January's Ride - New Year's Resolutions!

30 people turned up for our first ride of 2012 including a good number of new people - I can only assume that a lot of Resolutions were made a couple of weeks ago!

Photos here

Alan led today's ride (that was originally going to be the route for December, were it not for the snow). We left the Meadows via Leamington Park, and discovered that the lift bridge was stuck in the Up position (or maybe the lift man was on a day off and didn't want boats stuck in the marina), so some of us carried our bikes up and over, and others went round the long way. A short stretch on road, and we used the normal Russell Road route - made more interesting this time because of the tram works, which have closed it to cars. Cycles and pedestrians share a narrow path through the works, and then we had to go around to Roseburn Terrace to get back onto the Roseburn Path. From there we were on the old railway line for about 5 miles, to Trinity. There were quite a few trees down, especially near the Queensferry Road Holiday Inn where a row of about 5 very large trees had all come down on a steep slope in the New Year storms.

From Trinity, we went down to the shoreline through the tunnel, and then West along the waterfront all the way to Cramond (see photo). The group split into "roadies" and "bike carriers" - the latter group went along the path along the Almond, which entails carrying bikes up about 80 steps (and down again), the other group went along the road (and beat us). We had lunch at the Cramond Brig, which coped extremely well with about 25 hungry cyclists all arriving at once (some people had picnics) and then headed back to the start along Route 1.



View 20milers to Cramond Jan12 in a larger map

Leader: Alan

December's ride

Tomorrow's ride (Saturday 10th) will take in some interesting bike paths in the north of the city and along the waterfront, with a lunch stop at Cramond Brig. The total distance will be 19 miles (or shorter if the weather's bad).

Update (Sunday 11 December): We decided to cancel yesterday's ride because of an overnight fall of snow which was covering the city. Apologies for anyone hoping to do the ride, and thanks to Alan for taking the trouble to turn up at the Meadows to advise people of the cancellation.

February's ride to the Reservoirs

We had a large turn-out for this ride - 26 people despite the February chill and slight drizzle.

Feb 2011 ride to Reservoirs

Alan led us on a fairly direct route out of Edinburgh, up Colinton Road (quite busy when there are parked cars in the bus lane) and then up through Bonaly to the reservoirs: Torduff, Clubbiedean, Harlow and Thriepmuir. It felt like a lot of climbing! (Someone calculated about 1000ft of climb overall). And some of this track is quite rough, however even those who came on bikes with thinner tyres seemed to manage all right and made it to lunch without incident.

After a nice lunch in the pub in Balerno (they had soup-and-sandwiches on the menu for us), we headed back into town along a Very Muddy Water of Leith path, then along the canal. My white bike turned black! It was almost all downhill though, which was a welcome relief after the morning's uphill sections.


View 20milers Feb11 to the Reservoirs in a larger map

Next month (12th March) I (Livia) will be leading the group out to Cammo with lunch in Cramond, then return along the Waterfront and back through Leith. Not nearly as much hill climbing, except at the very end when we have to get back to the middle of town. There will be a couple of very short stretches of busy road, but most will be on quiet roads and tracks.