I have been wanting a bike that is as strong as my Surly Karate Monkey 29er ridged mountain bike but also as comfortable and practical on the road with drop handlebars as the old Dawes Super Galaxy i sold this summer but i also wanted disc brakes and MTB parts like Hope hubs and a MTB drive chain.
Something inbetween these two bikes would be perfect o ride daily to work, the shops, then a wee micro adventure day trip at weekends.
When Salsa brought out the Fargo four years ago it looked ideal, when the Mk 2 was released i was delayed by the Moonlander announcement and again i was absorbed by the `fat side`... -:)
Finally i saved up and built a Fargo over the summer months.
Already i love riding this bike and it ticks all the boxes.
I did 77 miles on the Salsa Fargo on Saturday.
What a lovely bike to ride.
It eats up the miles on country roads and unmaintained roads, riding off road on easy trails on the drop bars is good fun.
The ride report posts and films of riding this bike opens another avenue of the blog where i will be posting more places of historic interest visited and scenic views from the saddle as i ride the country roads and byways around our wee county of East Lothian through the seasons, with the odd day further afield ...
Been 595 views of this film in the first 24 hours since uploaded on youtube, seems a lot of interest in drop bar 29ers -:)
Click on the cog icon to select to view in HD
Officially starts today but there has been a noticeable change in temperature in the last week.
The workload of the Wettest, and hardest going summer at work is fading from memory as i look forward to the end of the month and we start shorter winter hours of 8am - 3pm -:)
I prefer cooler to warmer weather for cycling, us Scots are not designed for heat!, in fact for myself the colder the better - bring on -18C like in 2010/11 winter!.
Home after 3pm soon and i can be out cycling before 5pm.
I can then get daylight, sunset and a night ride into a 3 hour ride, then home to a warming fire and a post ride cider -warms the body and the soul...
Scenically the county looks lovely in its harvest gold - though you gotta be quick to get pictures as fields are quickly being ploughed over...
Views from Whitekirk Hill...
Need to repaint the trig point on the hill at work again...
Sunrise is around 7am, sunset just after 7pm and a few signs of Autumn are there to see...
8 degrees in the mornings and hopefully some frosts will start to turn the trees golden.
be a month or so till we see this...
Gosford 2010...
Yester Woods 2010...
Pencaitland 2010...
Mountain biking through a wooded carpet of leaves is great, and even better with friends...
The first V formations of geese have been arriving back from summer grazing and breeding in Greenland. In a few weeks they will arrive in East Lothian in their thousands, grazing on fields between the Longniddry - Drem - North Berwick area then flying down to Aberlady Bay before sunset.
Always a great sight...
Aberlady Bay 2011...
And early evening low tide beach rides on clear evenings are great.
Fantastic light and golden sunsets with geese overhead...
October 2010...
One of my favourite rides ever, amazing evening, the light, sunset and wildlife, will never forget this ride at Gosford Bay...
Got the Salsa Fargo rolling this week and looking forward to getting some miles on it over the weekend...
What a lovely bike to ride, will do a post next week....
Despite it blowing a `Hooly` (Scottish for very windy) and no trains running east of Edinburgh due to rail work it was a great Airshow, Dave G and son Jamie joined myself and a drive into Edinburgh and got the train to Leuchars, 11.30am and it was quite busy...but would reach a 35,000 crowd by mid afternoon, but plenty of room for everyone with the ground space spread along a runway. Sadly the show faced into the sun on a very hazy day so air pictures and film was not very good...
Roll the pics...
Euro Fighter; Now stationed at Leuchars, we get these flying over work daily, but today will get to see what they really can do...
F16 single seat...
And dual seater...
A great day for kids with lots of hands on stuff...
E-3D Sentry...
VC 10...
Tornado GR4...
B-52 static display, The Cold War monster... and one of the displays of most interest to myself, more on these planes in a bit...
Tornado GR4...
General Electrics Lightning. Basically a rocket with some wings and fuel tank!, awesome machine...
REME...
1745 Government troops...
Landrover 101...
A piece of history with an amazing history...
Desert Rats Willys Jeep...
Browning 30mm...
BSA Bantam..
Bren...
Thomson...
Feel lucky punk?...
Series 1 Landy...
Austin Champ...
Gulf war 110 Landy...
NATO Army Lightweight...
Linx...
Bunkers -Cold War era...
Dispersal hangers...
Hawker Hurricane...
Red Arrows...
E-3D Sentry...
Avro Vulcan...
Huey...
Chinook, this was nuts to watch...
The other B-52 here in the UK for the weekend doing a flypast...
Nam time; Huey and Loach...
De Havilland Vampire`s...
Back to the B-52 static display, fenced off and only Air Cadets, Army cadets underneath with its crew i waved a crew member over to find out about the plane as the crowds started to leave after the Jubliee flyby. The B-52 was a 1961 craft which served in bombing raids over Vietnam and one of two that arrived for the weekend from Barksdale, Louisiana, USA They are two of around Eighty B-52s kept air worthy at Barksdale Base under the Air Force Global Strike Command
You can see the Airbase on Google Earth...
B-52s...
The crewman said the plan is to keep the B-52s flying to 2045, they deft have enough spares if you look at the Boneyard near Tuscan, Arizona, on Google Earth...
B-52s, some with wings guillotined off...
`Any Chance of some pics underneath?` i asked with a big grin...
`yeah go ahead`
If you don`t ask you don`t get -:)
After a few minutes it was flooded with people under neath the plane, but i got some pics first... -:)
I remember as a kid seeing B-52s flying over East Lothian at high altitude on exercises in the early 1980s.
One day on summer hols i was with my dad at Yellowcraig and we watched twelve B-52s in formations of three flying in four rows flying at high altitude, there polished aluminium shining and air streams behind. There was a big NATO exercise that week with ships and submarines out in the Forth Estuary and a lot of other aircraft flying about including Avro Vulcans and Nimrods. The B-52s were probably flying to Greenland.
I was in awe at them that day and every time i have seen any since...
I did not shoot any video worth keeping but kept the B-52 flyby and made up a wee film, using the same Jimi Hendrix track played on the loud speakers as the plane soared over...
Vampire...
Red Arrows...
Nine Typoon Fighter Diamond Jubilee flyby closed the event...
Amazing day. It is unknown if the 2012 event will be the last airshow at RAF Leuchars as the base is probably going to be transferred to the Army in 2014...
Waiting on some good highlights film to appear on youtube by other spectators and will post more up as i find them...
I live in East Lothian, S.E. Scotland.
I fill my time with my hobbies, interests and passions. Often cycling along the coast here. I ride steel bikes with big wheels, I like to enjoy all interests of the coast, Its scenery, wildlife, local history, with my other interests in art and music when out and about...
I was diagnosed with Relapsing remitting Multiple Sclerosis in August 2018, it`s early days but i plan to continue to live my life as i have and show that having a medical condition like MS does not mean you need to stop enjoying your life,
Please excuse the bad grammar, i am working on it!
