More wheel building/hub swapping, beachriding, and walking...

Last Week;
I did some more wheel building/swapping parts when i swapped some hubs over to get a rear Surly Pugsley wheel with a Hope Pro 2 sealed bearing hub to use on my good Orange and black `Pumpkin Pugsley`,
The wheel on the green Pug has a Shimano LX hub while the rear hub on the Surly Karate Monkey 29er is a Hope Pro 2 with a steel free hub fitted...

An evening in front of the stove  soon seen the wheels stripped and the hubs swapped over...

And then i trued the wheels using the frames as Jigs and a couple of clothes pegs on the frame-high tech stuff!...

While the Karate Monkey is a cheap build bike and ridden away from the coast the Shimano hub will be ok, The sealed bearing Hope Pro 2  hub i prefer for Fatbikes for beach riding and the exposure of salt water while cycling on the coast.
Hope hubs come new with an alloy free hub, but a steel free hub is available, i built this hub from a shell so the steel free hub made sense as i run steel Deore freewheels and running steel to steel  means less problems removing as some Copper grease will prevent seizing...

Now i have both Fat wheels and 29+ wheels on the Pumpkin Pugsley with the same Hope rear/Surly front hubs, so when swapping wheels the brakes and gears are still synced...

Saturday;
I headed to North Berwick  and met friend Brian for a ride along the coast to Aberlady and back.
I planned a camera free day, just wanted to ride and enjoy the ride and company and views...
But i broke that when i seen this wee fellow on Aberlady Nature Reserve!...

Some pics by Brian;

 Brian had his camera and took a few pics, here they are...

Beaver on the beach?

Gullane Point,  look at all the sand blown up over the Marram grass dunes at the Nature Reserve after a week of gale force wind!...

More of that next week, been some change in areas on the coast...


Sunday;
A day off from cycling and i went for a walk around Duns Estate in Berwickshire while Francis did a 22Km Pleasure ride Endurance ride...

Around the big loch and into the woods...

And above this old quarry i revisited a WW2 Aux Units bunker...

Sealed after WW2 you cannot get into this bunker now...

The entrance would have had a concealed ground level cover...

As would the emergency exit and the chimney now visible which would have been concealed in a hollow tree where smoke and fumes would have been dispersed unseen in the summertime tree top canopy...

Who were the Aux Units?
short film on Vimeo
Britain Has Fallen - British Resistance Archive Teaser from British Resistance Archive on Vimeo.

And another short film inside a Ops bunker and more about those men whose story has until recently remained untold...
BBC Spotlight Interview (8th August 2014) from British Resistance Archive on Vimeo.

You can read about the Aux Units here in a previous blog post; WW2 Aux Units

 The Book Gone to Ground by Bill Watson is a great read by the Author who was an Aux Unit member here at Duns..

 The book is maybe a fictional story of what could of happened after invasion,  but the outcome of the Aux Units if Germany had invaded in 1940 is very real...
This pond near the base is mentioned in the book along with the Estate Castle and surrounding villages and countryside farms, makes for a great read when you know the area...

Then went a walk up Dun Law...

Great views over the Merse...

Right on estimated time Francis arrived back from the pleasure ride...

Then she did the Cross Country...

Yeehaa!

 Good weekend,
More soon on the massive increase in sand blown along the coast in places soon during these freak windy previous weeks..