coastrider: Saturday Beach Ride, The classic coast route...

Saturday, 13 April 2013

Saturday Beach Ride, The classic coast route...

Been a while since i have been a beach ride with Jason along what has become for Jason and myself the classic beach ride; Gullane Hill, descent to the cliffs, west and out across Aberlady Bay to the WW2 midget sub wrecks, and then ride east from Gullane to Yellowcraig and onto North Berwick town, then return to Gullane on trails on the John Muir Way.
A distance of 22 miles from Jasons house and around 36 miles for myself riding to the coast.
If its windy its a big day for me, esp if an easterly as i have to ride home 6 miles into the wind, a small pain for such a stunning part of coastline that has a place in my heart since childhood as it has for many others who have moved here and come to love this coastline including Jason...

I still remember the very first ride from home out to the sub wrecks and then east to NB on my grey pugsley 5 1/2 years a go like it was yesterday. It is still as special a ride today as then... a classic beach ride route,

And it is part of Saturdays FORTH FAT Fatbike gathering here in 2 weeks... so these pics are a kinda taster for those who are coming along...

We have nicknamed the route the `RED Route` ... it has a mixture of terrain for all ability's and you can move down to the tide line or up above the coastline to suit peoples preference and skills...

Roll the pics...
My ride starts with a cycle through Drem Airfield...

The fields here today are quiet, Fenton Barnes retail village - the former barracks of RAF personal, 3 Bellman hangers, the concrete perimeter track, pill boxes and one remaining fighter pen dispersal are reminders of this site of 70 years ago being a vital defence airfield of the RAF from which Spitfires and Hurricanes and later Mosquito's took to the air in the defence of our country during dark times...

I have made a lot of films that are published on youtube, most are cycling related but this film is one of my favourites as it is about an important part played by East Lothian during WW2 which still has not been recognised with a memorial to those that served here...
They are discribed as `the few` but those young pilots who were really just kids helped turn the tide of the second world war, what they did was against the odds and as a few were backed by a nation...

We ride out into Gullane at Saltcoats, a former farm steading being converted to housing...

And the climb up Gullane Hill...

And the superb views...

`First trail` down to the cliffs known locally as `Maggies Loup` - a lady receiving a letter that her husband had been killed in the Napoleonic Wars, could not live with the loss of here love and jumped to her death from the cliff top, a few years later her husband returned home, not killed but injured and then captured, and was met with the news of his wife's tragic death...

Down from the cliffs and through the Nature Reserve on sandy single track, and the midget sub wrecks come into view out in Aberlady Bay...

Onto the sand...

Austin seven wreck...

Over a mile from the shoreline, slowly they get closer...

Every visit to here i am in awe at the little craft and more so of the bravery of those that went in them on on such dangerous missions... mass respect...