Cabin fever got the better of me this morning and set off for a wee blast round Blairadam…..

My optimism didn’t last long. Main car park is like a skating rink and despite the thaw down Kirkcaldy way, there’s still about 6 inches of hard packed frozen snow on top of ice. Always one for a challenge, I got as far as the bottom of the horseshoe climb and turned back. An interesting and very slippy return to the car park!

Headed over to Loch Leven; anywhere that’s had compressed snow on it is now sheet ice so that was out too. Pitmedden is no doubt the same. Looks like it’s going to need another week of steady thawing before anything is rideable:(

Pitmedden lethal in places, especially where the land drover tracks have cleared of snow to reveal ice beneath. Some single track passable but a lot of pushing required. A bit better in Falkland estate but again a lot of pushing between passable bits.

Suspect Fife Coast path the best bet for a wee while.

We were up Blairadam way on Christmas Eve. The main paths were still rideable, but we rode out to the Cleish Hill road and over to Kinross. Cars couldnt make it over so we had the place to ourselves. The Loch Leven path was as you described so we took to the ice and rode the seven miles to the end of the Loch on it.

We’ll need a serious thaw and perhaps some frost to dry up the ground before there will be much trail riding thats worthwhile.

We tried the Coastal path recently, it was an icefest too.

On studded tyres you can get round most of the 4×4 tracks at pitmedden as of yesterday, some parts are simply too deep and rutted to ride. The singletrack is unridable unless it ices over or melts, the snow is too deep mostly. Given there is a foot+ in places this will take a while

Made it from Dunkeld up to Loch Ordie today, but again you’ll need studded tyres for much of it as the tracks are very icy, met one plucky chap on normal tyres who didn’t seem to be riding much. If anything it’s worse than pitmedden even though there is less snow. Lovely day tho.

It’s getting colder again so now danger of anything shifting too quickly.

Decided to just get some miles in today so did the off road circular of Kirkcaldy which apart from 1 off on ice at the back of Dunnikier was all clear.

Looks like it’ll be Glentress at the weekend.

I went out for a couple of hours on the road bike this afternoon from Dunfermline out to Clackmannan and back. The main roads are fine but minor roads are decidedly dicey and every bit of off-road track I passed was completely covered by a layer of water-ice several inches thick. Ice tyres might make some progress but looks like a no-go for ordinary rubber.

Can’t see it shifting any time soon!

4 of us tried Pitmedden this morning. Pretty much a disaster with loads of ice and deep snow. Best give it a couple of weeks unless you like hike-a-bike

Blairadam on the 30th was a nightmare – access roads icy as hell, but some of the singletrack east of the car park was fine. Unfortunately there’s some woodfall blocking it at the bottom and many of the wooden bridges are icy.

I tried to get further into the forest but the area from the just past the Bombhole to the Brick Road was sketchy as hell and looked worse from there onwards. Singletrack in the trees either side of the bombhole area was fine.

The right turn at the base of the brick road was snow, ice and a mess of churned up nonsense thanks to a landy or quad. I gave up at this point.

Other trails in the area are variable….they’re slowly improving but the wider access roads, farm tracks etc tend to be icy.