FionaOutdoors

Keen mountain biker Karl Mott spotted a gap in the outdoors market while studying at college in Edinburgh. The business studies graduate couldn’t afford a car and so he struggled to find the transport to reach MTB Mecca Glentress, some 20 miles south of the city near Peebles. Now Karl and his wife Abie have [...]

I like to make sure that outdoors equipment really does what it says it will. So I have been testing my Gore-tex Active Shell in a range of different situations. The Gore-tex Active Shell claims to be waterproof yet also breathable. This means that while the rain can’t penetrate the Gore-tex membrane, the sweat, in [...]

I met an interesting chap from Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative today. We were at  Breakfast Media meeting and while it was early we did manage to have a fairly coherent conversation. If I meet anyone from the cycling world I can’t wait to talk bikes and gadgets and so we covered a range of topics including [...]

Two more fab Scottish event shave come to my attention, so I thought I’d share them with all you outdoors competitors/maddies. Monster Swim First up in another addition to the growing stable of open water swimming events. On August 13, Loch ness will host the Monster Swim. The Big Yin is a mile-long swim, while [...]

It could be the continuing rise in petrol prices, or the Tour de France effect, or even, and this is in my wildest dreams, some kind of FionaOutdoors cycling momentum, but several of my readers have recently requested information about how to get into cycling. Two requests come from women. One wants to increase her [...]

A new website dedicated to Scotland’s mountain bike trails is calling for more riders to join their “community”.  TrailScotland is the brainchild of off-road riding addict Jonny Smart, who hopes the site will  become the number one UK mountain biking community website. The TrailScotland website offers a wealth of information about Scotland’s popular mountain biking [...]

I wrote some months ago about wearing bike helmets. I have seen little evidence to persuade me NOT to wear a helmet. I have also heard so much anecdotal evidence about how a helmet saved a person’s life or reduced their potential for injury when involved in an accident. I know I have blog followers [...]

12 minutes of film stuff here but it’s worth it for the ickle kids riding Glentress with their daddy. So cute. That’s what TweedLove is about: Cycling for everyone. Kids, mums and dads, gung-ho guys and girls, British champs, downhill speedsters. The festival takes place June 11 to 19 and looks like being masses of [...]

If you like cycling (of all kinds) then you’ll love this new event: The Scottish Bike Show 2011. The Scottish Bike Show 2011 is being staged at the SECC, Glasgow, on Saturday and Sunday April 16 and 17 and for the first time ever the country’s growing cycling community – road, mountain bike, street trials, [...]

It’s great to see more campaigns aimed at getting women on their bikes. The latest is a Women-only “Learn to Ride” Biking Festival at Pollok Country Park in Glasgow on Sunday April 3. Although I have seen a rise in the numbers of women out on their bikes in recent years there are still far [...]