Wet and windy most of the week.....how did I manage over 100 miles?

Various trees either blown down or branches blown off, either way I wouldn't like to have been underneath them when it happened.

Mark and I did the Red Road up to West Kip and discovered it had been trashed by logging operations, lets hope its's reinstated fairly soon as it's a complete mess for biking and hill walking as it is presently.

Even with all the rain this week, there's very little difference to the water level in some of the reservoirs, this is Harlaw which is going to need a lot more wet weather to fill it back up!

Barrie and I managed to find a track we'd never ridden on before and though there was the odd tricky patch it'll make a good diversion from time to time.

Out today and came across a cow on the track at one point, it looked a bit aggressive at first but a volley of bad language sent it on its way and it cleared the fence back into the field it belonged in with consummate ease!

Finally, even after all the wild weather this week I still managed to get a photo of a fragile butterfly feeding on one of my fuchsias!!

When you're pedalling furiously and going nowhere......

Before it all went wrong! We'd gone about another mile and were near the top of Maidens Cleugh when there was an almighty crack from my bike and I ended up spinning the pedals with no forward motion, a quick inspection revealed the free hub to be the reason for lack of movement and I had to head for base camp while the other three continued on.

After I got home, which didn'tactuallytake too long considering it was about seven miles but mainly downhill, I removed the cassette from the wheel, took off the free hub and discovered one of the pawls had broken, I put the cassette onto another spare wheel and cycled back to meet up with the others who were on the return leg, they'd been held up with one of Garry's wheels which was refusing to seal after he'd dented the rim trying to clear a water butt and not quite making it, so there had been numerous stops to blow it up!

Mark and I were out last Friday and took a few pictures at Harlaw reservoir showing just how low the level of water was in it.

Mark and I did a 28 miler on Monday and discovered that the Red Road up to West Kip was in a horrific mess from logging operations, some of the tracks were over 3 feet deep in places! And to think bikers get a rollicking if they as much as leave a 6 inch skid mark, hopefully the track will be reinstated, we'll be keeping an eye on it to make sure.

Finally, I went out today for a short low level ride, the wind was too high for anything up the hills and the forecast for tomorrow is horrendous, so make hay while the sun shines!

  

The things you see on a mountain bike.... a man in full Highland regalia with his bagpipes halfway up a mountain!

Don't know if he was about to play some mournful dirge to some late lamented soul or if he was being filmed for some commercial advert, but he very kindly conjured up a smile for my camera even though his teeth were chattering with the cold!

Mad Max was back on one of his infrequent visits, mainly to test out his new 1x10 drive chain and pronounced himself satisfied with the result, a few more rides are planned before he heads back south to resume terrorising the natives south of the border!

I've taken to adding in this short section of track if I'm out on a solo ride, it's not overly technical but has interesting little obstacles to ride over and duck under and most of all.... it's sheltered if it's a windy day!

Last weekend Barrie and I did the climb from Boghall Farm to the top of Allermuir and it was probably the driest I've ever seen it, the resulting photo taken at the summit in no way shows just how knackered I was. The descent, however, made up for the pain of the climb!

Over the Pentlands via Penicuik House then Carlops and the North Esk Reservoir

Before we'd even properly started Clive whacked his shin on a pedal and produced what looked like a mini Vesuvius about to erupt!

We arrived at Carlops with 15.5 miles done and promptly took the wrong turning, it gave a good photo opportunity though.

We found the right track and began the climb to North Esk Reservoir

Which we eventually reached and cycled round to the north end to begin a slightly more technical climb

Conditions on the climb must be about the driest they could possibly be and made things relatively easy.

An obligatory photo of the three of us at the top of the climb..... now for the descent which was fast and furious on a gravel road and not the slippy railway sleepers that used to form a lot of the way down.

Next on the list for a bit of fun was Threipmuir Reservoir which is only a giant puddle presently and Barrie insisted on being photographed biking down the dam and into the nearly dry reservoir!

Look at my wheelie he shouted triumphantly as he got the front of the bike up in the air!

Pride comes before a fall, so the saying goes, and it came true here!

A 35 miler today, the longest I've done for a while,and it was a route we've not done for at least a couple of years, conditions couldn't have been better and we even had a tail wind on the final stretch home!