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Galloway Days & Nights

29.09.2006

There was a spectacular star-lit night sky visible from camp at the final ACE Race of the year in the Galloway Forest Park. On Friday night it was a reminder the venue was far, far away from the man-made lights of any major towns or cities, a reward for the frustratingly long drive most endured to get there. On Saturday night it came at the end of a warm, sunny day, but the good weather didn’t last through until daylight on Sunday. By then the cloud and rain had rolled in from the west, and the wet weather that Galloway is renowned for held sway.

The campsite was at the same location as the 2004 ACE Race, off the ‘Queens Way’ road near Murray’s Monument, set in an area of extensive forest and trackless mountains. The only local ‘inhabitants’ were in the nearby Wild Goat Park, and new Race Director John Laughlin said in his briefing that was the only area out-of-bounds, everywhere else there was open access. The only minor exception, but one that would trouble some teams, was that some sections of downhill singletrack on the Kirroughtree trail were strictly one-way.

Day one certainly made full use of the surrounding terrain, with two technical mountain biking sections on the trail, and a combined 8 hour run/ride stage in the mountains to the north and the forest park to the East. Competitors could chose when to run and ride (or to do just one option) within the generous opening times of the transition, placed on the forest boundary at Drigmorn.

Technical Trials

Next to the campsite is a section of the Kirroughtree trail called McMoab, a series of smooth, white granite boulders the largest of which is 150m long and 25m wide with a steep drop-off at the end. One mountain biking website describes it as ‘not very difficult’ and the drop off as ‘too easy’ ... but almost all the ACE Race competitors felt differently and walked it.

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