Autumns arrived, who put out the lights?

Monday, and the weather's brilliant and the tracks are bone dry.

Kathy doing her model pose beside the mare and, as I managed to discover, the filly foal.

When I eventually move on to an e-bike I might struggle to lift it over this barbed wire fence.

That track is a helluva lot steeper than this photo makes out!

The wall crossing...though it's not really much of a challenge any more

Baz thinks I should enter this for the Turner Prize, probably in the most pointless picture slot 

And finally, today trying to prove we've still got "it"...but I doubt "it"!

The equinox came and went mid week and suddenly the nights seemed to start quicker and the temperature drop by several degrees but the tracks still remain in good nick and with the forecast reasonable for the week ahead there's no reason to keep my mileage on track for the 6000 off road miles before the end of the year, it's presently standing at just over 4800 so there's still a bit of pedalling to do!

One day repairing a dropper post, next day using my own one on the descent to the Howe on greasy grass

Clive's dropper post which had lost pressure and needed a rebuild with a new seal kit. After studying you tube and buying some essential tools for the job it was rebuilt successfully.  

I used to drive a combine harvester at harvest time many years ago but nothing as sophisticated as this one!

This morning and top of Castlelaw cottage climb just as the sun comes up.

Time for a biscuit halfway up the valley from the Howe.

Ready to start the descent to the Howe on the Kirk Road, it gets a bit greasy on the grass further down.

Baz is off, but not off the bike!

The mare we haven't seen for a month or so and standing beside her is the reason...no not Baz!!!

A good weeks riding and repairing! Clive's dropper post was eventually put back together again after a few vital parts were acquired and the week finished on a high, literally with the trip over the Kirk Road track.

Ending the week on a high.....quite high!

First stop, predictably, for Baz was the toilets at the Squirrel car park at Glentress!

The top of the Black route at Glentress and time to show a bit of leg...

About half way down the ridiculously fast 2.5 mile descent to Leithen Water

Couldn't help but admire the flower bed display as Baz nipped into a cafe in Innerleithen for a buttered scone with raspberry jam (and very tasty it was!) 

A biscuit stop at the cairn before the final descent to Gypsy Glen and Peebles

Me trying to look fresh after some hard climbing!

This was some of the hard climbing, up fairly steep grassy tracks, note the helmet removed, it was quite warm, even for Scotland!

For Baz's birthday ride he chose the Glentress, Innerleithen, Gypsy Glen loop back to Peebles where we'd started from just after 7 this morning. The climb to the mast at Glentress is hard and it was good to have it interupted when we met Craig who'd been out with us a week or two back. The descent from the mast down to Leithen Water is manic with the odd sheep dicing with death by running across in front of the bikes! After a stop at Innerleithen where I managed to convince Baz that a greasy bacon roll was no good for a couple of highly trained athletes (?) with still a lot of hard climbing to do he opted for a raspberry jam scone and sportingly shared it with me! The climb up first of all grassy tracks and then rough rocky ones is worth it for the final descent down through Gypsy Glen into Peebles. Much better than a birthday party in a pub with a sore head the next day!!

Lounge lizards up the Pentlands......or was it couch potatoes?

It was blowing a gale at the top of Allermuir but the view over Edinburgh to the Firth of Forth was spectacular.

As was the view back along the Pentland hills

The start of the track known as The Goat Track which is fast and dry just now

The track down the side of the Shelter Belt, fast and loose

Had to stop for this photo of the bridge at the bottom of the track down from Carnethy Hill

Kathy and I came across this discarded but in perfect condition sofa at the bottom of the climb up to Castlelaw and decided we might as well have a seat on it!

Kathy halfway down the track known for some unknown reason as "Run sheepie run"!!

Sunday afternoon and the bee hives are buzzing, should be plenty heather honey this year, though none of us were brave enough to look in and see!

Baz, Clive and myself thought we might as well sample the sofa as well!

A week of fairly settled weather with a sofa providing some fun and games and Sunday providing a big Pentland ride with a lot of hard climbing, more weather like this would be very welcome.

Trying to fast track back to my weight before my 9 days off the bike

Wednesday night and it was up Black Hill to get the belly and the legs back up to scratch!

A photo Mark took just before sunset on a magnificent Wednesday night. 

Friday and it was back up Black hill with Kathy again on the fitness trail!

Halfway up the Black Hill climb and Kathy keeps on going, its a long hard climb of 1.5 miles! 

I was encouraging her to do this drop off and to her credit she (eventually) did!!

Saturday and the punishment continued with Baz this time and a trip from Innerleithen along to the 3 Brethern and then down to the river Tweed and back along to Innerleithen again.

The top of Minch Moor after the climb up the X country track from Innerleithen

Finally, today Sunday, and another journey up Black Hill, this time into the mist, but the descent makes it all worth while!

Came back after a week off the bike to discover I was nearly half a stone heavier than the previous week so some drastic mountain biking was called for. The full Castlelaw climb and Black Hill climb were called into action and by today I've managed to shed most of the excess pounds though the legs are feeling the effect of the punishment. Now to get back on the go again for the 6000 mile off road target by the end of the year. 

When a panoramic photo goes horribly wrong!!

I tried to get Clive to walk round as I took a panoramic photo and this was the result!

This is how it looked with Clive stationary, think I prefer the top one!

The bottom of what, though it doesn't look it here,must be one of the steepest descents in the Pentlands.

A good 20 miler last night to find the steep descent from Bells Hill in the Pentlands, a hard climb up to it but well worth it for the descent down the other side.

When a roadie struggles on a bit of singletrack downhill off road , if that makes sense....

Baz's mate, Les was  over from Northern Ireland for a retiral do and was staying with Baz over the weekend, so as Les is a very fit lad having done a few marathons and triathlons he was naturally more or less told he was to accompany us on a trip up the Pentlands! Now Les has never really done any mountain biking before being content to amuse himself with road biking, which in our opinion is a bit boring, so he was fitted out on one of my bikes and off to the hills we set. He stalled a bit at the very first slightly steep little bits of track before we were even anywhere near anything major, so already doubts were forming in my mind about the conditions he would be facing later on and how he would handle them. Much to his credit his uphill biking was strong save for one particularly steep grassy stretch where he performed a 180 degree turn and started going downhill again! We reached the summit in reasonable time and set off along for the descent, the video shows the difference between cycling on a wide stretch of tarmac and biking along a thin sheep track through heather! No people, animals or bikes were injured in the fun and games that followed, but our sides did ache from the laughter. By the way there were more fall offs than the one above.....

Black Hill seems to dominate my life just now!

After a hard climb up a grassy field you're faced with the long track to the summit of Black Hill, this was Wednesday night's trip up with Craig on his second mtb ride after heart surgery taking his life in his hands with Dougie, Baz and me!

A panoramic view with the new i phone about half way up the track.

Today, Sunday, and I took a different descent from Clive and Baz, which included a fairish bit of near vertical hike a bike descending through heather, I reached the path before them and took a few photos.

At last they appeared, still not having found the track down we originally set out to look for!

A biscuit break before the climb up to West Kip.

Black Hill has taken over my life recently ever since we found the true start to the track up to the top of the ruddy thing! Annoyingly for Baz I set a time on the climb on Thursday night which he wasn't able to beat today, albeit the fact I didn't set too fast a pace up to start with and left him with too much to do near the end when he broke away!! I sometimes think that I really am a crafty old so and so!

A good week of biking even though that's two tracks down from the summit that show on the maps that we've been unable to find, I can see this going on for a week or two yet!