I recently spent a week biking based near Aviemore with a few mates. We had a brilliant time doing XC stuff around the Caingorms and visiting nearby trail centres. Laggan is first class and the new red route almost as good as Spooky Wood. Golspie was fantastic - amazing atmosphere, great red and a hideous gnarly black.

Then we went to Moray. Oh dear.

We did The Hammer followed by the Mast Blast descent.

We started off up the inevitable fire track. So far so good. After topping out at the mast, we then lost a fair bit of height down another fire track. Then we gained yet more height to the adjacent hill. Oh well.

The Hammer started promisingly with a descent on singletrack with a couple of small jumps. The surface of the track soon deteriorated though and became loose and unstable. Even worse the camber was downhill which meant you were constantly trying to correct a tendency to ride off the track. Then the track began to undulate with some jumps apparently *uphill* which made no sense. We despearately hoped this would improve but no - it just got worse. Various attempts at jumps were very badly designed with off camber landings on loose rocks. The berms were also poor - loose again and often too small. No attempt was made to lose enough height to create a proper descent. The undulations were far to short. The final bit of 'freeride' before joining the start track was marginally better but still ruined b the poor surface. It looked like the gravel had just been chucked onto the hillside.

After this we were all for aborting but decided to try the black Mast Blast descent. This was slightly better, faster and at least downhill. Again though the trail features were very poorly built and the surface muddy. The final red section seemed overgrown and forgotten about. It was repetitive and lacked imagination. Straight, bermed corner, straight bermed corner, repeat ad nauseum.

It was massively dissappointing. Especially given the huge number of 'feature' signs, e.g. 'Widowmaker' next to seemingly absent features.

Perhaps the worst feature was a drop off on some board walk on the Hammer. There was a chicken run which was fine but the drop off option was about 3 foot basically onto the rough bank at the side of the track - a terrible landing.

I have never publicly dissed a trail before. A vast majority of man made trails are top notch. I know not every centre can be a Glentress but I cannot think of any other centre which is so poor. Moray had absolutely nothing to commend it.

I would like to know the rationale behind the trail build though. Was it an early build before anyone knew how to build a decent trail? Was it built by non-riders? Who is responsible?