Weekend Heat wave...and a tale of woe...

After riding in -18 Celsius temperatures in November (unheard of) we had 18C heat at the weekend!
Saturday i rode 10 miles to Pencaitland for a trailride with friends,
I don`t really do much regular MTB riding on my own now or really that interested in driving half way across the country to ride but do enjoy riding from the back door with no driving and a pint or two after...
Mike,Gavin and Paul were up for a loop around trails out by Humbie Kirk so off we headed, it was shorts and T shirt weather, so why was i wearing a soft shell winter top and melting?...


Dry trails in Spring are ace when the Nettles and Jaggy thistles still haven't come up,and you can see through the woods for pics...the trail to Humbie Village...






You can watch a film from 2 months ago of this trail Here...

Down beside the river at Humbie is a lovely old church,


There are just a few Graves on the south side of the Church now as about 20 years ago
when the Humbie Water was in spate after severe weather it washed away the embankment and remains of coffins and there inhabitants fell into the river!...


Around the church still are some lovely old gravestones...










Down the trail above the Humbie Water which i filmed a few months ago,
you can watch it Here...

The trail gets overgrown and we bailed out to the west crossing the burns and pushed up boggy hills...








Which took us onto a track and past Glen Kinchie, East Lothians distillery...


And onto one of the best trails around here; The Kinchie Trail,
Time for a blast,then some wheelies to the Pub...



After a few pints it was up to Mikes for some food done on his slow cooker made out a 45 Gallon Oil Drum, stakes for the boys and smoked Salmon for me... Thanks Mike!,
Riding home at dusk with a tailwind breeze ended a great day out with friends...


Sunday dawned a cracker..."early bird catches the worm"... and the Sunrise...






With a mid morning low tide i headed out for a loop right around Aberlady Bay,
Out from Gullane Point towards the coast at Kilspindie, Aberlady Bay is approx 1 mile x 2.4 miles of exposed sand at low tide...




Despite the coastline and Aberlady Village only a half mile from here you really get that feeling here of being `out there`...






It was now getting warm too, first day of the year in Shorts and T shirt!...


360 view...



Following the Peffer Burn to its estuary i thought about the first time i rode out here-probably the first person to (successfully) ride a bicycle across here...
good old pugsley...


There are a lot of Cockle Shells and Razor Shells here this now...


To the south a half mile inland on the Horizon is the house where i grew up at Craigielaw, used to look out across the bay every day,never imagined i would one day have a bike i could cycle across out here...


Never seen the base of a plastic bread basket used for a creel base, recycling!...




On towards the Estuary...




The light on the water was amazing...


offshore 3 seals watched me, wonder what they were thinking? (look at the size of those tyres!...)




East along the low tide line now for over 2 miles...


Past the WW2 midget submarine wrecks...


And a lovely smooth hard pack sand bar...


Once at Gullane beach the place was moving with folk out enjoying the warm weather, time for exit stage left-well right as left would be into the sea...great day out on the pug...


except for one thing- now the tail of woe...

My Alfine 8 speed internal hub gear is not well, Its started grinding when free wheeling and if you walk the bike the cranks want to turn, gears still work fine but it feels like some type of free wheel bearing is shot...
Here is a film of the noise from the hub i made out in the Man Cave...



But here is the problem, no one in the UK seems to know much about them, i posted on 2 USA Forums and folk all say different things, "it just needs serviced" it needs 3 parts and Shimano oil is expensive" although it runs on grease!,
No one i know of in the UK advertises Alfine hub repairs,and with postage and labour costs is it worth it?,i know folk have struggled to get spare parts here for them and it has cost over half the price of a replacement hub (£135- £150).
Summers coming and i cant afford a failure during my Holidays etc...so i`m stripping the wheel in a weeks time and having friend Jake re lace the Hope Pro 2 hub i still have along with the mechs and shifters which i will fit,
i will in time try service/fix the hub myself

To be fair it was an experiment trying the gear hub on the beach and considering its done over 1500 miles of sand and salt water i cant complain,
I have been 50/50 on it though as i love its idea,clean drive line, stand still gear shift, But- i cant get a low enough 1st gear for really soft sand,
i find the chain tension set up fiddly as well as wheel removal,
My hub kept moving despite the serrated washers supplied so i tried a Surly chain tug but it did not hold the slotted axle so i then bought `Hub Jub` chain tugs, ideal but because they go inside the drop outs i had to fit 1mm washers to space the rear brake caliper, on the original pugsley frames you have to remove the caliper and those washers fall out- now imagine this on a beach if you did manage to get a puncture?

In the ideal world i would rather fit a hub gear to a regular QR frame and use a small tensioner, then wheel removal would be a lot easier...
But hey lets end on a good note, notice the Bobbin axle nuts on the Pugsley in the last film?,
well check out the new modified `FAT` BOB TRAILER!...


Test ride and how i made it in next blog -:)...