Made it to the top of Castlelaw for the first time this year

The top of Castlelaw after the hard grind up the segment known asThe Grunt!

Back home via Penicuik House, which in its day obviouslywas home to a very rich family!

Never a dull moment when mountain biking with Mad Max!

The rear derailleur broke, the chain got tangled in the spokes, it was a mess but somehow we untangled it and converted the bike to single speed and managed to limp home!

Still able to bike through the overflow at Harlaw!

Another great mtb ride with Mark, and the weather wasn't bad into the bargain!

Needed that new mudhugger today after yesterday’s rain

Plenty water and mud on the tracks today to test out the new mudhugger and it came up trumps (sorry if any Democrats read this!!)

Stopped for a selfie beside Glencorse Reservoir

At least the rain and recent heavy snowfall hasn't affected the wild snowdrops in the Bush Estate

New rear Mudhugger with my own unique extension

My rear Mudhugger got broken somehow or other last Saturday and the mess the back of my jacket was in after a ride on Sunday convinced me a new one was urgently required! As everyone knows, or should know, they aren't really long enough so you should really add at least 4 inches to them which I did today after it arrived courtesy of Amazon! I'm rather proud of the result too!

Doing the river crossing in February.....cold wet feet are the result!

Halfway across and reaching the danger point where you're liable to hit a big stone that could throw you off....

But success! I've managed to avoid any hidden obstacles and mad it relatively safely to the other side with nothing worse than cold wet feet!

Earlier on in the ride Clive was filmed doing the crossing at Harlaw, a bit grainy as I should have cleaned the camera lens!

Snow’s all gone.....nearly....

This photo shows just how dramatically the snow disappeared in only 3 days with a warm dry wind chasing it away!

There was still the odd bit of track under snow where it had drifted to a fairish depth but ice was non existant so there was no need for the ice spikers!

The river crossing looked a bit dodgy so we used the stones instead, better safe than sorry!

A bit of snowdrop snaffling the other day, not stricktly legal maybe but they were going to be well looked after!

Last bike ride before the thaw

This was the state of things back at the house!

The going was pretty tough on the way over to the Pentland Hills

The views were awesome once we got up by the reservoirs and well worth the effort

Its not every year we get a snowfall this big or a frost as severe so it was good to be able to record it in photograrhs

The Howe was as far as we could manage the snow being too deep after that so we turned for home well satisfied with what we'd achieved

Too much snow fallen in the last few days for any action

Tuesday was spent trying to tidy up after the snowfall the night before

Took the bike out the garage today but only for a photograph to show the depth of snow before it was put back inside and chained up again till conditions improve!

Some snow has melted but still bloody cold!

Still a fair bit of snow higher up but it was soft and wet and a bugger to cycle through!

Decided against chancing trying to bike through the river crossing today and play safe by using the stepping stones

Safely over!

At least there's still snowdrops growing and waiting to be harvested!

Every year I make a pilgrimage to this spot and dig up a few snowdrops to bring home and plant in my garden, I like to compare it to saving wildlife....well maybe it's not quite the same but you get the idea!

The track to the snowdrops wasn't the easiest though!