Our connection in Sheffield wasn’t for an hour so we sat in the waiting room trying not to make eye contact with the motley assortment of rogues, drunks and dropouts. The only sustenance available at that time was from Burger King, not being renowned for it coffee we tried the Hot chocolate. Yet another mistake, they’re good at Burgers – hence the name. Their hot chocolate is abysmal. It smells bang on, but tastes of powdery water. Still its something to consume interest as the rest of the station lolled around looking for an excuse for a punch up.

trying not to get lost

We got to our bunkhouse through a very spooky icy fog – the kind that shines back at you and blurs the edges of everything.  Our bunkhouse was in total darkness so much creeping around was necessary before discovering we had  the place to ourselves. I didn’t sleep well that night. The cold was obviously getting to the local fauna and the walls were alive to the sound of small rodents ripping at loft insulation to carry off to their own homes. We’ve stayed at the same place many times before and this is the first time I’ve heard mice or bats or whatever they were.

The following morning we had a leisurely start and didn’t really get going until ten. Breakfast was bacon sarnies from the local bakery washed down with a cup of tea and then we were off.

My aim was really to go somewhere new and this meant a trip up and over Shatton Moor.  The tracks were Icy with nearly all the surface water having frozen hard – the larger puddles had a good inch of Ice which meant that some of them were able to support rider and bike but others gave way halfway across.  As a general rule if it looked white or had air underneath it would give out.  In some places water had frozen over the surface of the track creating a friction free environment, ideally suited for that unexpected and alarming lateral slide. Such slides inevitably ended up with a foot down, sometimes to  crunch through a thin layer of ice into freezing water.  Progress on the lower sections of the bridleway were slow – stopping necessitated a difficult and ungainly restart often only to spin the back wheel on the slippery surface without gaining any forward momentum. Such instances usually precipitated a dismount to find a section of path flat enough to get going on. The bridleway joined a gravel track which initially proved   much better going but soon, that too was covered in ice making movement possible only on the very edges of the verge or by sketchy sections of ice where the edges of gravel protruded a few millimetres.  This track recovered its original friction closer to the top and there we changed the video card.