El skinto this month, but cycling costs nothing. And been busy in the Man Cave too...
Love the silence and speed of the road bike, now if friends are thinking `lets go for a road bike ride` then forget it!, i am liking this bike to ride to work but have no intention of donning lycra and riding with others and doing that Strava stuff etc...
In fact i have no interest in doing any group cycling at all these days, except the odd Fatbike group ride on the coast. I prefer to cycle solo these days as you can ride at your own pace and go where you want and stop and look at what you want to...
I loved the silence of the calm mornings this week too after weeks of wind and gales!.
The first mist and Sea Harr this week of spring/summer made the ride in to work for a couple of mornings cool and scenic. Every where off tarmac is wet after Saturdays deluge...
A mid week cycle
Home from work and then out on the SURLY Karate Monkey 29er on Tuesday late afternoon and did a good xc loop of nearly 30 miles in 2 1/2 hours. a loop nearly entirely off road from the Old Market Town of Haddington...
Through Haddington...
Then west on an old Right of Way...
Some easy trail under the canopy of trees...
Then a mile of tight trail like this...
Then the old part of the route i wish i was on my Pugsley Fatbike for, a 1/4 mile slog through soft wet overgrown field boundary...
Through Butterdean Wood, great riding in here on the 29er, its slacker head angle, big bendy bars, whippy frame and 32mm rims allowing 25 psi no probs makes for a fun bike to ride the rooty trails here...
Then along to Penston. Electricity poles at the roadside are Army poles from WW2...
They come from a former WW2 Airfield, RAF Macmerry. It was a fighter station and an OTU station along with repair work carried out. Good info here on East Lothian at War Website
Some old pics i have of the airfield..
Bristol Blenheim...
EFC (Edinburgh Flying Club) pre WW2...
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Scouts!...
Quiet here today. just the rumble from the nearby A1 and farm machinery...
Over the busy A1 and down green roads, farm tracks and a quiet hawthorn hedged country road to the south of Longniddry Village...
Onto the old Railway branch line from Longniddry to Haddington for a bit, now a nice walk and easy cycle to Haddington with a slight gradient...
Turn off at Cottyburn by the ruin of the old coaching Inn, when this minor road was part of the main road to Edinburgh...
East from Coates Farm, views west to Edinburgh's Pentland Hills and Arthur's Seat...
Nettles are up already, you can detour the first part of this old road via a field...
Clearer further on...
The trails are muddy in places. I have read on Singletrack Forum that these tyres were rubbish,
They have to be the best all round 29er tyre for here in East Lothian!
Fast rolling on tarmac for a mud tyre, good on loose gravel, wire bead so strong walls, and real cheap, perfect -:)
Another old road to Camptoun...
Then an easy climb up Gallows Law - been a hanging here in the past?
And through the wood at Kilduff and a good descent down to the farm road...
Little persons glove lost...
Time to head for home...
The Mk 2 dropped top tube SURLY Karate Monkey is for myself living here in East Lothian the perfect xc/ trail 29er. I loved the red Monkey i had, regretted selling it, and now this one is even better with its few changes.
It has a real comfy steel frame set that has a real whippy responsive feel when you want to wind it on a bit on some single track, decent enough speed on the road with 2x9 gearing for an MTB, cheap to run with strong wheels, no suspension to service, and with the slacker head angle with the off set headset and big bars it is just loads of fun to ride.
With a JanDD frame bag for tools, tube, pump, compact camera and helmet torch, and a water bottle i do not need a back pack. Removing the bottle i can still shoulder the bike if needed to.
I love this bike, a lot faster than a Fatbike on Rights of Way Trails and old roads etc, though it is still a slog on soft wet trails as any (skinny? -:) ) regular 26" or 29" MTB is...
Grey Pugsley Update;
Which makes me excited to see what the Grey Pugsley will ride like with the offset Krampus 29+ 3" tyre wheel set.
I found the original headset for this bike which i did not know i still had, its ok so fitted the forks, Moonlander stem, old bars and Avid levers, a pugsley seat post and an old seat.
I really have ran out of old parts at last to build up any more bikes!...
The Phill Wood square taper 100mm BB needs new bearings before fitting with the Middleburn cranks with a SURLY 32t Stainless chain ring - from the Alfine experiment way back.
Also got the BMX chain from that set up too.
I needed BB7 calliper's and friend and fellow Pugsley owner Gary Buckham came up trumps offering me a used pair. I popped up to Edinburgh last Saturday to see Gary for them and catch up for a blether in his shed... i have traded him some spare stuff for an idea he is doing soon...
I had to rebuild one of them and found out how they go together here on the SRAM AVID Brakes pdf file
just need another rear 160mm mount for them...
So just a few parts needed to finish the Krampug, but it will need to wait until pay day at the end of the month.
Single speed is something new to myself off road but i will in time be adding gears when the cash is available as the bike will be able to do so much more, but i look forward to trying it out in that set up, along with of course those light 3" 29er wheels on the Pugsley, could end up the perfect Fatbike for inland riding here in East Lothian... -:)
Thursday evening back down in the woods;
With a roaring cold wind from the North to North East i was back along to my local woods with the purple Pugsley. Only a mile from home i pass through here all the time on route to the coast but rarely go to just ride around Binning Wood, though there are miles of criss cross trails off of the main rides that spread out like spokes in a wheel from the two clearings...
It was a lot drier than last Sundays swamp fest too!, So i took my older SD Canon compact - a Power Shot A495 that only cost £60 a few years back and with the Jobe gorilla pod did some point to point filming,
Better quality than the Tachyon XC it also records good sound when out of the wind, nice to here the bird song in the woods.
Here is where i will soon be riding my single speed 29+ Grey Pugsley - The Krampug -:)
Song is `Whites Dream` by Plaid
Friday is Fatbike Day...
Half day finish at work, home on the road bike, a quick feed then out on the SURLY Moonlander...
The red JannDD frame bag i ordered over a month ago in April has finally arrived. Been posted out a while ago but has took ages to get here. Now i only need to swap tool pouch and pump between the 3 SURLY bikes...
With a 5.3 meter high tide at 13.37 and a roaring Northerly wind there was huge waves coming in i had been watching from work all morning. I wanted to see this and cycled to Peffersands...
Looks warm?, was a baltic wind!, only 7 Celsius!...
Soft wet sand or dry fluffy sand, the big Moonlander eats it up...
Nearly out of beach...
Home on the trails, see you next time...
Cool, I like those telegraph poles at Penston, always remind me of something you would find dotted along a lonely highway in the Pacific Mid west.....
ReplyDeleteThey are quite unique being incorperated into the local electricity lines and still in use,
ReplyDeleteJust added Thursday and todays ride to the post -:)
Nice seeing some of the trails I ride around Haddington :)
ReplyDeleteYou certainly don't strike me as the lycra type ;)
Ye should have popped in for a visit while ye were at Butterdean.
ReplyDeleteHof D ; Aye deft not! -:)
ReplyDeleteM; Need to catch up soon!