old trails never die

pug update:- I'm still waiting for a shimano alfine hub gear and phil wood bottom bracket to arrive so glad to have the new KM to play on as the pug has alot of play now and cant be doin the chainline and chain wear any good,i did a 20mile ride to gullane and home tuesday evening and took a few pics and short film clips to make a wee film...


the trail along the cliffs above the beach to the WW2 anti tank blocks is the first trail i ever rode on a mtb!,back in october 1987 when i was 16,it was a raliegh maverick se(special edition!) and was a demonstration bike in edinburghs raliegh dealers macdonald cycles,was the first mtb they had got in and a rich kid at school got it that spring,me and my mates were still riding bmx,there was only one other mtb at school and that was a muddy fox,i remember reading issue 1 of bicycle action and thought the bikes and places they could go looked amazing,i sold my SE quadangle(yeah i know how much there worth now!) to buy a mtb but there were none and a 3 month waiting list for a raliegh due to sudden demand from tv media etc,being a 16 year old with £750 in my pocket from the bmx(my wage then was £57 a week!)i bought a team replica raliegh racer.then my schoolmate bought that mtb from the richkid and i offered a swap for the racer,the rest was history as they say and i never looked back.
anyway back then i swapped the bike cycled home via gullane hill and the trails in this film,i remember cycling about on the maverick which looked bling with the large flange suntour hubs big polished A stem and alloy indexed thumb shifters and people would stare and say `what kind of bike is that?`i would grin and answer `a fun bike!` 22 years later people ask me that when the see me on the pugsley!