blue and Red routes reward riders who resist the lure of plummeting down the gorgeous swooping tracks and instead pause momentarily to take a quick detour to see the rapids in all their glory - from 50 metres above.

It may be clear from the above that I was not in attack mode. I wish I had been, Rik recommended a perfect route mixing Blue and Red which on any other day we could have done but which today would have been asking for trouble. He's very friendly,  very approachable, very knowleagable and very good with kids. If you're looking for somewhere where, quite literally, the whole family can go riding, you can't go wrong. If you're looking for somewhere that feels like riding with nature instead of across it, this too is the place you're looking for. It's not manicured, it's not over hacked and slashed, it's not neat and tidy and ordered. It is fun. A really rather large amount of silly fun.