Saturday 11 December 2010

Head for the coast....


If you wanna go cycling without a snorkel...
Flooding everywhere from the thaw and road riding doesn't look very inviting as alot of big puddles about unable to drain away from snow on the verges.
But it was Saturday and sunny...

You wouldn't have known all this was going on if you lived right on the coast where the snow has all but gone already...so i found myself out on Aberlady Bay for low tide...

Out here in the middle of the Bay at low tide is one of my favourite places to ride to on the pugsley,unless someone has walked out to look at the WW2 midget submarine wrecks theres no one around for several miles...

There has been alot of stuff washed up on the previous tide,
On the west coast finding a coconut could be viable,just like finding a piece of Caribbean wood, but never found a coconut here on the east coast!

Alot of the debris must be from a river as alot of fruit,apples mostly..and tennis balls,yep! lots of tennis balls...


I was trying to ride along carrying all these when someone came walking along the tideline,friend and fellow pugsley owner Gary...

Not riding as got a sore hip he too was out enjoying the lovely clear weather and deserted beach,we had a good blether about pugsley`s and he raised an interesting point how its so hard to explain to people how much fun it is riding these bikes,something i struggle to put into words...i can only show where they can go compared to regular bikes. We both decided to get together and do some filming on the pugs soon.leaving Gary i rode east for Gullane and onto Yellowcraigs and into North Berwick...

I never get tired of the views across to Fidra Island and its lighthouse...

near North Berwick just off of Point Gary some new creels have been washed in...there anchor ripped off during yesterdays swell...


There catch was still inside shows they just came in on the last tide as the gulls hadnt got to them, not very nice to see this happen to lobsters, such a waste...

Down to North Berwick and it was quiet at the harbour for a Saturday. Temperature was forcasted to be 5C max and it was a cold wind so i wasnt hanging about...


Leaving the busy High Street i cut across the closed West Links and rode above the beach on the nice sandy singletrack trail...

After looking for the WW2 Anti Aircraft Battery with Gary on the Nature Reserve dunes i remembered the pill box along here which i dont think i have posted pics of on here before..
Near to the the burn at the eastern end of Broad sands it is a WW2 coastal defence machine gun pill box...

Well preserved you can walk inside...

This Pill box is i think a type 22, but dosnt have a Y or T shape anti-ricochet wall inside.which would also strenghten the roof from a bomb,morter or shell,
There were several versions and shapes built by the Army and local contractors to set plans,
Walls were 12" thick and bulletproof, they would have to be 40" thick to be tank/bomb proof.
steel shutters would have once covered the firing holes-called `embrasures` same as Castles have,
Must have been a cold shift on gaurd in winter!

Down onto Broad Sands, the name of the beach referred to as Yellowcraig...
The Eel burn in spate with the snow melt...

And the beach was deserted!, why Saturdays are better than Sundays for beachriding...

From Marine Villa i kept above the coastline riding the sandy singletrack all the way back to Gullane,gets you out the cold headwind and makes for different riding, i really enjoy this type of trail as you have to focus alot due to the high sides which can catch your pedals and makes an alternative return.There is miles of trails here above Freshwater Haven, a secluded sandy bay...

Tomorrow will be more beachriding to the East this time around John Muir Bay...
Tonight im listing all the bikes and parts and spares im selling in the new year to fund a build on fatbike No2...can never have enough of a good thing...

7 comments:

  1. Looked like a great ride. Nice posting with some good photos.

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  2. Thanks Trevor, this is what i started the blog for, to write about days like this on the coast,
    its good to get out somewhere dry when the likes of the big thaw makes everywhere else unrideable

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  3. Amazing sky! Surprising with that coconut, not to mention the tennis balls!! =)

    Had to look up Wiki about the pill box, where the name came from...

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  4. Hi Harri,
    i see alot of tennis balls but today was unreal-about 14 on that one beach!
    I dont know where the name `pill box` came from so will look it up...as kids we always thought if you had been in one and a grenade or bullets came in it would have rattled like pills in a bottle!,
    lucky it was all never needed here...

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  5. Interesting place you live in. Just a few days ago you showed lots of snow and cold weather and now you are riding a at the coast a short distance away in nice and sunny conditions without a trace of snow.

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  6. Yeti; in the 3rd picture in the distance are the Golf Courses which were snow covered last weekend and where we were snow biking,
    yet now the snow is nearly all gone along the coastline and inland!,
    It was nice when it lasted!,
    But forcast is more later next week!

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  7. As always, great photos and thoughts. I especially like the blend of natural and historical -- especially the war stuff -- that shows up your blog.

    So true, too, about the difficulty of putting into words what makes fat bikes so much fun. But they surely are, and can lead to reigniting whatever it was that we enjoyed about mountain biking when we first started.

    Cheers,
    Joe

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