Summer Evening Coastal Trails...And a film for an old friend...

I have really enjoyed my second week of my summer holidays at home.
Time to spend at home chilling, time to go see my dad, and time to enjoy riding my bikes when i would normally be at work...
I have done no riding here on the coast with friends. Not intending to be rude or that but i have just wanted to have some time to myself. Something which until i had an outburst on face book and my blog has been impossible to relax and chill at home in the evenings due to a few certain people who seem to have now got the message!...

This week i have had some post cycle fires roaring in the chiminea!...

And i have made the most of it around here every day. Up early and out somewhere a ride, then home for brunch and a siesta, then out again in the evenings. I have not took any pics of evening rides until today and i also shot some film...
This evening the forecast was for a clear sunset, something that seems to have eluded me this summers hols. And it would again tonight, but not to worry as harvest time in September always has the best sunsets here in East Lothian and not as late as the days have by then already started to get shorter...
Still it was sunny as i cycled down to Gullane...

There has been some summer holiday romance this year, but not as i would have expected!,
The SURLY KramPug was (like romance can be) out of the blue and i really, really like riding this bike. It has been a real surprise and is just real fun to ride.
I never would have considered a regular single speed MTB, 26" or 29" wheels,  or fatbike, but this thing is getting better all the time...

On towards Gullane,
Summer evenings, just a T shirt, bottle of water and not a care in the world, missed this kind of summer weather...

I was riding up to the top of Gullane Hill, with the sole purpose of making an HD quality point to point film with the compact camera on what i call `The First Trail` .
Named as it was the first trail i rode a mountainbike offroad 26 years ago, way back in September 1987. When i rode a Raleigh Maverick SE home from North Berwick having swapped a trials motorcycle (needing fixed) with School friend Clark.

It was the end of the summer of 1987, the summer we both left school. I had got a job here on Gullane Hill which that year would see the return of the most famous Golf competition , The OPEN to Muirfield. Clark would work for his dad in the family Pub, the Quarterdeck in North Berwick.
As the summer moved on to Autumn i would also move on, from BMX  as at last had got a Mountainbike, they were still pretty rare around here. And cycling home from North Berwick to Aberlady i climbed up Hill Road in Gullane Village to the top of Gullane Hill, amazed at the low gearing, then rode it along this very trail to the tank blocks on top of Cliffs beside the 12th Tee of Gullane No 1 course....

This evening i parked up at the WW2 Anti Invasion defences anti tank blocks above the cliffs and sat for a while having just spent a while filming as i descended from Gullane Hill...

Clark was someone who became my best friend at High School.
We rode BMX together and after leaving High School we still kept in touch, although we lived quite different lives.
Into our twenties we both became obsessed about getting a Cannondale, having went ogling at them in the Edinburgh Bicycle Co - Op, Clark would beat me too it, his Dad still has his bike. I would get my Dale`s in time...
Clark still popped by at least once a month to my house and it would always be like old times. He was still the same person deep down as i am from those fun and crazy days which looking back are probably the best days of your life with no worries about anything.
We used to talk about WW2 stuff as we did at High School and if it we were 17 back then how we would sign up in the RAF etc... we were both in awe at things those guys did during dark times.
At High School we had both discussed and decided not to enrol in any military career due to the on going conflict in Ireland at the time...
Terrorism was something new that i remember at the time my dad saying you do not want to go to war against Terrorism and it was something we were going to see more of, he was so right...

It was my 42nd  birthday last Tuesday the 25th June. It would have been Clark`s 42nd birthday on the Monday the 24th...

I think about a lot of things when out cycling on my own, and try to work things out in my head. Mostly it is daft stuff like how i can afford another new bike!, or why i am still single and their is no Mrs coastkid. Maybe she will turn up one day...

I also wonder why Clark took his own life over 2 years ago now.
And this week i have really thought about it a lot and it makes me realise how lucky we are to have health and freedom and the get up and go to go enjoy what you love to do...

YOU HAVE ONE LIFE MAKE THE MOST OF IT...

So here i am riding that first trail on the eve of another OPEN Championship at Muirfield in Gullane.
1987 is a long time ago and though i am a lot older, heavier, and i hope wiser, I am still doing what i enjoy and love to do, here where i grew up. And at least the bicycles we ride off road today have geometry and parts along with wheel and tyre size which have transformed cycling a steel ridged bicycle off road.

I rode my heart off tonight along this trail and do not mind admitting to shedding a tear for an old friend sitting on that WW2 anti tank block who could have been along for the ride this evening...
So this film is for an old friend. And a suitable  song from a band we listened to in our 3rd year in High School - having of course taped it off the radio on John Peel`s show...
`The Wedding Present`  with suitable title; `You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your friends`

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