midweek pentlands group ride...

woke up to rain today...first rain for weeks..lovely though as its cleared the air and that close sticky heat of wednesday
continuing the week at home biking holiday...again this wednesday evening i picked up friend paul and drove up to Bonaly in Edinburgh for the weekly The Bike Chain Edinburgh wednesday ride as advertised on singletrack world forum ...
Mark the TBC shop owner and a few other regulars couldnt make it but there were loads more turned up at Bonaly shop at 7pm...22 blokes and a big group of woman for there group ride...

and this weeks route was all different to last week except for the finaly down scalectrix that paul and i did with rob the week before...
some fast guys up front meant the pace was quicker this week...a bit to quick in the heat..it was real close and sticky...skys to the west were darkening with the forcasted rain for thursday...
a regroup and breather after some nice pine woods singletrack...

then some more singletrack through the pines...



alot of water getting downed at breaks!...man it was warm...

its great going a group ride and not leading...just follow and enjoy the trails,scenery and banter...

we rode around alot of resovoirs tonight...didnt know there was so many...
this sheep track above one kept you focused...



after a long grind up a gravel path another breather... and a group of riders passed through going the other way and a new friend Gavin was with them,he was with the group i showed around East Lothian back in febuary...
they also started out from Bonaly but at a later time...
they sped off to enjoy the descent we had just rode up while we headed up the quad track for the last descent down scalectrix...

this evening we had already had one rider fall into a burn-from about 8 feet!... luckily he was unhurt...paul had a rear puncture (a nail) then we had a mechanical...one of the young lads mech hanger broke...

but look at what the chain did..it somehow opened and reclosed around part of the mech!...

none of us have ever seen a chain do that before...the nice chap in the pic kindly removed the mech and cut the chain down so the bike could be ridden home singlespeed...
street lights were coming on down over Edinburgh as we headed down scalectrix...
managed to ride down it off the brakes just using the heather between the twin quadtracks to buff a bit speed for the tight left hander...must be hitting over 30 mph down there...was a bit scary but what a buzz!...
again tonight i met some new folk, i loved riding the on-one 456 too...
it really comes alive when you point it down hills...
a great evening ride,great scenery,great trails,great banter...