In reply to blackmountainbiker:
> > It struck me the last time I was at GT that trail-centres are to mountain biking what indoor walls are to climbing.
> Couldn't disagree more. Trail centres offer some amazing biking and great outdoor experiences. I've been mountain biking for 30 years now and I think you are missing out on some fantastic adventures if you just stick to trail centres but in the UK you have hunt pretty hard to find anything like the length and flow of good T C singletrack outside of TCs.
Perhaps down south but up here we're lucky enough that there's plenty of wild country to go mountain biking.
I'm not saying that a well constructed and thought out singletrack at a TC isn't fun or exhilarating to ride. They are, but they're sanitised environments compared with wild trails. Now whether those wild trails are 1, 2 or 3 *'s is another thing entirely.
You're going to get more climbing done spending a day at the EICA than you would driving to Glen Coe, walking in to Rannoch Wall and climbing. Sure the climbings going to be better on the Buachaille than plastic rock but the routes might not be as flowing as the plastic rock.
There are plenty of climbers who'll never climb outdoors in the same way as there are plenty of mountain bikers who'll never leave a trail centre.
Post edited at 12:23