blood sweat and ......1 beer... sweet singletrack

Had a great days riding just half an hour from home on Sunday guided by friend Andrew and joined by Tom and Paul around Andrews local woodland singletrack trails in Mid Lothian - south of Edinburgh City.
An area full of the industrial revolution era, historic sites, long closed coal mines (pits), and the old railway lines which connected the communites and served the industries...

We earned a nice cold beer after a 6 hour ride with next to no road work, exausted at the days end with a few bleeding thorn scrapes and nettle stings it was an epic day!...

First trail of the day...


And stopping at Dahousie castle to look at the birds of prey at there falconry...





Then onto some singletrack through woods...its this way!...



And what a nice trail...



Then a trail along a field not very visable on the ground we had to take to the field tramlines...




Then onto an old rubble green road in true sense of the word,usually 22 feet between hedges (hawthorn or beach-nowadays matured to trees if left uncut...)
Then at an old bridge re-enforced underneath with bricks on the old road a footpath dissapeared into the conifers...


And it went on and on and on...


Unridden by andrew i went first with the camera rolling and the trail was a gem...




Eventully we passed through a farm and i saw this odd thing...a railway carriage on rubber wheels!...


Heading downhill this was a really nice trail...


Then it was onto the old railwayline walk,popular at weekends and down into roslin glen at its powder mills...where the river esk has cut a deep wooded gorge on its winding way to its estuary in the Firth of Forth at Musselburgh...





Andrew and Tom...


The cuttings into the natural rocks here where brick buildings have been made is superb and a heritage site...i need to come back here soon on foot for some photos...
the helmet cam wizzes by too quick...




What goes down has to go up..a long steep push...


To a fantastic view and treetop colour of green...how many shades are here?...


And the ruins of .roslin castle..on a colditz style impregnable rock...



Heading for another trail we passed what was once the Roslin Inn...dated 1660...


Look at some of the famous dignitaries who had stayed here...



The next trail we rode was super sweet..i hit the camera on a low branch near the start and it switched off missing a bit of the trail...what you see is about 2 thirds...pity as it had some nice tight and steep switchbacks...






Then we headed down a glen and following andy i sat too close behind and messed up some steep railway sleeper steps and T boned him going over the bars!..luckily i grabbed a branch and spun myself round but still got a face plant of young nettles on my left cheek,arm and leg...ouch!...
and a few wounds...such is life...part of biking...



Watch it and weep here...




Another trail reveiled some sweet BMX jumps...a bit steep for me to have a go riding today on the 29er with the seat up...but there well made...




Nearly done now...




Mid Lothian is not as flat as it looks and we did a lot of climbing and descending...


What impressed me was the lenght of the trails compared to East Lothians and for a Sunday they were deserted...roll on the next ride around here...