Lost then found again at Glentress

Mishaps aplenty today at Glentress. We started off at the ungodly hour of 5.30 am , it was snowing but not heavily and as we neared Peebles it actually got less, which is unusual!


The lights were all fixed to the bikes, just Baz and me as Clive was off on a business trip to Japan, don't know why he preferred that to Glentress, but for reasons known only to himself he did!


After about 4 miles climbing I had to remove the light rain jacket I was wearing, I felt like I was in a sauna. Today was the furthest we've been before the lights were no longer needed,about 7 miles, it really was quite a dark morning.


We reached the mast at the top of the black route which is about 2000 feet and stopped there so I could put the jacket back on for the descent. we soon scooted back down the forest track to Spooky Wood which is the top of the red route and stopped there for a quick energy bar and some liquid.


The first mishap occurred near the end of the Pie Run, a section that is very rooty and reasonably technical when I misjudged a sharp corner and did a spectacular over the handlebars, at low speed I might add. I remember thinking to myself as I viewed mother earth upside down, "hope my lights don't get damaged", luckily they weren't and neither was myself , apart from personal pride.


Further on going over the logs, a pile of logs which today were wet and slippy, my back wheel slipped and I whacked myself on the back of the leg with a pedal, much to Baz's amusement.


The biggest mishap was yet to come though, Baz, in an attempt at humour said " where's your helmet light?" I put my hand to my helmet and to my relief it was still attached, "where's yours?" I said, sadly his had disappeared! There followed much retracing of steps where we thought the most likely place would have been that it was lost, but to no avail. As a last resort Baz went back down Andys flume, a section we did earlier, and I went back down the Pie Run.


I looked everywhere I thought it might have come off his helmet, but nothing. Eventually we met up again and there he was, beaming from ear to ear, the lucky sod had found it, talk about a needle in a haystack!!


Anyway everything ended well even if we ended up doing about 5 more miles than we'd planned!