For those that live nearby and know what the weather has done, is it worth going to glentress or inners today for a ride? Will it be picturesque and fun, or just hard work and dangerous? (It snowed, a lot.)

Currently looking out the window from the hydro.

Looked at the local weather cam, that is not a lot of snow.

Ride your bike

In the trees will be fine pribably

And few people will have ridden it since it dumped the snow on us.

I’d say do it. Its going to be muddy mind.

I had a good 6/7 inches of snow in my garden in peebles.

When did the snow come in? GT gets pretty choked up top in snow, so could be a hike with an awkward-shaped metal object, if there’s a foot of snow in Peebles.

Picturesque though, and better to regret the things you do…

Currently looking out the window from the hydro.

Start riding up Janet’s and you’ll find out how low/high the snow is, then work a route around that. Or, spin the cyclepath to Inners for the same.

bruneep – Member
Looked at the local weather cam, that is not a lot of snow.

Ride your bike

I’m from Blackpool, this is more snow than I’ll see in my lifetime

Then even more reason to go out and play in it.

How long are you up for and what wheel size?

I have some 26inch icespikers you can borrow if you REALLY want to play and you are here a while.

I’m from Blackpool, this is more snow than I’ll see in my lifetime [/I]

Which, if you’re a white male is shorter than most 🙂

Current male life expectancy is lowest in Blackpool, at 67.5

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/feb/28/pension-age-mps-government-triple-lock-select-committee

The trick with GT in the snow is to find the good trails. It’s not that often that you can’t get up to the level of the buzzard’s nest, and that gets you falla brae and the blue, up the other hill to the tail end of the reds and blacks, or down the Fort (offpiste) and whatever that trail is beside the Fort. In the snow, that’s a full day’s riding really.

Above that, you quite often get into mashed up crap- where there’s been loads of traffic but it’s still snowy so it’s all cut up. Just really unpleasant this, getting up the hill becomes a total pain.
And then you pop out above all that crap, somewhere on the climb to spooky, the snow gets deeper and most people have given up on the crap, and it’s suddenly glorious.

There’s a couple of places on the black where the snow gets funnelled by the trees and much deeper, getting up to the tower can be a challenge- I’ve done rides where everything else rode then suddenly we were postholing and bike throwing to get up that last bit. So I just avoid that now if in any doubt.

The third factor, which you probably don’t need to worry about just now, is the Glentress Glacier- because it gets busy when it snows, quite often the snow higher up gets super-packed down on top of the trails, add in a little bit of melt-and-freeze and you can end up with a river of ice on the trails. Sometimes it’ll last after teh rest of the snow melts. It’s kind of cool, in a certain deathy sort of a way.

If it’s all looking a bit snowy then innerleithen has a different facing and is often completely different, and the trails have more tree cover.

Thanks for the responses! I did chance it, just rode part of the blue. There were a couple of other tyre tracks I was following, as far as buzzards nest, then they disappeared and the snow got deeper. Went a bit further and came back via berm baby berm etc. Was good fun. Would’ve liked a longer day, but I’m currently pushing the little one along the railway line path trying to get her to nap. It’s a glorious day!!

How us the railway line?

Clear?

Yep, is fine, didn’t walk all the way to innerleithen though

quite jealous, it’s a lovely snowy day in peebles, bizarrely no snow in Edinburgh at all.

I was up last Thursday for Doris and it was on the verge of unrideable out of the trees, about 30cm at the top of heavy wet snow, good fun in the trees though. Today would have been more fun as less snow and all the way down.

Which weathercam is near Peebles. That sounds useful