Been a real wet week and the ground is soaking everywhere away from the coast. While the poor folks were getting flooded out of their homes in Lancashire, Cumbria and the Scottish Borders we got of likely here in East Lothian with just surface water and between the rain when the skies cleared a bit we got out at work and got some work done, but not much, when it is as wet as this your best staying off the course and letting it dry out, rather than track the place, cause compaction and damage with machine wheel marks etc...
Time of year for Xmas works night out...
We had our Greenkeepers work night out Friday Afternoon at The Ship Inn in North Berwick...
Pic by Yan...
Had a great meal and a great laugh!, and despite 6 or 7 Thistly Cross Ciders i cycled home fine!, under a clear sky full of stars...
Pic by Phill...
Can never take good pics at night with my phone!...
Home safe and a nip of my favourite Whisky - Glenmorangie, i like them peaty :) ...
Saturday`s forecast was afternoon rain so i got out for a couple of hours for a morning ride along to Tyninghame. After a week of tramping about in mud i just wanted to ride some dry trails to check the bike was ok after swapping the fork etc and avoiding the slop of Binning Woods i took the 4 miles of road to Tyninghame, with the overcast dull dreary day i had my lights on and explains the bright orange commuting road top!. the light was awful but it does not really matter for pics and film in the woods...
The right kind of day for low light lenses...
You can see here a same pic through the lenses and the light is not as bad...
Happy to be out on dry free draining sandy trails above the coast, with out the need to wash the bike as not on the coast i was real happy!...
The Pugsley was fine and i headed for home after two loops of the woods taking in the Secret Trail...
Ready for Sunday`s visit to Tentsmuir Forest across in Fife...
Happy!...
The Secret Trail
The Secret Trail on the coast near my home is my favourite trail - well it is because i built it!, it`s been cut out, shaped and tweaked over 10 years now from what was an overgrown path that once connected 3 WW2 Machine Gun Pill boxes by a metal condu pipe that connected the boxes by Radio, it was just a tiny part of the `Coastal Crust` built rapidly in June 1940 as Britain believed Hitler was coming for his Summer holidays. Thankfully some you gents with rather splendid waxed moustaches and some very famous single seater aircraft seen that his holiday would never happen....
I walked, scrambled and crawled under bushes and Sycamore saplings as a kid along here with my late father when he was the County Ranger,
Then dragged my MTBs along it most oif the way when i moved to Dunbar 15 years ago, Then i started bring a folding saw and set to work on finding the old trail, and where needed creating a new trail...
Anyways today only one Pill box remains, the other two along with some of the original path has fallen into the sea in storms and over the years i have tweaked and ridden it i have had to move it inland in places,
No deciduous trees have ever been cut and removed, When i put the trail behind the wall i did find on a stone i lifted off a Crucifix carved on the under side... who cut it and when it was cut we will never know...
I called it the Secret Trail as the entrances were hidden and to a visitor would be hard to find. A Geo cache appeared on it a few years ago and since the path has become a lot more trampled and exposed...
Still a great techy 1/4 mile of coastal trail at it`s best :)
Here is some film i shot, first loop i filmed the whole trail with the Go Pro camera on the chest mount, then on the second loop i did some ride by shots to break the film up...
Song is `Get down` (Instrumental) by Nas...
Surly Pugsley; Secret Trail; Dec 15 from coastkid71 on Vimeo.
More soon...
No comments:
Post a Comment