Went down the local descent of Linnets clough today and picked up a fair bit of speed before being faced with this. (see pic) Thankfully managed to stay calm and keep going without touching the brakes as I knew that if I stopped/fell off it would cause the people behind me to do the same! It felt like the longest 50-60 meters of descending I’ve ever done!

I’d have come off, definitely

When I went back to take the picture in the afternoon there were 4 guys on motorbikes about to start on the descent so I warned them about the ice sheets but they kept going anyway. One of them fell off and broke his clutch and was stuck like Bambi on the ice not able to walk up nor down the descent.

landed a 15ft drop into snow and the drift sideways was like woooooahhhhhh 🙂

That looks familiar! Except in my case it was much further south: Anklegate

My sphincter’s twitching just looking at that 🙂

Where I was riding (Surrey: Box Hill, Mickleham, Norbury), it was snowy not icy, and you could rip in it! Great drifting, and lots of lines which aren’t normally possible had been smoothened by the snow into little jumps and things. The cheekiest way off Box Hill was amazing, like off-piste skiing; footpath on Norbury fun also particularly the wide open finish down to the big field near the station.

I was going to head over that way today then decided to just go and spin around local river banks and woods …it was way more slippery on foot than on the bike.

I usually avoid Linnet’s Clough as I’m always parked at Roman Lakes and want to avoid getting soaked right at the end of my ride.

Yep, I went down there today! Well played for riding it though, I slipped and slid all the way down clinging to the bushes with one hand and my bike with the other.

Exactly the same thing with almost every other trail I rode (walked/fell) today- got shocked by an electric fence after getting stuck on sheet ice on the bridleway near Church Lane and decided to climb over to the adjoining field.

Also fell off when my bike disappered from underneath me on the canal on the way back. Some guy looked at me on the floor for a full ten seconds and then just said ‘Ice’ and walked off without another word.

Saw those guy’s on scramblers you mentioned too- thought it looked even more dicey for them to be fair, not surprised one had an off.

Duggan- that sounds like an awful ride! After we had survived Linnets clough we headed over towards Disley for some nice and not icy singletrack so our ride was quite safe after that, although the canal nearly caused a minor crash.

Was on the ride where ChiefGrooveGuru had his accident , before even getting to the start point .
It wasnt too bad , but I stil binned it trying to cross frozen ruts and crossing up the front end .
Bontrager Mud X dont grip ice very well
Crossmarks are even worse
Lots of twitchy buttock clenching moments , and a saddle/balls interface that brought me to a complete standstill for a min or so.

I came off early on in my race today. After the first lap most of the ice was gone on the racing line as it was just above freezing.

That looks grim. Had loads of fun at glentress today with fresh snow on top of old frozen snow, with patches of hidden sheet ice… couple of unplanned corner exits and one minor crash but an awful lot of scares. Good fun though.