CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Not done it myself, so hopefully some others will confirm/deny, but:
The Red Road from Bavelaw Castle to West Kip is marked as MTB suitable on Spokes' Midlothian map. Someone has also tagged the Monk's Rig path south from there to Nine Mile Burn as "mtb=yes" on Openstreetmap. Strava's heat map suggests plenty of folk have cycled it, too.
Yes, it's perfectly practicable over Red Gate down to Eight Mile Burn. The southward path from the col to Nine Mile Burn might cause me tears, not sure about the Chieflets.
The 'Roman Road' running parallel to the A702....well it's part of the Capital Trail but I couldn't even see it. Might be rideable, might not.
Red road a doddle until the top sketchy after that. Yellow brick road to listonshiels is broken in places but the whole listonshiels route from Buteland road up is probably suitable for the progeny. Going down from the Borestane can be quite challenging but then you are in carlops and from Carlips there is a path then a tarmac road to Nine mile burn parallel to the main road, if you absolutely have to go to Nine Mile Burn. Monks Rig/Font stone return steep
I'd skip the Borestane descent southwards, certainly. Tolerable but not fun.
Okay, i know a family in balerno who did the following route. Children 12 and 10
Cycle up to thriepmuir, turn right before red moss and go along the rig road to the end, go through the gate and cut across country to listonshiels road. [this is less sketchy than the yellow brick road]. Turn left go up to Borestane, follow new path to top of East Cairn. Retrace route but descend Listonshiels all the way down to Buteland and come Back the road to cockburnhill road then back into balerno.
Obviously does not go to nine mile burn but is an adventure
If early enough in the morning all the roads are quiet.
Thanks for the tips - I'll take a look.
Nine Mile Burn is non-negotiable.
Rig road to Listonshiels is fine at the moment as it's dry. Wouldn't fancy it after a lot of wet weather.
Interested to discover there is a new path up from the Borestane to East Cairn. I noticed there was a new gate and surface where it turns off from the route to Carlops but wasn't sure if it only went a short distance uphill like it used to.
@AKen, not sure far it goes actually as I never made it that far. On the bike (spotted it last time i was walking0 But I k now the 12 year old and 10 year old did.
The landowner is generally opening the land for cyclists and walkers of less technical skill base. So he also seems to be working on the ridge west of West Kip too. Big tree trunks etc
Agree also that the extension of the rig route is boggy (well wasn’t until today)
Thanks Gembo - will need to have a look and see how far it goes.
@aken, that was my intention but was a little too gravelly for the bike I was on, compared to the red road. I was making v slow progress so I turned and had quite a descent at some speed with those nice soft brake pads that @arellcat favours? Swiss Stop? K Stop, K-Swiss?
They were not stopping me that is for sure. Going to adjust later.
Gravel is easier to negotiate at high speed for sure
@gembo, You can go Swiss Stop or Kool Stop; the former are best but I use the latter usually because of price. I found Clarke to be surprisingly good on my Brompton.
@arellcat
Yes Hannah and Chris supplied K-Stop. I have had them on for a while and they have worn out but I have tightened and the bike is stopping but cables feel very taught.
K-SWISS is I think a trainer brand?
I always liked Kool Stop. What bike do you use in the Pentlands, Père Gembeau?
If on gravel it is the Spesh Tricross which has the KStop, they just weren’t coming off Borestane route. Back chuckles at bottom end - hilarious, exhilarating, frightening
Tricross fine for Glen Tilt.
Will need to buy a waterproof tent then
Don't need to worry about rain in August not in Scotland
It’ll be fine this year - no BookFest.
So I did a reconnaissance mission for a potential trip with the chieflets from Balerno to Nine Mile Burn (mentioned above).
The Red Road up from Bavelaw was okay. A bit exposed but nothing a bag of jelly babies shouldn't conquer. Took me 40mins from the reservoir without stopping or walking. I reckon I will need to ration the jelly babies over a 90min time horizon.
At the saddle I took the lower route to Nine Mile Burn rather (via Braid Law) to see if I could avoid the extra elevation gain from the Monk's Rig route.
That was mistake, as was continuing across the track heading to the farm and thereby going the wrong side of Braid Law.
The route itself wasn't too bad on the way down but was technical enough (tree roots, muddy divots etc) that the return journey would be tough work on the arms as well as the legs.
On the wrong side of Braid Law it was still a path but getting narrower between bracken. The worse part was the cross slope, which was enough to catch the uphill pedal at the bottom of the stroke. Not sure it would pass the risk assessment for little people.
I had to back track a bit to get down to the wider path heading to Quarrel Burn Reservoir and then a push uphill to regain the proper path.
The last bit was some nice grassy slopes to Nine Mile Burn. Feeling peckish, I then traversed to Carlops in search of food. Another mistake. The pub was shut :-(
Back up the hill and I followed the Monk's Rig route up. Mainly grassy slopes with a few parts that were beyond my legs and I was pushing. May need an extra bag of Jelly Babies but still only took me 40mins.
The descent back to Thriepmuir was lovely, I even took the rooty route through the avenue of trees. Proper Mountain biking. :-)
In summary, I reckon it would be doable with the chieflets, with enough bribes. The ride up to Balerno could be a grind before we even get to the hills but the northbound journey should have a great effort / reward ratio with it being downhill from Balerno home.
Now we just need to work out a date and pray to the weather fairy.
Always good to recce. Pub shut bummer. Roots route quite technical
Really beautiful video of Mark Beaumont and Markus Stitz cycling in the snow.
Completed my Pentland traverse to Nine Mile Burn today (mentioned above) with both Chieflets.
A glorious route and helpfully they waited for me. I may have to reduce their Jelly Baby allowance...
I like the contrasting sides to the ride - 1 a gravelly track, the other a grassy path. 1 with views of Edinburgh amd its western Satellite towns plus the bridges. The other with rolling green farmland and a vista that stretches from Berwick Law to the depths of the Borders.
We'll be back
Any Quarrel.? Or is that route dud. You said it was dud. respect to those weans and their dad.
We went down & then up Monk's Rigg - I gave up Quarrel as a dud following my recce. It can be done but a very poor 2nd compared to barrelling straight down a grassy slope.
The kids were very surprised at the tripling of coins in the Font Stone between our visits...
Many offerings have been made to the gods and fairies and Covenanters
Route 1
Why not?
Only time I forgot to leave an offering* I lost my filter bottle on the way up to the three brethren with my evenings water supply. Don't mess with the Fair Folk.
*at the cheese well on the southern upland way.
Thanks for the review @HankChief I've had a route on my komoot (pushing) up that way from Nine Mile Burn for ages never got around to investigating it.
There are 5 fences to lift your bike over and you may need to do some pushing if your legs give out. Nothing ridiculously steep but it is relentless.
IF.... Ha I'll be pushing as soon as the hill looks at me slightly!
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