It lives again... Muddy Fox Courier

Got the Muddy Fox Courier rolling again last weekend...
here it is again how i got it about 3-4 weeks ago...neglected but complete...
its either i think a 1985 or 86 model...




Yep it came with drop bars!- but that may have been this bikes original spec saving grace as it had obviously spent most of its life commuting...
with little money spent and a bit time fettling and cleaning here it is...
i took it a ride around the old abandoned Hospital beside where i stay for some pics...the place is another relic from the 1980s...





i wanted some big wide and high alloy bars like my one had back in the late 80s but haven't found anything in that lovely buff alloy finish yet so put on these gold colour Pro taper downhill bars which have the ideal shape,
also some old Shimano levers i had which have had the lever blades painted and still have to be stripped back to alloy...
i love the Suntour chunky alloy thumb shifters...


the original seat was a bit green so added a B17 Brooks i already had and along with a new brake cable set and inner gear cables from CRC a chain at £8!,

wheels needed a bit truing and the spoke nipples were seized so soaked with oil rotating the wheels nightly then used a screw driver and spoke key either end to adjust...
New Old Stock (NOS) Skinwall tyres were found at £10 per pair! IRC mythos 1.95s, afraid only fronts available but doesn't matter...

total spent on bike and delivery,then parts is about £80...
still to find a 48 tooth 130 bcd outer ring at a sensible price,cause of all the fixie bikes these have now went from near give away prices to £30-£40...
I have a unused 52T 130 bcd steel bio pace ring if anyone wants to swap...
i will have the wheels respoked later for offroading though it mostly will just be for work sometimes and potting about...
so maybe find some wide alloy mudgaurds and silver Blackburn rear rack to finish it off as a commuter,has tools and pump fitted already...
once built i soaked the whole bike in Traffic film remover (power washer soap with costic) and hosed off it cleaned up all the alloy and degreased the gears and frame...then some T Cut polish cleaned up the frame and some duraglit on all the alloy,the rims have come up nice...
the old sanitorium that closed in the early 1990s is a great place for a photo shoot...




the cross is still outside the church...

The Ride;
is actually really nice!, despite its age this is a bike that was made in Japan with quality parts,the chunky alloy Suntour groupset is solid as are the sealed hubs, sealed Epoch headset and sealed BB,Ukai rims are nice,Dia Compe canti lever brakes are amazingly good at the front, and need a bit fettling at the rear, clean the rim and sandpaper the brake blocks should do it...
The sit up and beg riding position is perfect with the big wide bars...

rode it into work on Tuesday and its pretty smooth on the bumpy country roads,
rides way nicer than my very stiff Cannondale Killer V...

The new chain is jumping a bit on middle and high (smaller)gears on the rear metal cassette from the previous worn out chain but dosnt slip on the big low gears where it gets more grip, a wet muddy ride should bed in the chain, only the geometry is very different but only noticeable offroad, the IRC Mythos tyres roll ok on the road. So for a retro hybrid it scores for its ride quality despite around 25 years old...now to get its stable mate fettled up...

oh if anyone knows where i can buy a pair of the original Muddy Fox plastic wheels covers as in the pic below or even plain black or yellow please get in touch -:)



Oh and just added this film i found on Youtube,the 1980s TV advert for the bike! -:)

Harvest Biking...racing the plough...

The harvest is nearly all done now...cut and baled..some fields still have bales scattered across and the early Autumn weather adds to the scenery this now...

been fun the last 3 weeks out on the Pugsley just riding where ever i please,and the constant noise of crunching stubble beneath the big tyres...

now after watching surrounding fields from work every day from a year ago being ploughed,sown,grown and now harvested the circle restarts as day by day fields get disk harrowed and ploughed again...
a window in the weather Sunday allowed a chance to ride and film again the loop from home to the coast through the fields i look at daily at work..same time next year?

Battle of Britain Day...September 15th..70 years on..

