It's always nice to ride straight from home without having to drive anywhere first. Sure Leicestershire doesn't have any technical delights or great flowing singletrack but it does (contrary to popular opinion) have hills and also some great scenery.

Choc called for me at 6pm and we headed across town to meet Steve and head out towards Burrough Hill. Starting on tarmac gave us chance to chat and catch up as the three of us hadn't ridden together for a while.

Once we were off road the local bridleways were as bone dry as expected. I had been doing a bit of research on the internet over winter and was keen to check out a new bridleway as it was on the way we were going anyway. For years we have dispared at the many bridleways that are dead ends or turn into a foot paths at parish boundaries etc. One such trail was a very visible L-shaped bridleway descending from the village of Burrough-on-the-Hill. My research indicated that it had now been extended to join a bridleway we often use to go up or down Burrough Hill and that there was also another new bridleway that joined it from the village. New trails of any sort in this area are as rare as hen's teeth so we were pleased to see it had a big new post with blue arrow pointing off across the field towards the village.

We headed across still yet to be ploughed fields to a bridge over a stream where the bridleways forked. We took the right fork with the plan being to see where it came out in the village and then head up to the descend the other arm of the fork back to where we started. At the top of the climb there was a sequence of three new looking gates all with signposts but then the next couple of gates were (new) kissing gates with footpath signs. Confusing...? The new bridleway appears to end just a few hundred yards from the actual village and turn into a footpath? We explored a bit but couldn't find any continuation so had to use the footpath which emerged in the village church yard.

Slightly dissapointed we headed back down the original L-shaped bridleway which was flat out fun and even had a very small jump into the field. It might not be anything amazing but we savoured a new trail!

Back onto trails we know very well we headed up and over Burrough Hill via the permissive bridleway. Our earlier exploration had eaten quite a bit of time so we started heading back and had to switch on our lights on Sandy Lane before we headed across to Burton Lazars. As we turned onto the road to head back in to town it began spotting with rain. Perfect timing. We blatted down the hill and through town to avoid getting wet.

If you are interested in checking out new bridleways etc try your local councils web site. I used the Leicestershire one here and in particular trawled through the Modification Orders register.