[Closed] Fort William blue

Supposedly a grade correct blue so a hardtail would be fine.

As for access, AFAIK it's good to go, travel restrictions on the other hand...

Keep an eye out on the website and facebook page.

https://www.nevisrange.co.uk/activities/bike/trail-facilities/

For what it's worth the r d is ridable o. Hard tail all be it slower than you probably would on a full suspension.

Everything can be ridden on a hardtail in fairness, it's how brave or confident you are.

Maybe by july you can travel to Highlands but the midge will be rife.

Blue looks good. Top chief is rideable on anything but it is no longer a red (never should have been) and plenty hard to ride clean even on appropriate machinery.

I did ride the world cup track on a 120mm full suss but I wouldn't reccomend it!!

I rode the WC track on a HT. Not very well mind, but it was still fun. The red or whatever it is now was fine.

They got the grading totally wrong when they opened the red- it's officially regraded as black now and tbh it's a hard black, and it caused some problems. So I'd really expect they don't make the same mistake again, this trail's very definitely got the job of "getting people on the uplift who usually wouldn't" Can't wait to get up there when the rules allow, I've not been for years now.

The black Top Chief (formerly The Nevis Red or briefly Red Giant) is really good too- and tbh hardtail or full suss only really affects how you approach it, there's some parts that are very lumpy indeed and can be motored through on a full suss but need a little care on a hardtail. But it's not really much harder to ride on a good hardtail. It's a tough trail, definitely high end of the black grade (a lot like Laggan's rocks, or the innerleithen black section) but the challenge is mostly technical rather than big commitment stuff and there's nothing on it that can't be rolled or taken nice and slow.

First time I rode it I was really pretty new, and riding a 2nd gen Cotic Soul, worked great. It was probably the hardest thing I'd ever ridden at the time, but the sightlines are fantastic on the hardest parts so you don't get ambushed/psyched out as much as on some trails, and basically the uplift means you can ride it as many times as you want so there's no pressure to do it "right first time" and tons of opportunity to improve, I doubt I ever learned as much in a day as I did on that opening weekend.

There is a new blue was due to be open in May but I read that months ago. Last I saw of it was a drone shot of the start but again that was a while ago.

Working on the assumption it is going to be a similar standard of blue to the trails around the bottom, our 6 year old can't wait to do a gondola accessed trail ☺.

She does comrie blue ok, so hopefully it'll be fine, probably with a snack-stop or two midway though.

Think I'll have a test run first though to check it out.

She'll probably be fine, considering Comrie blue has an insane black graded stream gap on it as an option 🙂

They got the grading totally wrong when they opened the red- it’s officially regraded as black now and tbh it’s a hard black, and it caused some problems

Remember bumping into a young lass (probably late teens/early twenties) near the end of the first boardwalk on the Top Chief (Red Giant at the time) a few years ago, she had been talked into it by her boyfriend who assumed and assured her it would be 'just like spooky woods at Glentress' before he sped off at his own pace. She was f****n furious and terrified at the same time, I actually suggested that she might be better off VERY CAREFULLY pushing back up ( she was off the bike and pushing down anyway) if she was struggling at that point. I remember passing the boyfriend further down and him asking if we'd seen her? I wouldn't have fancied being in his shoes that night. The Blue looks like its gonna be a 10k plus flow trail, should go down well if the blues in the lower woods are anything to go by

Having a new long flowly blue after lock down is something to look forward to. Not a lot of this kind of stuff about really.

From the drone footage it looks like the kind of thing I might be able to take my toddler along to also.

Fingers crossed.

Any updates on this? I'm going to be staying nearby in mid august, so wondering if there is any chance the new (10km) blue will be open?

Also I'm wondering how long the fireroad to the top is, doable on an ebike easy enough?

Also I'm wondering, what other easy smooth, 'smooth running' kind of level trails there are in the area. Is glencoe worth a shout?

It's definitely approaching opening, they're running a "be first down the trail" contest, but still no date. Getting pretty late in the season... I think they're being pretty cautious, rather than committing to an opening day like they did with the "red" and having to open it before it was ready.

When I was up there earlier in the year a bunch of it was complete or nearly- they've opened the very bottom part as a taster and it's really good. I walked up from there along a nearly-complete section and it's looking fairly epic.

There's no fire road to the top btw, just the gondola.

I'm up in Scotland with the nipper this week, was hoping against hope that it'd be open but sadly it looks like we'll miss it by mere days.

Lewis Buchanan put up a video of a run down Top Chief and theres a fair bit of the new blue visible. Looks loads of fun. Also looks like top chiefs had a decent bit of work done too. I'm off last week in July and heading to the Highlands for a week so hopefully it's open when I hit the uplift at nevis

There's still a bridge to be put in one section so it's a wee bit away yet. Was there last week, what you can see from top chief looks like it'll be ace. They cross over at one point, work being done just after the main boardwalk section.

There was volunteer activity today I read. Any goss?

Mate of mine was there, apparently they're saying late september/early october now. Bridge still not in.

They have stopped posting about it incessantly on Facebook. My feeling is it will open on the final day of the MTB operating season. "Opened Summer 2021".

Heading there with the kids in the October holidays so fingers crossed!

Was there Sat/Sun, concrete for the bridge was to be flown in by helo on Friday but weather wasn't suitable (Top Chief reopened late morning on Saturday). New helo drop as planned again for today, they're then hoping for it to open in 2-3weeks after that. They had 7 volunteers on Saturday and 15 on Sunday helping with the trail finishing.