EDINBURGH 20-MILERS

20th Anniversary Year

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Sunday 25 July 2010

30milers ride to North Queensferry

Fourteen people turned up for the inaugural 30-milers ride yesterday. The concept had been long-discussed; aiming to go a bit further but still at a measured pace and ensuring that people still have breath to talk on the ride. We set off at the earlier time of 10am to give us time for the extra miles, and Mike led us to South Queensferry and then across the Forth Road Bridge, and over the back road (and up the hill) into North Queensferry. I spotted security cameras and a policeman with a gun in the grounds of one nice house - I presume that it was Gordon Brown's, not Iain Banks' home!

Nearly all of us decided to lunch in NQ; most people visiting the Albert Hotel which served us pub lunches very quickly and efficiently, while some had picnics with a fabulous view of the rail bridge. Photos to follow when I can upload them!

We then headed back over the road bridge (thankfully not up the big hill that we'd come down, and we avoided gatecrashing some wedding photos in a hotel garden (shortcut)) and down into South Queensferry to collect Logan who'd gone back there for lunch. Finally, we came back into Edinburgh via the Dalmeny estate, with unfortunately two casualties who skidded on gravel on a steep bend and caused themselves injury in the process. They made it back to the Cramond Brig hotel and called a black cab and we hope that they get better quickly.

The total distance was just over 30 miles and wasn't much later than many 20-milers rides. We went a little faster overall and probably had shorter breaks to recover, but overall it didn't feel too much of a stretch from some of the 20 mile-ish rides that we do.

The next 20-miler ride is Saturday 14th August, and the next 30-miler is Saturday 4th September.

Saturday 10 July 2010

Next rides

Our next ride is a special longer ride on the 24th July at the slightly earlier time of 10am.
This is to allow us time to go a little further - Mike's plan is to take us over the Forth Road Bridge, with lunch in South Queensferry (probably) as we've done before.

The next regular 20-mile-ish ride is on Saturday 14th August at 10.30am when Ken will be leading us up to the Reservoirs near Balerno.

There will be another longer ride on Saturday 4th September with the route to be announced nearer the time.

July's ride to Prestonpans

A small but dedicated (some would say committed, some would say "should be committed...") band of 20milers showed up for today's ride in the rain. We managed to lose 4 people within the first 20 minutes (2 decided that it was too wet, one person went the wrong way and the person sent to bring him back went to a different muster point - memo: next time, check which Lochs have Swans in before using them as a reference...) - we eventually met up in Musselburgh though.

Chris led us through some interesting back roads to Newhailes House near Musselburgh, whereupon Mike and I split from the main party to go to find the lost sheep who had found shelter and coffee in Musselburgh. Mike then went home to work on his rear brake, and Andrew & I went on to meet the rest of the group in Prestonpans. We arrived only just ahead of them: they looked rather muddier than us and had collected nettle stings too, but seemed happy that they'd been on an interesting route.

After an excellent lunch at the Gothenburg Pub the remaining 8 of us headed back to Edinburgh along the coastal path. At one point we passed a rather foolish fisherman who had got himself stranded by the incoming tide on rocks - with a sea whipped up by the wind he didn't look particularly safe but he seemed to be reassuring his friend that he was fine, so we cycled on.

I have mapped out the bits I cycled, and the yellow bit in the middle is a wild guess based on some things that Chris mentioned at lunch - corrections welcome from those who were on the ride!

View 20milers to Prestonpans in a larger map