I have always been interested in WW2 and esp the Battle of Britain and Spitfires and what happened here in East Lothian at the time.
As i grew up my dad would often mention that he used to go fishing with men who once flew Spitfires.
Then as an apprentice greenkeeeper at Gullane Golf Club i would chat daily to elderly members who were Battle of Britain Veteran's, though they wouldn't talk about it unless you asked them. During the war some of them were based here at RAF Drem.
They would be very modest when you asked them about the war and would say they were just normal people who "did what they had to do" and  "did there bit".
What there friends would then often tell you was of there bravery and medals won.
If you do the sums, the eight 303 calibre machine guns were set to cross at 250 yards to provide the maximum damage. If a Spitfire was diving at approx 400 mph on a bomber at 200 mph then that 250 yards disappears very quickly, that's how close fighting it was.

Oh and the 8 guns had 3 belts of 100 rounds per gun, that only lasted 14.3 seconds, so those young men had to learn fast to shoot carefully to conserve ammunition.

Today, RAF Drem Hanger 1...



Dispersal pen with shelters and defences...


Ammunition stores...


Nightfighter training building...


1941; South from the control bunker looking to Drem Village and behind Kilduff woods,
New Spitfires and Hurricanes were blessed in a service along with new ships in wartime...


In the winter of 1987 we would find Spitfire 20mm Hispano cartridges whilst lifting turf down on what is now the Nature reserve from when planes practised firing at the XT class mini submarines that were anchored out in the bay...i had lots of these 1/2 cartridges which came into use around 1945 but only have one now.
Above the 1/2 inch cartridge are regular WW2 303 rounds i found raking about war sites...


I was a similar age then in 1987 to what the Battle of Britain pilots would have been in 1940 but i cannot imagine now at nearly 40 years old myself doing at the age of 19 what those brave men, then just boys really did .

What they did was quite an extraordinary feat of bravery, as they actually faced a near impossible task given the odds stacked against them.
They often trained flying Tiger Moths or Gladiator bi- planes, and during the summer months of 1940 with a quickening shortage of pilots often it was only 8 hours flying time then they would be posted to a fighter squadron and go on to fly Spitfires and Hurricanes. 8 hours to learn and then fly cutting edge fighter planes capable of over 400 mph, this was in 1940 when those speeds were hard to believe possible.

They would fly these fighters into battle against armed German bomber crews and escort fighter pilots who were already battle hardened by there war against Spain.
Outnumbered at odds of 6-1 which is by the way Russian roulette odd,. they bravely didn't fold under the German Luftwaffe onslaught over the summer of 1940 as expected by the axis forces.

In June 1940 only 1000 RAF pilots were ready and faced the impossible and by September 15th approx 3000 pilots from Commonwealth countries all around the world would have helped stop the fall of the RAF and Germany withdrew its planned land invasion of Britain.

446 RAF fighter pilots would pay the ultimate price in the summer of 1940 and many more would be horrifically burned and crippled.

20 RAF would lose there lives whilst stationed at RAF Drem and are buried at Dirleton Cemetery...


Germany fared a lot worse with 2090 pilots and crew killed and 1445 missing.
While RAF Drem in East Lothian wasn't involved in the BoB it was a key coastal defence airbase which was involved in numerous defence attacks from Norwegian occupied German bombers on the Firth of Forth dockyards at Rosyth and on west coast raids of the Clyde...later it would then become a night fighter station...

P51 mustangs in 1945, behind is Gullane Hill and Aberlady Bay...


Photographers, Hurricanes and behind the Garleton Hills and Monument...


65% of enemy planes shot down were by Hurricanes but it was the Supermarine Spitfire which caught the public`s imagination with its speed and manoeuvrability.
It was love at first sight for many young pilots which would go on to score numerous victory's against enemy aircraft...

