The new MTB trails at whitelee wind farm opened on the 25th of june 2014. These man-made MTB trails offer a great introduction to mountain biking close to Glasgow. Whitelee is situated 3 miles off junction 6 of the M77 and takes me 15 mins to get there from my house in the south side.
The trails are located approx 500m from the visitor centre and they start and finish in the same location. The start of the trails have small wind break huts and some picnic tables (could do with a portaloo as well)
The trails are graded blue with extra parts graded red. There is two main blue loops, outer and inner plus a small pump track and a skill area which is still under construction. Both the inner & outer blue are about 0.9 miles (the red diversions don’t add anything extra to the distance). Should note that the inner blue has a small drainage ditch not covered about 1/2 way round which might catch you out as you come round the corner. It’s probably big enough to put you OTT if you hit it wrong. I’m assuming this is not part of the trail and will be covered up soon.
The surface is atypical to many current man-made trails and can prove quite slippy depending on how fast you enter a corner. As time goes by, weathering and riders will wear the trail in displacing a lot of the loose dust that covers the track. The corners are a mix of both berm’d and flat while the trail undulates with the camber changing from one part to the next on some parts.
The trails are well sign posted so you shouldn’t inadvertently go down a red section
The red diversions are a mix of more technical trails than the blue. There are 9 of these red diversions around the outer blue trail and they contain boulder drop offs, steep drops, fast berm’d corners, whoops and a couple of rocky paths.
This is one of the red rocky paths which has plenty of loose rocks and bumpy parts to catch you out with if you are not on guard. My fun was cut short today after going down on of these rocky paths as a rock cut the sidewall of my nobby nic tyre. These are the basic TLR tyre and were no match for the sharp rocks lol 😦 Stans sealant did its job and I was able to pump the tyre back up and get back to the car park.
As well as the trails they also built a pump track. The idea is that you pump the bike round the track without having to pedal. I almost made it round but sadly I’ve just not got the skill for it. The pump track is not really for me but my Lewis my 9 year old son enjoyed it.
Overall I quite like the trails and they are great for beginners and family’s. They give my lungs and legs a good workout and are only a 15 minute drive away. Whitelee have done very well in building these trails as it gives kids and beginners somewhere close to ride as it is in easy reach of Glasgow, ayr, East Kilbride etc I’ll be going back to try to beat my times for the trails once I get a new tyre.
update 23/07/2014
The Skills loop is now opened and consists of a few berms, step mounds and wooden ramparts. There are a few red/blue lines on offer round the loop letting you try a harder line.
There is also a new addition to the inner blue loop consisting of a raised wooded path – although it’s about 45cm off the ground, the path is fairly wide. However, I did actually nearly fall off so don’t be too complacent lol
MTB mumblings 