Close but no cigar

Finally some big blue sky riding, sunday was a cold clear day so went out riding after lunch, barrow bridge road was all frozen up sketchy, climb was frozen solid nice but I was still suffering, this is my local climb, that I do pretty much every ride, why is this causing me difficulty,
I even had gears for crying out loud. Winter hill was all frozen too, good stuff, over the top san marino was riding well, first ride this year, looks like it suffered in the xmas rains, loads of >1' drop offs now but all solid and grippy yesterday so I flew down, few walkers coming up one lady didn't appreciate me landing the big water bar drop off and out 2' to the left of her dog, hey ho. Legs were spazzing out by the end, hard work on the hardtail. Over to dam to turton moor and I flew towards tockholes with the wind behind me. Climbed up the side of cartridge hill and down the rocky singletrack, fricking awesome, best part of the ride, mainly solid and grippy but a bit of frost making it interesting, almost managed it dab free but an icy/boggy bit near the end got me. up to the tower very busy, down to sunnyhurst res with only a few walkers to slow down for, rode back up to the woods but the drop to tockholes was rubbish, tonnes of walkers.

Rounds roddlesworth, some quality midride fuelling, Sarah Nelsons finest (My parents took charlie to the lakes on saturday, lucky lad)  then tried a new route up onto wheelton moor, bit of a problem with the map not actually matching the trails on the ground and other trails just disappearing but made it round to the foot of great hill, rode to the top took some pics and did the full run into white coppice, first bit was as good as ever, the dirt road was all iced up, the boggy middle section wasn't frozen, the bottom section was fun but absolutely battered my arms. Met with Johnnie and his kids at WC, they were out for a little ride, had a chat, laughed at the kids playing, got cold, split, couldn't get warm again. The rest of the ride was rubbish, very wet and muddy round anglezarke, (nice views tho) my legs were shot, got to the barn just wanting it all to end, pity I was 8miles from home, should have winched up to geroges lane but could not push myself into it, cue long slog home on the road.



Some good proper frozen ground winter riding in there but loads of muddy bits in between and looks like the weathers going to change again before the next nightride :-( Nice to get out tho, got to slowly claw back some fitness. only 3 weeks til hit the north.