Home on the coast...

Gullane and Gullane Point which is essentially Aberlady Bay is a place i could cycle every Saturday and never get bored of its scenic beauty and the area means a lot more to me than just a place to ride my bikes on the coast.
It is where i grew up and i have always appreciated here as long as i can remember...
 My friend Jason has grown to love here too since moving here and appreciates the beauty of this part of our coast of East Lothian..
With friends all busy this Saturday i pulled out the Moonlander and despite a midday high tide put it to good use today with a ride around Gullane Point taking the opportunity to stop for loads of pictures.

The views from Gullane Hill are some of the best in East Lothian...

The Millennium Cairn,
I remember dropping a pound coin in a bucket of a volunteer fundraiser many years ago on a Saturday morning on Gullane main street. Glad i contributed...

The Roundel,
The small building here is rumoured to be the original meeting place of the first Gullane Golf Club committee all those years ago.
Golf was played here on the hill before people were riding pedal bicycles...

Hill House,
At the top of Hill Road has fantastic views over the Firth of Forth Estuary, for many years it was owned by the owners of Edinburgh company `Craig and Rose`, the manufacturers of the paint for the Forth Rail Bridge...

Views east from the benches is ok too, across the beach and Muirfield Golf Course past Fidra lighthouse to North Berwick Law...

West over Aberlady Bay to Edinburgh...
If you can recommend a better place for my ashes to be spread then i will re write my Will... er not that i`m planning on that happening for a while as got far too much fun to get on with first -:) ...

The path from the hill top down to the Cliffs at `Maggies Loup` is a great trail to cycle and the first trail i rode a mountain bike on way back in 1987 when i traded and then rode that Raleigh Maverick home to Aberlady from North Berwick and detoured up here, hence i call it the `First Trail`...

Its never really changed here... the famous view of the WW2 Anti Invasion tank blocks on the cliff top are now i think part of the scenic view of here.
A reminder of the past and a memorial to the young men who went overseas to protect these shores as these  blocks constructed in 1940 once did...

The 12th Tee of Gullane No 1 Course you can see in the picture below on the cliff top.
The 12th hole is named `Maggies Loup`
The story is a young lady who heard news of her lovers death in the Napoleonic Wars threw herself over the cliffs to her death, so to be with her loved one in the afterlife.
Tragically her soldier lover was not killed but wounded and eventually returned home and was met with the tragic news...

Quite big waves coming in today...

East from Maggies Loup looking across Gullane sands...

You have to have a wild sea to witness the sea at its best...

Autumn is for myself the start of the best time for beach riding as the big swell`s start to push in out of the North Sea...

And then there are the  colours and shapes of the sandstone rocks around Hummel Rocks...

The view across Aberlady Bay and Edinburgh is a favourite...

Loads of options of grassy trails criss cross through the dunes on the Nature Reserve.
As winter approaches and the Marram grass starts to die back the trails through the dunes once again become ride able...

These paths are legal to cycle - they are shared paths, but i never cycle here in Spring and Summer when birds nest and rear their young...

The Marram grass which binds and stabilises the dune systems will die back over the winter and the paths will become more sandy as blown sand encroaches, these dunes are a growing Eco system and continue to grow higher every year...

I already did a film riding here in the opposite direction back in February just after i got the Moonlander. Filmed in SD using the Tachyon i will do another in HD on the Go Pro this winter.
The film captures riding here on a clear winters day. And it shows one of the reasons i bought a Moonlander as here in the real soft sand it rides where a bicycle really should not manage.
The smaller (smaller? -;) ) tyres of the Pugsley can struggle in places along here, but not on this amazing bike which makes light work of the very soft sand...

This is only 25 miles from Scotlands capital city of Edinburgh, but there is not a soul around, how i like it  -:)



Near Gullane Point on the Reserve is the remains of an old Bird watching hide. In the 1970s this was on the high tide line then and i remember as a kid visiting here with my dad when he was the County Ranger at this time of year when the Geese were counted coming into the bay...

This was the high tide line here 30 years ago- hard to believe now...

A lagoon formed by a sand dune which grew in size around the point and eventually the Fescue grasses then Marram Grasses constantly covered with blown sand formed new land.
You can see lines of drift wood from previous tide lines here.
The Bird hide is over in the far right of this picture...

Above on Google Earth you see the new formed land...

Not great quality but the 1945 image shows the Point before the new formed spit of sand which filled in and created the new land...

Just over the sand bar it is happening again with another lagoon which fills at high tide...

Again see the Fescue Grasses establishing, Fescue grass like a low fertile soil, be it sand or clay soils...

Onto the coast and some beach combing...

Always something new washed up out here...

The recent winds leave shells and other objects up on small sand pillars...

If i smoked i would never run out of ash trays...

This sawed disc of a hardwood tree would make a lovely table top for the garden, smoothed by the sands blown by the wind...

Always something to take home, today a small plastic container, ideal for chain split links for the tool bag...

High tide now and glad to be on the larger foot print of the Moonlander as the sand is now a lot softer. Waves and wind are picking up now...

Up above the cliffs of Maggies Loup again and riding along to Gullane Beach Car Park...

Small sandy trails above the beach here have recently been cut back, these are great to ride on fatbikes...

One trail leads down to a famous local dune...

`Murder Hill` ... given its name by Glasgow Rangers and Edinburgh's Hibs and Hearts Football teams who have trained here running up and down the soft sand over the years...

Tyre tracks from friend Mikes beach ride ride last week...

Cut off with the high tide i carried the bike around the Hummel Rocks...

Saturdays are always quieter at Gullane than Sundays, as is for most of the coastline in East Lothian hence why Saturday is always beach ride day for me...

And that is a wrap. And why i love riding here and could happily ride here every week if i wanted too...

And that is just one side of the coast here at Gullane from the car park...

There is miles of criss cross sandy trails here  to the East of the car park behind the beach and through the pine woods in the distance...

I do not use the Surly Moonlander enough. Riding with friends i tend to take the pugsley as that's what they are riding.
But this bike needs to be taken out and ridden places that push the envelope a bit more.. then it really rewards, it is an amazing bike and i am so glad i got it for solo rides like today...

After all that sand look how clean the Moonlander is...

Wheels esp are near spotless, hows that?...

Last week at the North Yorkshire Moors fatbike gathering i was speaking to friend Gary who also rides a Moonlander and i was saying how the rubber O rings that hold on bells keep perishing and Gary said to spray them with silicone spray, like you do with the inside of pumps... it had never dawned on me to do that with them!, and admittedly i have not used silicone spray for several years.
I used to spray down my bikes with silicone after cleaning them when i used to ride at trail centres etc.. as they clean easier when you wash them as the dirt is not as ingrained, but the silicone also attracted dust and so it would also make sand stick when i first bought my Pugsley so have never bothered since.
A visit at work last week by the rep for Nielson products i asked him about this and he said `try this`...

A non static silicone polish, it works a treat and being scented makes your bike smell nice if like me it is kept in the living room...  -:)