ACTIVE OUTDOORS: MTB course takes a step up in riding skills

Riding down steps, going with the flow on some gnarly singletrack and battling technical off-road climbs. This was all part of my Level 2 Mountain Bike Leadership training course which took place over two days in the heart of Highland Perthshire.

But, as I’ve discovered with other outdoor leadership courses, there’s so much more to these professional awards than being proficient in the activity.

Leading a potentially novice group on a mountain bike trip is a different task to being self-sufficient on your own outings or heading out with a group of friends.

So our course – run by Cycle Wild Scotland and led by the enthusiasm and energy of Jules Fincham – got the five of us trainees to be quite introspective. Why did we want to be leaders, what was our motivation, what experience were we bringing to the trails?

Here’s where I hold my hand up. I’m not the best or most confident biker around, I tinker with easy repairs but I’m no mechanic, and I ride a dated hardtail mountain bike that has been fairly battered over the years, so I’m not that up to speed on the latest gear.

Thankfully, there’s plenty of time to fill any gaps in knowledge and work on riding skills before any assessment for the course, and the remit of this Level 2 qualification is within my capabilities. It involves routes that are rideable at walking speed and must be “rollable” – which means no unavoidable jumps.

There are other specifications about conditions, number of riders, first aid and safeguarding, and how far from a road access you can take groups once you achieve the grade, for example.

Based at Pitlochry, we spent much of the first day going over the fundamentals, with a mix of classroom-based learning and hands-on experience.

Some of this was done in the form of interactive games, such as labelling all the parts of a bike with sticky notes, then we got involved with doing some bike repairs such as indexing gears and adjusting brakes, as well as splitting and reconnecting chains.

Jules then took us on a short ride about town (and country) using some of the local trails to check out our riding abilities. This involved a few “tests” that were more like fun exercises – working on balance and coordination, teamwork and bike-handling skills. All great ideas to be used and adapted when taking groups out and about ourselves.

Then we rode some trails in the Black Spout Wood, including some technical climbs and one or two trail features.

Day one ended with one of the highlights – coffee and delicious home-made cake, thanks to Jules’s partner Lisa, while we planned our route for a longer ride the next day.

I was in my comfort zone with navigation, so I was given the urban section that started the day two ride, leading the group past the hotel and up towards Balnacraig in the shadow of Ben Vrackie. We’d looked at various ways of noting down our route plan during the previous evening’s work, so I had a plan of how to get through the back streets of Pitlochry and it worked pretty well.

The conditions were just about perfect on this fine Sunday, so we were able to concentrate on the extra elements that make up a good ride, such as sharing local knowledge and historical or cultural information, and generally making it more fun.

Handing over the leadership role to one of the other trainees, I was then able to focus on my riding skills as we headed through a golf course and up into the woods. There was some more technical climbing to contend with before we came to the crux of the ride.

Jules took over here as we negotiated some steep downhill singletrack that twisted and turned through the trees and in between a gap in an old stone wall. We walked the trickiest part of the trail first to assess the line choice and discuss our approach, before hopping on our bikes and giving it a go.

This is the type of riding I don’t do too much of, but having entered the Strathpuffer again for January 2025, it’s the sort I need to get more comfortable with. My line wasn’t great through here but with some advice from Jules and a few tries at some of the features, I’ve now got something to work on to improve my riding.

Once we dropped out of this section of singletrack, we were back to each trainee taking a turn at leading as we headed along some forest tracks to the Pass of Killiecrankie. The trail runs high above the A9 dual carriageway that you can hear below until you can drop below the road.

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Some might choose to ride this section, but it was too technical and too high risk for us, so the decision was made for us all to walk it. This was an experience in itself, passing the huge concrete towers that hold the four lanes of roadway in place then getting back on the bike to ride a nice easy bit of singletrack that flows down to the B road at a gate.

We got a lesson in managing road crossings here, as we emerged on a fast section of road with limited visibility. Having safely negotiated that, we rode along in a pack of six to the visitor centre, where we enjoyed a coffee stop (a theme seems to be emerging here!) while we talked about emergency procedures.

Our next step was, well… steps. A long line of them heads down from close to the visitor centre and we got a great demo of how to ride them at a controlled speed from Stuart, who was the most experienced rider among us trainees.

I’d ridden steps before but never as prolonged as these. However, I felt confident I could do it after watching the demo, so took my turn in the queue of us giving it a try. I think the trick is to smooth out the steps and just think about the overall gradient of the descent – if it’s a reasonable slope to ride down and you have some experience, it’s just a case of soaking up the bumps.

That was a bit of a confidence booster for me and I was glad I took on that challenge as we headed below the 1865 viaduct that still carries the Highland mainline railway to this day. A path leads along to the closed footbridge over the River Garry and we decided to continue on the east side of the river all the way back to Pitlochry.

Passing Faskally House, this route then leads through woods past a lochan then under the A9 back into the village.

You won’t be surprised to hear that there was more coffee and cake on the go as we finished our course back at the base, with lots of new information to soak in as we made our action plans to complete all the requirements of the course before our assessment.

I learned a lot from the course, as well as having a great couple of days with some nice people. It’s not all about the bike, but I’ve also got lots of practising to do to hone my riding skills as well as working on the mechanics. If nothing else, it should be a lot of fun!

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