CG just give me a shout if you are in Fife.

Thank you very much mcmoonter. 😀

Most folk tend to want to leave this area in search of money or a so called lifestyle but to be honest i need to be surrounded by hills and desolate/empty spaces otherwise my brain overheats, spent time working in a mates very popular live music bar in Camden in the early 90s and whilst it was an experience i’ll never forget there is no way i could ever live there or in any city or built up area. I’m a country bumpkin at heart 😀

I prob met you back in the day, we’ve/I’ve been riding round Mabie since the early 90’s and a lot of the original trails and paths are still there if you have the time n’ patience to hunt them out, to be honest if i ever ride there nowadays i very rarely only ride the surfaced trail routes, there’s countless miles of natural stuff that is more rewarding.

Nowt wrong wi the surfaced trail stuff btw but sometimes it’s good to revisit old haunts 😀

81/283 23/3/2013 off the rails by rOcKeTdOgUk, on Flickr

I can’t look at that without hearing Simon Foster (Tom Hollander – In The Loop) shouting this scriptline from the film that i can’t post on here due to the everpresent banhammer

Soma, looks like a really terrible place to live! I’ll avoid it like the plague if I’m ever up that way… 😉

Most folk tend to want to leave this area in search of money or a so called lifestyle but to be honest i need to be surrounded by hills and desolate/empty spaces otherwise my brain overheats, spent time working in a mates very popular live music bar in Camden in the early 90s and whilst it was an experience i’ll never forget there is no way i could ever live there or in any city or built up area. I’m a country bumpkin at heart

I’m with you there. I like visiting London, but I’d break out in hives if I had to spend more than a weekend there. Even the market town I live in, pop. 52k, is getting a bit too big for my liking, but at least it’s still possible to walk or ride out into countryside.
I really rather envy you and mcmmoonter. 😀

52k? – eek!…..our largest town in D&G is Dumfries whic has 43k and that even annoys me wi all the folk milling about although i can’t remember the last time i ever visited the town centre?. Perhaps i’ve just got anti-social tendancies.

Yeah, this area is a really-really terrible place to live, personally i dunno exactly why i’ve managed to stick it out for so long?.

I mean just how many sunsets do you need to see in your life?….seen one seen them all yadda…yadda

And hills, n’ burns n’ 3 mile descents from 2700ft?, pah….boring! – give me a manicured trail centre.

2500 square miles of nothing?….big deal………

Hills?, pah…they’re mere speed bumps

Call that a coastal path?, seen better at Blackpool pleasure beach.

Aww god!, not another bloody sunset…..

Yep, living here is such a chore it’s surprising i bother getting out of bed each morning. 😉

Visiting D&G for the first time in August and I have a suspicion it’s going to go straight into my top 5 of places I’d like to live

last night, local, small, co-op….

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HipstaPrint by chris1968, on Flickr[/img]

Chatting to the staff, they were saying folk were taking up to 6 loaves a time. Now, if you’ve a BIG family, shopping for less mobile neighbours or similar, fair enough. If not – get a grip, you selfish ****-wits…

somafunk.
I am somewhat envious of your locale!
Looks beautiful, you could never get bored of that.

I live two minutes away from countryside and all of it’s associated filth, Fortunately the ‘local development framework’ is going to bring much needed jobs, skills, services and schools by building thousands of new houses on green belt. Yippee.

Might go for a sail 🙂

Its the community spirit at times like this, or not!!!!!!!

Having helped clear the roads over the past two days here with a couple of neighbors, then there are those who just wait to drive out.

One guy was lucky to keep his wing mirror after Beeping at my wife 😈

yes to community spirit. just been out clearing the road with the neighbors. where we live there is 4 roads in and out, 3 are totally blocked with 200 yards of 3 foot drifts, the other one is on a hill so only 4×4 at the mo, gonna do my best to get it all cleared today

https://plus.google.com/photos/111032801268023395478/albums/5858858156264385793?authkey=CJ-X0t7ospaBnwE my locale

Not enough snow here in N London to worry about, it’s the wet roads and -1 temp thats helping me off the road bike. I could go out, but don’t fact a fall that’d keep me off the bike longer.

Pity as I’ve a sportive next weekend.

Hey check out somafunk’s pics, gorgeous! 8)

Am afraid to say that today’s ride was cut short. The wind was colder than yesterday’s and I was on a different part of Salisbury Plain doing some more exploring on the ss again. Again, totally exposed.

A roadie stopped me to ask if I had a map he could look at and, me being me, had one so checked out his steed. Blow me, it was a Litespeed and an aluminium one, didn’t know that existed. Very nice Winter bike and fair play to him he had already done about 50 miles with some way still to go. 😯

not far from me:

^ scarily in WYorks my Mum hasnt been out in two days and only tins in. I left my car halfway up the road to ensure it was safe/could drive back out to bring her groceries. How many other 70yr olds+ are in a similar situation? This is why I’d never emigrate. Parents etc need our support.

Not too much snow near us, however enough to ditch the bikes in favour of a walk.
Quite a lot of fun in the large snow drifts trying to make snow angels and a hot chocolate at the local pub (with roaring fire) half way round.
Rosy cheeks and hot cups of tea at the end, guessing windchill -5 on the exposed hills.

This was a couple of years ago up in the Lammermuirs. What followed was a Shackletonesque hike of doom for three miles. The top surface was frozen with powder underneath. We hike a biked in each others footsteps, almost like drafting, it was so hardcore we got the bonk walking. Our shins were ripped to shreds by the ice, snow rides lost their appeal thereafter.

Somafunk – did you ever used to go on the rides from Riks bike shed on a Sunday?

Roads still closed here in places. Spent 2 hours clearing the drive. Now I like to think I’m physically fit, I ride a lot and exercise almost every day. 2 hours of shovelling snow has destroyed me!

Been snowed in since Friday. Can’t get up our estate road in either direction. Not far from the sign on jd’s post. Dunno if Bradford council have got any excavators handy. It’s what its gonna take to dig through the 5ft high x 40ft long snow drifts blocking our access to the main road!

Pretty pathetic snow cover in Cambridge:

Not a lot of snow by brf, on Flickr

Footflaps, you should try heading over to the Pathfinder Way between Godmanchester and Graveley. The wind earlier today has formed some lovely three foot deep drifts.

Great fun they were to run through, what with their hidden treasure of cold mud.

Has somebody hung themselves in Somafunks first pic?

Not local to me, Cairngorm , but I will be driving up here next week so hope it will still be cleared by then.

Soma, I don’t know how you can tolerate such desolation! I can see why you advise people to stay away, nothing worth seeing there at all, no siree… 😉

Threatening looking clouds here today

image by piemonster, on Flickr

No snow at all here in Hexham.
Part of me is jealous. Part of me enjoys being able to carry on as normal and laugh at the rest of the country.

Much as I’d welcome some warms spring weather and dry trails, I have THOROUGHLY enjoyed playing in the snow with the wife and kids this weekend. No more is digging snow holes in big drifts a memory just from my childhood, it’s now a memory for my kids too 😀

THis is what we do when we have snow…
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLMKh4Fu-Yk[/video]