Tom Hill looks at why hiring a local guide, despite GPS and the internet – even in our over-explored island – is still money well spent.

WORDS TOM HILL PHOTOGRAPHY DUNCAN PHILPOTT

Our group paused at the high point of the ride. Huge wind turbines sprouted from the heather like giant white tulips. A bitter autumnal wind pushed and tore at rain clouds, granting us rays of golden light from the low sun then closing the curtains as an icy squall raced through. Despite the very obvious human impact on the landscape, it felt as though we were in the middle of nowhere; we hadn’t seen a single person since leaving the marked trails of Glentress an hour or so ago. We discovered a seemingly endless network of pristine forest roads, perfect for gravel exploration, granting views to Edinburgh in the north and linking into drovers’ roads that existed long before the commercial planting now below us.

I was in the Tweed Valley for a few days, invited by the newly established, and ‘does what it says on the tin’ monikered Tweed Valley Guides to be shown the best of what the area has to offer – whether that be big days on a mountain or gravel bike, or hitting some of the best enduro-style trails in the country.

Beyond the excuse of back-to-back days of riding after a few too many weeks at a desk, I was intrigued to discover a little more about not just Tweed Valley Guides, but UK guiding in general. For those of us with the time and inclination, there is little mystery to finding the tracks I started this story with. They are clearly marked on the Ordnance Survey map, and it’s easy enough to link them into a circular loop. GPS devices provide a comfort blanket to the navigationally challenged. On the mountain bike side, the unofficial built trails that the valley is increasingly becoming known for are meticulously documented in apps like Trailforks and Strava. At first glance, it’s not necessarily an easy job to explain why you should pay someone to show you around when technology will do half the job for you.

There’s always one…

So, why pay for a guide?

As we climbed away from the trail centre, it was a question that I asked Matt, one of the guides employed by the service. Before he got a chance to answer, he and fellow guide Janey had paused the group to explain the next descent had a sting in its tail – the smooth, sandy surface turning into jumbled aggregate just when you don’t need it. Caution heeded, we set off gathering pace, but feathering the brakes. As it turned out, despite the warning, an ugly line choice led to a familiar ‘clunk, hiss, arse!’. Before I’d dropped my rear wheel out of the frame, Matt was pre-inflating a spare tube for me. Well, that’s one benefit of being guided, I guess.