10 days in Scotland - Showcasing Scotland's awesome riding across the USA!
We know that Scotland has great food, incredible hospitality, amazing landscapes and, most importantly, awesome trails. So when we were approached to facilitate a trip for two high profile US YouTubers, we knew that this opportunity to reach the North American market, and further global audiences in the accompanying print publications, was a no brainer.
We were delighted to work with our new friend, the tenacious journalist Tim Wild, to bring partners together to pull this trip off and reach a potential audience of millions in the USA, showcasing the riding on offer, the adventures to be had and the unique offer here in Scotland.
Bringing two extremely popular, high profile YouTubers Alex Bowers AKA The Singletrack Sampler and Brian Kennedy AKA BKXC to Scotland, providing experiences and riding that they were then able to film and relay to their audiences in their own particular style was pretty cool.
We pulled together a jam packed itinerary, which would also include requirements for an editorial piece for FreeHub magazine and others, and from touchdown on Friday 16th August, it was all go!
The itinerary and destinations mainly focussed on the areas where we have destination specific funding - Tweed Valley and Aberdeenshire.
Landing in Edinburgh, Brian and Alex were picked up and taken to meet Ben Jones from Deviate Cycles to get acquainted with their rides for the trip, the Deviate Highlander II.
The all-carbon, high pivot versatile trail bike would prove to be perfect for everything we threw at the guys for the 10 days, including their first day riding the Golfie. Cue, a couple of OTB's, bagpipes, some trail work and a shed load of laughs - enjoy the first film of the trip from Brian.
The first two night's in Scotland the guys stayed at Glentress Forest Lodges, glamping in one of the new bell tents and enjoyed the hospitality and fantastic food at Riders Retreat and the Traquair Arms.
The iconic Heartbreak Ridge Ballater was the choice of the day for the first part of their Aberdeenshire intro and stoked could not cover the vibe of the day! Stunning weather, exemplary trails, dreamy landscapes, a bothy stop, dropping Andy our camera man and a tour of our Will's van are all highlights of this second vid, this time from Alex.
The guys rested and were refuelled at one of our favourite Aberdeenshire establishments, The Boat Inn in Aboyne for their Aberdeenshire adventure.
Flow = smiles for miles! Today was Tarland Day, fair to say Scotland's newest trail centre went down well with our US pals!
Topped off with a visit to the Balmoral Bar Ballater for lunch and more bagpipes and yes Queen Camilla was there, just off camera, enjoy the next vid in the series.
Incoming inclement weather meant a change to the big mountain riding planned with McTrail Rider and Ben Jones from Deviate. Did not however change the vibes of the day as Brian and Alex were treated to some of Aboyne's finest enduro trails. Ben Jones - you ripped btw! Enjoy Alex's coverage.
Mid way through the trip and the guys packed up, left Aberdeenshire heading to one of our favourite destinations, Comrie Croft for an overnighter, visiting Glenlivet and Laggan enroute.
Unfortunately, the biblical weather meant that rain stopped play at Laggan but was kept at bay at Glenlivet. Alex 'sampled' Kerians line and the multitude of eggs consumed at breakfast kept legs going and spirits high before heading to Comrie Croft for a bit of R and R with an outdoor fire chef and a sauna in the woods. The guys enjoyed the unique trails and hospitality of Comrie before moving back to the Valley the next day.
After some much needed rest they were back at it and our Marc once again led the group, ably assisted by Street Pigeon MTB, on a Valley epic, Gypsy Glen - with a few taped enduro classics, a Fat Batard and a chicken Balmoral sausage roll thrown in.
The guys moved to the stunning Macdonald Cardrona Hotel for this final part of the trip.
Think the title of BKXC's video says it all! 'This was THE most fun we had in Scotland' suggests that the stoke levels were high, have a watch and you'll see this to be the case.
The guys clearly loved their Uplift day at Innerleithen, the trails were running sweet and they absolutely captured the awesome variety of trails that can be sampled at this historic venue. Its not all full on DH tracks, but they most definitely are there too.
Many thanks to Gordo and the team at Adrenaline Uplift for hosting the guys on the day and for providing an awesome meal at Out Out: Gastropub & Pizzeria - a must visit if you are in town.
With an impressive reach and high view numbers (climbing all the time) and pretty incredible comments across all films so far, we hope that these films will inspire many of Brian and Alex's audience to plan their own Scottish adventure and perhaps remind us here in Scotland, what an awesome place to ride Scotland really is.
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