Mountain biking through the woods

I gave my old mountain bike a bit service this afternoon then cycled up onto Ashridge then along a track we'd walked along that goes through Berkhamsted Common past a golf course, then down into Berkhamsted. It's a nice track for cycling as it's pretty flat, but with enough mud and bumpy bits to make it interesting. The roads are free of snow and ice following last night's thaw, but the woodland tracks are still pretty slushy. I might try out some longer off road rides in the future, and haven't been on my old bike for quite some time - it's only a cheap Halfords Apollo FS26, but has full suspension, a front disk brake and a good range of 21 gears.

The weather's been a bit snowy and icy this week, and although we only had a half inch of snow fall on two occasions, the temperature has stayed below freezing until the weekend. So during the week I've been driving to work and going to the sports centre at lunchtime (2 gym sessions, spinning class and swim). Yesterday the weather was fine so I did a 10 mile walk on snowy tracks from home up Aldbury Nowers (pictured above), Pitstone Hill, Ivinghoe Beacon and back via the Ashridge woods cafe. I had tea and a home made Granola Bar - that probably had more calories than I'd used on the walk. Heard some deer rutting loudly but when I went to investigate found it was just 2 little roe deer. I was expecting bigger black sika stags like I saw earlier. This morning Nicky and I walked around the partly frozen College Lake in the mist.