I have wanted to make a film on Spitfires for a long time and also RAF Drem here in East Lothian as it is a place near where i grew up and often pass through nowadays when out cycling.
There are lots of Spitfire films on Youtube already but none on RAF Drem and i also wanted to make a point of the age of the pilots as well as recognition for the ground crew which did so much.
It took a few weeks from collecting the original RAF Drem pictures to the real WW2 fighter film and to add genuine audio Spitfire pilots accounts mostly from Squadrons who had served at RAF Drem during the war, and also historians commentary from the excellent mini series `Spitfire Ace` which you can watch on my youtube link here:

 Spitfire Ace...

The flying footage is genuine and gives some insight into what they lived through and then have lived with so people could live a free life.
As you will see at the end it wasn't just British air crew but young men from around the world often far from home.
I have a Flicker photo shoot of Drem Airfield today here; RAF Drem...

Here is my tribute to "the few" who did there bit during dark days...

Massive respect...

Pugsley Harvest biking...

i think this is going to become an annual type of bike ride...
last year i rode alot of stubble fields on the pugsley but the harvest was over very quickly due to the unsettled weather. this year so far its been lovely weather and lots of fields to go ride...
Sunday i went for a dawn cycle using stubble fields all the way to the coast and home. Pugsley is great for this and its floatation makes the going easy...
its not only great on sand and snow, it just eats up this terrain...
its great exploring small corners locally via the fields and i never saw anyone except the odd car far away...the day dawned with clearing skys overhead and a cool fresh early Autumn air..
onto the 2nd field and had to jump a small ditch to get to the next one but this was going to be fun...

sun should be up by now but cloud out at sea...a lovely fresh damp air this morning...September really is a lovely month...

a gentle downhill ahead...

you`ve seen this old derelict farm before but from the other side from my work...now owned by a larger farm...

mostly freewheeled down to here...was a silent morning with no wind...just the noise of the pugsleys tyres crunching over the stubble....

this cottage has been empty since the 1970s...shame as such a scenic view from here..

took the same picture here a few days back whilst at work and on a er... detour on the John Deere gator...

the view south on my left where i had just ridden from...day was warming up now...

a woodland strip between fields and a deep ditch too wide to jump...luckily i found a bridge!

heading east for the coast now and 2 view points you can only cycle to at harvest time...

down the field to the coast and the view above Seacliff Beach...

along the cliff top field to Tantallon Castle...

a very low tide exposing the rocks...



soaking up the views...





across the coast road at Castleton and across another field to a building that was part of the WW2 Gin Head Radar Station...



wonder what this winding handle is on an electric motor for?

bricked up windows...note the old metal shutters...




if i could live anywhere then this is it...the Ultimate coast cave!...
the ex M.O.D (Ministry Of Defence) Gin Head Research Station...
here is a RCAHMS ariel view...

This research establishment was opened in 1943 to develop radar for the Royal Navy. The base was also used to test the effectiveness of radio countermeasures equipment prior to the D-day landings in June 1944.
The site was then sold to Ferranti's Ltd in 1948 and closed in 1993 (after the cold war?) and lies derelict.it has been sold to a developer with planning for 6 houses...
for me the cliff top main building could be the dream house with the views over the Firth of Forth...

and across to Tantallon Castle...

lots of buildings too for workshops, bet theres a bunker under all that too...






this place is the Eagles Nest of East Lothian...






here are some RCAHMS pictures of the base in 1958...


note the narrow gauge rail tracks..must have been to roll in Radar Equipment...


The view from here south from above Canty bay...love it...the coast road is below and behind me...

time to get moving and head west...


5 flat fields west to the southside of North Berwick Law avoiding the climb up from sea level...






a quick detour north and back to the old ruin Dovecot near the Law...

heading south from NB Law now, miles of fields all the way home now...


then west across to the ruin windmill near Highfield crossroads...


very scenic here...


leaving the old windmill its time to head in a homeward directon...

just a few fields uncut now...here some hops...

not been up around that small wooded hill before so headed up there...

great views from this hill across to the Garlton Hills...


fun downhill down this field...

one field and im home after nearly 4 hours,need to do the same midweek if a clear evening...i love this bike and where it can easily go...