The snow's gone but it's hardly warm enough for shorts yet

The red flag flying at the top of Castlelaw means not that the Communists have taken control but that the army firing range lower down is being used! Fifty yards from the top I had to dismount a push through a deepish snowdrift!

Wednesday night and Barrie made a rare mid week appearance to bike with Dougie and me and the nights are definitely getting clearer, this was the approach to the dam at Torduff reservoir

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The road back down the side of Loganlea reservoir was covered in frogs and some of them weren't shy to engage in a bit of frog porn, we resisted the urge to intervene in their moment of pleasure.....

Saturday and its time to get Barrie up to full fitness again as Dougie has talked him into accompanying him on a 100 mile+ bike ride in June so we got a bit of serious climbing in starting with the Eastside Farm climb into a strong headwind.

Sunday morning and I went out for a solo ebike ride on high mode up in the Pentland Hills and bumped into one of |Barrie's old university buddies, I took him down a trail he never done before and surprised my self by twice having to wait and let him catch up, the question is, is it the ebike effect or am I faster than I give myself credit for?!!

E-bikes cope with snow and ice pretty well

The ride this morning which I did solo, I don't think it would have been very enjoyable on a non e-bike down to the conditions which consisted of ice and frozen snow. The e-bike gives you the power on climbs to attack icy sections with a bit of speed and lay off the power when you hit the sketchy bits.

I had to stick the bike back up about four times to take the photo as the strong wind kept blowing it over!

With the camera positioned on a convenient post I managed to take a reasonable selfie to display my new bright green helmet, handy in case I fall into deep snow, it should show up quite well!

This clumsy looking bit of kit is my homemade stand for keeping the e-bike upright while I was the mud off it. No marks for style but hey it does the job and cost nothing!

A rubbish week of weather again ending with snow on Saturday which turned to ice on Saturday night, but at least I did get some miles in on Sunday morning. On the plus side its to improve this coming week so hopefully a bit more e-biking to be had!

Using the ebike to tow an acoustic up a hill

The towing in operation using the “patent pending” tow rope of two inner tubes tied together to give a bit of elasticity during the operation! Mark achieved a PB on one of the climbs with me towing him! (Saves waiting at the top of a climb for your fellow biker)

The weather at the start of the week was a complete contrast to how it ended, this weekend has been the first for a very long time with no biking and the bad news is that the forecast for the coming week is no better! Can’t wait for Spring to get into gear....

A quick short taste of Spring..... but that's about it...

If Summer this year is like this I'll be out every day on the e-bike, this was Monday when temperatures reached a record high for Scotland in February ( it'll never last!)

Wednesday and the heat must have gone to my head because I went out on the acoustic bike.... jeeez was it hard going after the e-bike, I was almost home before I got used to the lack of oomph!

Even the snowdrops out in the woods were wilting!

Friday and things were cooling down a bit and I was back on the e-bike and making it to the top of Allermuir at that, the best thing about solo e-biking is you don't have to wait around for your fellow riders to catch up at the top of the climbs....unless they're on an e-bike as well of course!

Saturday and it's back to normality again, some rain through the night to enable us to slip and slide here and there but the short spell of good weather has certainly whetted the appetite for summer time.