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Day 3 ' Glentress
Glentress is the most developed of all the 7 Stanes locations and has the best facilities: toilets, showers, good bike shop, bike hire, bike wash, cafe, lots of parking etc. As always, there was a choice of routes: 1.2 km Green Skills loop, Two blue loops (8km & 14km), 17 km Red route and the 29 km 'Helly Hansen V trail' Black route. Obviously, we opted for the Black route. The Black trail starts with some uphill single track followed by a fire road climb up into the forest. Of all the 7 Stanes locations we visited, Glentress has the most height to play with and the Black route spreads across several valleys ' very much like the Karrimor Trail at Coed-y-Brenin or the Syfydrin Trail at Nant-yr-Arian. The first section of single track, 'Soor Plooms' was very stony (not great for hard tails) but not technical. After this, a short climb, followed by more woody single track, 'The Goat Track'. This section has some fast single track and stony chutes ' but nothing very difficult. At the end of the single track section, a long 2.5km climb takes you up through the wood and out onto the fells, and a well deserved break at a wooden refuge hut. From the refuge hut, there's further light relief in the form of 'Britney Spears' - a short stretch of bermy single track, which leads you to a short climb, 'The Mustard Snake' ending at  the radio mast, the highest point on route. From the radio mast there's a chance to take in a 'variation' on the Black route, which we were lucky enough to sample after bumping into some friendly locals. They guided us half a mile across some boggy ground and along some single track to the top of a newly built DH course which now forms part of the Red route. 

The downhill course is about one and a half miles of very fast banked turns, with small jumps, berms & drop offs. We set off and what a course, its a cross between the final section of the Dyfi Cli-machX and the final section of the Marin Trail at Gwyder. You can ride it pretty much flat out and the banked turns flow into each other beautifully. A top detour and a lucky find. After the DH course, we had a 20 minute hard climb back up through 'Spooky Wood' to the Radio mast. Now back on the Black route, we headed off for some excellent loose, steep, stony single track 'Boundary Trail' ' a 3.4 km descent! At the end of the wooded single track, the section opens up in to some more fast single track cut into the hillside. After half a mile on a fire road you arrive at the start of 'Deliverance', a monster (5 km) single track descent into the valley base. Unfortunately, after every monster descent into a remote valley, there is a monster climb back out, and 'Redemption' is no exception. The gradient is quite reasonable, so its not too draining! 'Redemption' had a nice surprise at the end of it ' the aptly named 'Ewok Village', a North Shore style play area in the woods ' and what fun we had! At no point are the wooden platforms very high off the ground, so its a good chance to practice 'North Shore' style riding without having to worry about what happens if you fall off. After a good hour or so of messing about, trying narrower and narrower sections, practising jumps and the 'see-saw' we headed back out on the trail.

The next section of single track 'Black Dog' is probably the hardest on the entire trail and is quite steep with drop off and short 'North Shore' style problems to test your nerve. Back onto fire road and then the final Black route section, 'Wormhole', which starts with a Black Diamond warning about grinding your chain rings on the rock steps ' none of our bikes came close to catching the chain ring, but it was a good rock staircase anyhow! After this, the Black route joins up with the Red for two final single track descents (with a small climb in between) to take you back to the car park. These sections, 'Magic Mushroom', were excellent in their varied design and layout ' very fast, good single track with lots of little problems thrown in: numerous small bridges, some North Shore problems, lots of slippery roots A nice feature ensuring that the route end on a high!

Summary
Overall? ' 1st class, top marks for the Black route and if the short section of the Red route was anything to go by, then this is also a top route. Would we go back ' the trip is already booked!