'WHEN you tell people you race mountain bikes,” says Scottish rider Fraser McGlone, “they say, ‘You’re mental'.” He is reflecting upon this after returning for an easy-going training ride – no downhill thrills involved – in the area of his home village of Appin. “We don’t see it like that, because it’s just what we do. But I suppose when you think about it, it’s not very sensible flinging yourself down these tracks that are really rocky and where there’s always trees stuff to hit and nothing is going to be soft – especially at the speeds you’re going at.”

McGlone, 23, who has been a youth British and Scottish champion, goes on to muse upon on why the sport is increasing in popularity – not only among those taking to the trails themselves, but among spectators, who watch the breath-taking, high-speed downhill races in which he competes. “I think it’s because more people now know what it’s like. People who love mountain biking and have had a go at it, they've watched it and thought, 'Well I could never do that.' I suppose it’s an appreciation.”

Probably the closest most of us are ever going to get to a glimpse of what it is to rip, as they put it in mountain biking slang, a Fort William trail at championship speeds, is watching one of those runs on a helmet or chest-mounted camera on YouTube. Among those easily findable online is British rider Rachel Atherton’s 2014 championship descent of the Fort William track, rattling down stones and boulders, plunging into holes and channels, constantly attacking the landscape at speed.

Atherton, a four-time world mountain bike champion, once, in an interview, described the draw and fun of her sport. “It’s that five minutes of pure perfection,” she said, “when you’re like everything’s perfect. You’re so alive and so alert. I think some race runs it has been like I couldn’t have gone any faster ... What we all enjoy is going fast on our bikes. And for me, the fastest I’ve gone is on a race run.”

Perhaps, though, even more thrilling than a web video is watching a race itself and, in Scotland, the biggest of those is the Fort William Mercedes Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup event which is held next weekend. Its the 16th world championship event for the Nevis range, and it’s a race so spectacular and challenging that it has been voted the Best Downhill World Cup event by the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale). 20,000 fans are expected to head to Fort William next weekend. McGlone observes, “At Fort William the crowds are unbelievable. As soon as you leave your pit you’re bumping into everyone and everyone says good luck. You can hear the fans all the way down the track giving you support.”

One of the best things about the competitive mountain bike circuit, he observes, is the camaraderie between racers. “It’s actually one of the few sports in which you get this. When you hear people from motocross they’re not friends at all. Partly that’s because that’s what mountain biking culture is like, but also it’s because you’re not racing together, you’re more racing the clock, against yourself. Obviously, there’s your position on the results sheet at the end of it but when you’re doing your run it’s between you and the clock.”

Another pleasure, he adds, is the stunning locations “You go to these cool places that you would never ever go to, otherwise. The first World Cup race was in Croatia this year, and we’d never been there before and it was a little island, Losinj, really small,. When you were at the top of the track at the start line, there was sea on both sides of you. This amazing blue. We finished right in the town, in the harbour at the bottom – which was a little bit that hadn’t been done in a world cup before, a street section.”

McGlone started racing as soon as he was old enough to compete – at 12 years old – and recalls that his first races was on an “old Santa Cruz V10”. “I was lucky to have that sort of equipment from such a young age. That was and still is a race-winning bike. I got it from my mum and dad who have just been really supportive all the way through.” His love of bikes began long before those races. "I’ve always been on bikes from a really young age. Probably first started riding proper trails about 8 or 9 years old. When we were growing up, there was a heap of people from here who did trails because that was what we all did. I was one of the younger ones and I learned a lot from the older guys.”

One of the things that comes across with most mountain bikers is their love of their bikes – and McGlone has this in spades. He talks about the synergy a rider develops with his set of wheels. “When it all comes together you can feel the bike working properly. That’s one of the big thrills. When you and the bike start working together that’s when you start going really well and the confidence comes.”

McGlone, who has come in top 25 in quite a few races, and is aiming at a top 20 this year, juggles the professional race circuit with a bit of part-time work for his father, an electrician during the winter. It’s this that enables him to train enough and compete during the rest of the year. Competitive mountain biking isn’t yet a sport that you head to if you’re looking for big money. The UCI increased its world championship prize money last autumn from £5,300 to £8,800. To put that in perspective, when, in 2017, Chris Froome won the Tour de France, Team Sky took home £450,000 – and at the time there were many articles about how this was dwarfed by the winnings and earnings of tennis players and footballers.

It also comes with plenty of risk. Injuries are not uncommon. McGlone broke his elbow the weekend after the Fort William World Cup round last year. In Austria, he was on a ride down the Leogang trail, when he hit something, went over the handlebars, and put his hands out to save himself. After that, he recalls, he spent about six or seven weeks, sitting at home watching the races that he should have be in. “That was hard. You’re wanting to get back as quick as you can. I tried to get back way too soon. I had a cast on for a week, and it had to come off for the elbow to mobilise to heal. We tried to get going early but it was doing more harm than good. You can’t go in too early because you’ll totally wreck yourself.”

Nevertheless, as McGlone points out, many riders have surprisingly long careers. “One of the most famous British riders, Steve Peat, didn’t retire till his forties," he observes. "And one of the guys who is still at the top level, Greg Minaar, is still in his mid-thirties.”

Mike Jardine is a recreational mountain-biker and joint founder of Rare Management, which runs the Fort William World Cup. He recalls that the event was born out of a connection with skier and mountain biker Crawford Carrick-Anderson, who had suggested that they should hold a World Cup in Scotland. What Rare Management did with the event was make it much more of a spectator affair than most of the other rounds on the circuit. “Fort William set a trend, because a lot of mountain biking events when we first started didn’t have huge crowds. They weren’t ticketed events. When we started in Fort William the only way it was going to work is if it was a ticketed event. We thought it was worth the price of the ticketing fee. We still believe that – and it’s very good value by comparison with a lot of other sporting events.” The event, over its 16 years, has been estimated to have brought £37 million into the Scottish economy.

But mountain biking is not just about professional riders and race events, who can "rip" or "shred" a trail. It’s the rest of us – who are being increasingly drawn to Scotland’s many trail centres. Most of us will never know quite what it’s like to really rip a trail, but more and more of us are taking to mountain tracks across Scotland for our own glimpse of the dream, albeit done at a slower pace.

Jardine believes that Scotland is hugely well-suited to recreational mountain biking. “It’s pretty unique in that it’s got huge amounts of incredible terrain, as well as tracks, drover’s roads, and trails, and a very good network of trail centres. Plus it's got the best land access laws in the world – so people can get out into these places as long as they follow the codes.” The sport, he recalls, started to take off as a leisure pursuit, when, as the countryside was recovering from the dark times of foot and mouth disease, when rural paths were closed, the Forestry Commission started investing heavily in getting people back into the outdoors by developing trail centres like 7Stanes in the Borders.

Meanwhile, for those who like to watch, there are plenty of thrills. UK riders, Jardine observes, have also long done well in the competitive sport. “We’ve had people like Steve Peat, rightly a bit of a legend. He finally retired a few years ago, but for a long time he was the most successful rider in terms of World Cup victories. But British riders are always in contention. From our point of view, this is great, because when we’re promoting the World Cup, we’ve always got leading British talent. There’s a good chance we’re going to have Brits up on the podium.”

The Mercedes Benz UCI Fort William Mountain Bike World Cup 2018 takes place from Saturday June 2 till Sunday June 3