Overshoes and lycra longs ...YUMMMMMMMMY!

So, it hit - the snow that is. I woke up last Sunday morning and looked out side to see the snow line closer to home than I was comfortable with. Guesty and Baller came down and

we gathered a few troops for a blast up 'the backs' which are the secret tracks round the

back of some of the mountains in the village. Loads of the trails here are 'way marked' for the masses - quite a lot aren't and will always remain secret for the locals only - this may seem a little clicky, but to be fair, these trails are fresh, they probably won't ever get maintained by the forestry bodies and trail builders, so we don't like to see them get ridden too much.

So got 'dresssed up' top to toe in lycra, overshoes, winter warmers and off we went. Stop

ping briefly by the Leithen Water on the way out of the village to see the salmon jump up the ladder which was pretty cool.

We stayed out for ages, we were all just loving it. Andy - the god of all secret trail knowledge introduced us to a sett off camber slate track which was AWESOME. There is nothing cooler than riding on loose rock and hearing it all slide around under your wheels.

As usual, Baller pushed the limits and got a puncture .... so obviously before we carried on, he fixed it and the boys took it as an excuse to have a 'bro down' with the bust up tube .... QT.

We got so carried away, we rode back up to the top of the mountain as dusk set in so we could descent one of the coolest trails on that ridge - 'Rockie' - it is what is says on the label - bloody rocky! Even though we had lights, visibility was such that the lights wouldn't have done much good, so we used the natural illumination from the snow and threaded the needle down the trail.

The next morning, we were at it again .... Guest Andy and I wrapped up again and hit the other side of the valley up.

It was an amazing morning for it- super frosty, the ground was hard and unforgiving, but it was just so fresh and beautiful.

We climbed up to the snow line at the top of the hill and picked out way through the trails downwards - stopping briefly to drink hot fruit T - damn, we sound like a bunch of hippies, but believe me, in minus 5 degrees Celsius .... anything warm is GOOOOOOOOOD.