How low can you Coe? - It's all downhill from here!

Our staff at Clachaig certainly work hard enough and when it comes to leisure time they can normally be found taking advantage of the hills & rivers for some action. Some even take time off to VOLUNTEER to work elsewhere.

Last weekend Martyn, our assistant bar manager, took time out to help at the Mountain Bike World Cup at the Nevis Range. He spent a glorious four days sitting on the hillside maintaining the track and marshalling the downhill course. This was his 3rd year volunteering at the event and probably the best yet, helped by the weather and Gee Atherton winning the men's downhill with his sister Rachael coming second in the women's.

As well as being a part of the creation of the event, volunteering also gets you that bit closer to the riders with the likes of Steve Peat, Greg Minaar and the Athertons stopping to chat and ask who's taking which line. Not to mention meeting lots of like minded people to have fun with …..and of course, some shiny free kit.

Our sister pub, The Grog and Gruel in Fort William, was ram packed on Saturday and Sunday nights with riders, press, volunteers and fans as Fort William exploded into a massive party over the whole weekend.

Some people may think he's a bit daft taking a holiday to go 20 miles up the road to work for free and spend his evenings in The Grog and Gruel. Truth is he's a 'paddler' and he's bored…. There hasn't been any significant rainfall since the second week of April and the River Coe is possibly at the lowest we've ever seen!

 
OK! so a lot of kayak clubs will be out enjoying the sunshine and snow melt of the French Alps at this time of year (not that he's jealous.) but as long as he's stuck in Glencoe Martyn will be doing rain dances for the next few weeks!

I see trouble ahead!

Fort William Mountain Bike World Cup

Readers of the Grog Blog will already have seen most of these, but thought these were worthy of posting here too.
Last weekend the circus came to town in the form of loads of Mercedes Sprinter vans covered with logos and the odd bus/truck/incredibly huge American 4WD. Yes, mountain bike teams from across the globe made their camp in the car park at Nevis Range for weekend of World Cup competition.

Action from the 'side show' - the British Trial competition. All the things you never knew could be done on two wheels. Or one, for that matter.

You'll here us go on about events like this quite bit throughout the course of the year. There's two reasons for this. One is that we (I) love biking, and biking doesn't get much better than this.



The other is that its quite simply a great event to go and see. Its well presented, plenty to keep you entertained and, as the final runs of the downhill competition approach, the atmosphere and the tension builds, in anticipation of who'll shave seconds off the fastest descent from the gondola top station.

A great day out!