Best of Backyard Newcastleton | Mike Wood

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After a brief hiatus, Best of Backyard returns with a trip to the Scottish Borders to visit HB.130 ambassador, Mr. Mike Wood. We’re nowhere near the usual Borders haunts but very much in Reiver country and near one of the lesser ridden of the Seven Stanes, Newcastleton.

Newcastleton sits just inside the Scottish Border in what was formerly the lawless Reiver territory but has since become far more civilised. Plantation forests, farmland and wind farms dominate the landscape, with villages and towns hugging the valley floor, often where bridges cross the larger rivers. The hills here show the remnants of Iron Age forts and Roman roads, meaning humans have roamed this part of the World and made their mark for the last two and a half thousand years.

The Grapes Hotel would be our stop for the night, the first coaching inn in the village, and a listed building, that was designed by the Duke of Buccleuch during the 18th Century land clearances. Definitely worth a stop for the mighty fish and chips if you’re passing for a lap.

We wind forward the clock to 2021 but it’s not long before Newcastleton resident and HB.130 ambassador Mike is taking us back a few decades with an impressive collection of retro bikes, with some retro Hope kit on some of them. Ti Glide hubs and C2 brakes are amongst the collection of Marins, San Andreas downhill bikes and Pace race machines.

Thunder and lightning had been a fixture of the forecast the night before our ride and running into the day itself, we’d poke our heads out to find that the rain had come nothing and the day was rapidly warming. When it comes to backyard trails, Mike is a lucky boy indeed. Having taken on restoring an 18th Century farm had found himself with the Newcastleton trail centre a thirty second ride from his front door. Kielder and the great forests of the Borders lie beyond should a bigger adventure be on the cards.

We’re soon slaloming sheep poo up the first fire road climb and it’s all of a minute before we meet the first bit of trail. The Cross Border Route runs through this part of the forest as well as the dedicated mountain bike trails. We winch our way to the top of the climb and waste no time getting stuck into the first descent.

Newcastleton feels like a trail centre that hasn’t been hammered by the thousands of wheels that other trail centres see, and even in the middle of the summer holidays, we only see two other riders all day. The jumps are easy to clear with the lips in good nick and the berms catch you and spit you out for another lap pretty quickly. While it’s not super technical, the fast, swoopy nature of the trail means you’d not get bored very quickly.

Sadly, the more distant parts of the trails are off limits due to some serious felling, but there’s plenty to keep us occupied. In the woods, the trails are greasy, still to lose the morning dew, but the green is in full effect. Wood sorrell and moss carpet every surface, with the trail itself carving a slate grey ribbon through the green. There’s not many roots, but when they do appear, they are greasy as any root I have ever encountered.

Out of the darker woods and the green is interrupted by the tallest foxgloves I have ever seen. The bright pink hues stand out amongst the cool shade of the trees, drawing your eye away from the trail ahead. With the going so fast and swoopy, getting too distracted by the flora could spell disaster. Luckily, we all stay on track and it’s not long before we’re spat out onto the fire road we climbed on to tackle the super swoopers of the longer descent that runs through some much taller fir trees.

While Mike is very happy to have the escape of an all-weather trail network on his doorstep, he reckons he found it hard to see the wood for the trees during lockdown. The laps blended into one another as did the days, probably similar to what an awful lot of us experienced, but he’s definitely more appreciative of the head-clearing blast that is all but a minute away.

Trying to keep tabs with Mike shows he knows where he’s going and his HB.130 is the ideal machine for flying around Newcastleton, even if there’s a retro machine winking at him in the shed. Not shy of a low cadence grind to show you a clean pair of heels on the climbs either, Mike let’s the riding do the talking.

Where we choose to live is often, if we’re lucky, dictated by the local riding, and Mike couldn’t really have better on his doorstep. Prime time all-weather trails that don’t get the ill-effects of massive amounts of traffic like most of the other Seven Stanes sites see.