More of Dunc, the daring young man on the mountain bike!

The track in the top photo is considerably steeper than it looks in the picture, as are the set of steps which he took at a fair rate of knots!

Keeping up the family tradition

A junior member of the family, 7 years old, keeps up the family biking traditions (as well as the occasional off!) with a good bit of air on one of the local tracks.

Has Cive mastered the unicycle......judge for yourself.

Hardly ready for the circus yet, but still pretty impressive!

I think I've cured the creak.........for the time being at least!

The case of the phantom bike creak appears to be almost solved. A 21.5 mile ride tonight appears to have worked last nights fresh grease right into the suspension bearings for lo and behold the bike was almost creakless tonight. I think the eventual cure will be a new set of bearings but in the present financial climate this can wait until there's a bit of money in the kitty. Some new tracks explored tonight outside of Penicuik should make for some interesting riding later on in the year when the weather's not so good. I always find it amusing when reading other blogs from the USA and they complain of the cold because the temperature is only in the 60's. Hells teeth that's positively scorching here in Scotland!!

Trying to eliminate an annoying creak

For some time now my bike has been emitting an annoying creak and on the odd occasion an almighty crack on rough ground. I've now taken the rear suspension, which I suspect is the cause, apart and in the absence of new bearings at all the pivot points I've cleaned and re- greased them. Tomorrow nights' ride will tell if it's been eliminated but somehow I think I'm going to have to replace them to cure it completely.

Daring white water crossing (well actually small stream)

A bit of a mixed bag this morning. If we'd gone out at 5am we'd have been home before the rain came on, as it was Clive and I went out at 7.30 and managed to get pretty well soaked but tried a few new bits on the trip. I took him up a small off road path and managed to ensure his (and my) shins got well stung by the nettles there and we explored  a path that took us to a river/stream which looked as though it could be tricky to pedal through so with my encouragement Clive had a go at it as I videoed in the hope that he'd come off in the middle and provide some amusement........the swine got through no bother! Next time I'm picking something a bit more substantial for him to ford (and fall off in). We managed 20 miles and had water running out the back of  our shorts by the time we arrived home.

26 miler in the Pentlands on Wednesday night.

Three of us set off at 7.15pm for the Pentlands, starting up the Castlelaw climb which measures to the top at nearly 2 miles. From there across country to meet up with the path to Glencorse reservoir, back up that for a fast descent back down to Harelaw. We the cut back across to the path round Black Hill with the steep and hairy descent back down to the Flotterstone to Balerno track. From there back down past the reservoirs towards Flotterstone before Dougie decided to finally kill Clive and me off with a horrendously steep and gravelly short climb back up to near the car park at Castlelaw Fort. (He was the only one that cleaned it!). From there a fast zip back down the steep tarmac road to finally emerge at the east side of Penicuik and from there back to the house, suitably knackered!!