Venue: Nevis Range

Photos for 10 Under the Ben

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Comments and ratings for 10 Under the Ben

Spent a week biking round various trails from Fort William to Mallaig. 10 under the Ben was one of the very best. Varied surfaces some great singletrack. Bit confused by the official map which said it... read whole comment... wagonwheels gave this trail 5 stars about 4 years ago

cat89 gave this trail 4 stars about 4 years ago

I try to do 10 Under most years. It's a fantastic track and a fantastic fun atmosphere. wayne gave this trail 4 stars about 5 years ago

10 Under the Ben

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.

Photos for Nevis Red

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Comments and ratings for Nevis Red

Awesome trail, great description...not sure about the official grading! The red trail at Fort Bill is great fun but - one word of caution. If you hit this trail expecting the kind of red run you find... read whole comment... justhuckit gave this trail 5 stars about 4 years ago

Best MTB route in the country in my opinion. Fast,difficult and truly stunning. Gets to a point where you cross the DH track and my advice is to take that turn and follow the DH track down. Fantastic... read whole comment... bigmadchris gave this trail 5 stars about 4 years ago

Spent a day at Nevis range doing this route again and again. Great fun, highly recommended. Can be a bit busy at the weekends though, try to go through the week and you might get the trail to yourself... read whole comment... wildhighlander gave this trail 5 stars about 4 years ago

Nevis Red

You don't really need a gpx file to keep you from getting lost on this route - its all very obvious, but as has been said above in the venue description for Nevis Range, it's a bit misleading to call this a standard red route, it's definitely black in places.

I've called it a hard fitness level route, only because your forearms and hands will take a bit of a battering and if you're like me, you'll find yourself stopping on occasion to give them a break.

One thing it certainly is not is a lung buster. At the start, hang your bike up on the rear of a gondola and sit back for the easiest 550m ascent of your life. This is a good opportunity to look at the route to get a feel for what you're about to tackle.

Once at the top at tag 1, head right along the obvious wide track towards the start of the red run, and turn off to the right again at tag 2 where the red singletrack begins.

From tag 2 to tag 3, the trail has a good hard packed base, with the odd rock sticking through here and there. There are sections of bedrock, which offer good grip, and a few sections of northshore with the occasional step / jump if you take them at speed. You can roll these easily enough if you want though. There are a couple of tight switchbacks on the northshore as well, where you need to remember to take them wide enough to stop your back wheel dropping off as you go round.
Where the northshore cuts directly across the hill, there are places where the drop off on the downhill side is considerable, but the boards are covered in chicken wire or painted with a rough textured paint to give you plenty of grip where you need it, and are always wide enough so just keep focused on them and enjoy the ride.

Don't forget to stop and take in the view either, tag 3 offers a good spot for this.

Tag 3 to tag 4 is the steepest and toughest bit of the route, but where it is steep there is always plenty of grip on offer over the bedrock. There are definitely sections here where you're riding a black rather than a red.

As you approach the trees and cross through the fence near tag 4 things level out a bit and get easier. The surface of the trail also gets a little softer in places as you ride between the trees. There is one tricky burn crossing as well, especially if there's lots of water on it's way downhill, but if you can keep some momentum up you should be able to get through ok.

As you get down to the bottom you join a wide track at tag 5 that takes you the last few metres back to the car park.

Give your forearms a shake and go do it all again !