It’s been a busy few weeks, so I figured a brief update was in order…

At the beginning of November I had a Bowline biking meet in the Yorkshire Dales. We stayed at the excellent YHA hostel in Lockton and spent Saturday crossing the moors and then completing the red loop in Dalby Forest. I only took one photo because I was busy having fun.

A couple of weeks later I was back again for a family meet-up, albeit without the bike this time. We got lucky with some lovely sunny weather, and threw in a trip to the coast just to mix things up a bit (I’m nothing if not daring!).

‘Cold and windy’ was the theme of the next weekend’s running in Snowdonia, but I had a nice loop of the Pedol Peris route anyway. Axe and crampons were needed from the zig-zags up to Bwlch Glas and then down the first part of the Snowdon Ranger, and I finished the last few kilometres by torchlight after a fantastic sunset.

More bike-related shenanigans followed when I met Gareth at BikePark Wales last week. With a full day of uplift booked everything was looking rosy. Alas my bike was stolen the day before, but that just meant I had to hire a shiny enduro-focussed Trek for the day instead – every cloud, etc.!

The place is awesome, and I’m fairly sure Gareth would have headed for some of the gnarlier trails if I wasn’t such a wimp. That said, I’d probably scope them out next time and see what’s going on. I’m definitely not enough of a jump expert to go anywhere near the black runs though (they’re a step up from our usual riding locations!).

Finally last weekend I managed to fit in a sneaky loop in the Howgills on my way up to Scotland for work. I have fond memories of that part of the world, having had one of my most enjoyable OMMs (the only truly enjoyable one?) there a few years ago with Greg.