Yesterday I went down to Drumlanrig Castle for Walkers Cycling’s Demo Day and their club’s wednesday evening mountain bike ride. The demo day went really well, they had a selection of bikes from giant, claud butler, cube, marin, massi and some cove frame based bikes to try out. I managed to try out a Giant Trance X2 full suspension job and a claud butler’s top of the range hard tail offering, the Antaeus.
Drumlanrig Castle has some extremely good natural feeling mountain bike trails set in its expansive grounds, the trails are maintained by Rik, the owner of the bike hut in the grounds and an extremely nice chap. The trails are mainly rocky and extremely rooty with some very steep climbs and even steeper descents! The downhill sections are amazingly fun, even for someone as new to mountain biking as me. The climbs absolutely killed me but the views from the top of them were worth it a million times over.
The Giant Trance X2 was the only full susser I tried out and I was eager to try something from Giant as my current ride is a Giant XTC 4.5 and I wasn’t dissapointed with the Trance. It seemed to take everything with ease and was extremely forgiving over roots and rocks letting me take them with ease and at a good speed. Not too bad at turning, had to be led round a few of the tighter bends but the biggest suprise at all was the ease with which it climbed. I forgot I was on a full susser until I got to the top. Basically it was a dream to ride.
Next up I checked out the most expensive bike the Claud Butler guys had with them, a 2008 Anataeus hard tail. The bike seemed light enough and had some decent finishing kit on it. It was extremely bumpy on the way down at the back but the fork on the front was pretty good. Easy to steer, pretty much just point and shoot. The only problem is that I took my Giant XTC 4.5 out right after and to me it felt just as good if not better on the way down. The brakes on my Gaint (Giant’s own) felt much more powerful and responsive than the ones on the Anataeus and it was easier to steer round the corners and more fluid over the bumps. Maybe its was because I’m a bit more used to the Giant. I also felt like the shifting on the Anataeus was slightly smoother even though I hated the SRAM gear levers on it, which made me shift up instead of down. Every time.
After checking both out I bombed my XTC around a while before the BBQ and waited around checking out some of the beautiful cove frames they brought. If I was to built myself a bike from the frame up I think I would choose one of the cove frames to do it around they all seem simple, light and stiff and Rik rode a cove hummer (£1600 for the frame) on the evening ride and it was like a rocket!
For the evening ride we started just before 8 and Rik led us an awesome trail through the grounds that took in some of the best riding of the red and black cross country trails. I’ve never had as much fun on a bike in my life. I’d definetely recommend going to Drumlanrig for the day with your bike. Remember and take a camera (I forgot mine) and take in as many of the trails as you can. Speak to Rik in his shop and he’ll give you some good tips on where to go. I’ll definetely be making a return visit in the near future.