10 Under the Ben route

This is one lap of the course used for the 2011 10 Under the Ben endurance mountain bike race.

The course starts by looping round the back of the ski-centre on the forest tracks. The single-track starts at Tag1 where you enter the trees on a twisty closed-in narrow and quite natural feeling section of trail.

At Tag2 you have a steep rock obstacle to come down, and then you are on a fireroad up to Tag3. This is the start of a kitty-litter smooth section of trail with no obsticles, just a smooth undulating sweeping and quite fast trail.

At Tag4 you have a short natural rocky and muddy descent and then turn the corner to continue as the trail gets progressively muddy and soft, until you pop out at Tag5 and follow a fireroad which gradually climbs all the way along the bottom edge of the course. Then you turn the corner and are faced with the biggest climb of the course. Mainly on solid fireroads (except for a section of singletrack between Tag6 and Tag7) you climb all the way to the highest point on the course at Tag8.

This is where you turn right onto more singletrack and follow a fairly flat and smooth track under the path of the Gondola, over a bridge and on to Tag9 where you are faced with a short but very steep climb (quite a challenge to stay on the bike here).

At Tag10 you are back on fireroad and have a sequence of natural single track sections and fireroad sections between Tag11 and Tag15. This is where you cross a small burn and make a start along another solid kitty-litter smooth singletrack which sweeps and winds its way along breaking into sections of easy north-shore in places. After another bridge crossing you pop out at Tag16 and have a fireroad climb over to Tag17.

Once again you start to descend through the trees and this natural feeling singletrack has bomb-hole type undulations, and rooty sweeping turns. At Tag18 you need to watch out for a tight right-hand turn to enter a rock garden descent before going over a final bridge crossing.

Then you just have a final spin along the side of the car park, and a little climb up into the trees behind the starting area before you are back where you started.