CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
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.
Yes, I have reviewed favourably on the Pie Facebook page. Basically Nathalie the underbaker is being allowed to experiment to good effect.
19/20ths of a litre of juice per kilogram of apples is a very good return.
My cider making chum who also had the rhubarb turnover is still on the lookout for apples.
It is Balerno apple day next Saturday.
I have lots of pears if you think he wouldn't notice the difference...
Perry
@hankchief my Cidre Homme will take dem pears if you still want shot
Also you will get a less productive yield but yield nevertheless If you attend Balerno apple and pear day on Saturday morning this week coming.
Just my usual "long commute" to Livingston this morning, but it was a lovely morning for it, if a bit chilly. Beautiful sunrise.
FAO Bill and anyone else going that way, you can cycle down the allegedly closed road between the A71 and East Calder. It is all nice shiny new tarmac now.
Was a lovely if cold day, agree, went Heriot watt then towpath too many cyclists with headphones.
Worst. Was on the acqueduct. Dad pushing his bike slowly with wee boy in front pushing his bike slowly. Impatient person behind wearing headphones. Chap coming the other way walking a dug, was battered into by the headphone wearer. He was angry but I smiled and was also coorieing. In to the parapet and he cheers up.
Update from yesterday's return journey: the closed road is now open to motorised traffic again.
Thanks @fimm. I thought they must have opened it as the lights in East Calder were not as jammed up as in the past couple of weeks.
Several adventures yesterday around Comrie Croft with @Algo and @Iwrats.
Possibly more river fordings than usual. At one point the beavers helped us when the disappeared bridge from the disused railway between crieff and Comrie left us stranded on a promontory at the river Earn in spate and a deep field ditch where they had abandoned a dam. One big tree had been almost gnawed through. That would have made a bridge I th8nk as was much longer than the ditch. @algo made a bridge anyway nothing can stop him except perhaps a poorly aimed pannier and even then only momentarily.
The disused railway path then becomes more of a walking route. I shall join their campaign. The sun came out at Glen turret distillery and all was well.
An incongruous moment occurred driving through crieff in the morning when a naked torso Ed drug grazed fellow with prolific jail tattoos was walking down the middle of the road.
The drive back from Comrie to Braco was a most brilliant route for a ten mile TT. Maybe two houses on the entire route. Lovely gentle climb then descent, beautiful tarmac. Tarmac mmmmmm, my favourite.
It was a pal of mine who had been in the OTC at Merchiston Castle school who first introduced me to the Braco-Comrie road. He knew of it from the regular visits he used to have to make to Cultybraggan Camp on the outskirts of Comrie - now community owned I believe - for weekend exercises. It is indeed a fine road with a wonderful remote feel to it. It was in pretty rough condition last time I went along it, sounds like it's been smartened up since then.
Another road with a similar remote feel to it is the one from Amulree to Kenmore via Glen Quaich, past Loch Freuchie. There is a short series of very alpine-feeling hairpins on the descent in to Kenmore (or the climb out, depending on which way you do it). Unfortunately it's not very well maintained, being only a yellow road whereas the Braco-Comrie road is at least a B road. And there does seem to be an increased risk of encountering beaten-up 4x4s & pickups being driven along it at injudicious speeds.
Comrie is a nice place. My brother lives there with his family. Great community spirit, lots going on.
The Braco road is nice but does have the occasional high speed blind corner encounter.
@nobrakes at 6pm last night one other vehicle though was a huge sheep lorry and was on a bend but we had seen it from a way back.
Is your brother campaigning for the railway path to Crieff? I don’t think the council realise the beavers have eaten the bridge at the confluence of a deep field ditch and The Earn.
Like edinburgh the paper from PKC is coming up ten years old and Inimagine we were the only cyclists along there to cross the ditch in the last decade, using the dam the beavers abandoned and @algo’s makeshift log bridge, to portage the five bikes and four panniers across, just the last pannier that hit @algo smack In The Anja, if you know your chakras.
Taking notes re Comrie and the surrounding area as we’re heading to Crieff Hydro for the week. Now to decide which bike to bring with me. Winter road bike is currently winning as I don’t fancy fixing a puncture on a hub gear in the back of beyobd
The road from Crieff to Comrie is good surface but some of the drivers believe there is space to pass in both directions whether they have a cyclist on their inside or not. Some wait and then pass wide
Once in Comrie though a nice dead end road north and a belter of a road to Braco south. Maybe even at Braco a nice back road to auchteradrer though I cannot say that for certain.
Winter road bike safe bet.
I was talking to a couple from Devon in the cafe at Comrie Croft (all outside) the6 have been in the highlands a month in their camper van and has rained every day. They are heading south today so may take the rain with them?
Actually it isn’t a dead end? It hust had no traffic, it is I think Monument road up to the evil Dundas via the Devil’s Cauldron?
Heading east from Comrie the old railway is a core path as far as Trowan. From there the core path switches its allegiance to follow Lady Mary's Walk, which stays north of the route of the old railway as far as grid reference NN836218, at which point it crosses over the old railway and then continues between the old railway and the river for the remainder of its route to Crieff.
Can you provide a grid reference for the obstruction you encountered?
The latest entry on the Comrie Community Trust web site regarding the core path is dated 2015 and refers to match funding being obtained for a feasibility study for the Trowan-Comrie section of the route, which it describes as needing "significant work to bring it up to a suitable standard for use by all". I've not found any trace of the feasibility study itself.
The drive back from Comrie to Braco was a most brilliant route for a ten mile TT. Maybe two houses on the entire route. Lovely gentle climb then descent, beautiful tarmac. Tarmac mmmmmm, my favourite.
+1 for the Braco-Comrie Road - have combined it with Gleneagles/Glen Devon road for a useful route to/from the NW. I can also recommend the b&b on it which was just lovely when we stayed a few years back.
Maybe even at Braco a nice back road to auchteradrer though I cannot say that for certain.
Yes it is a nicely undulating Road between the two without much traffic.
Brilliant area for cycling @mccairney. Sma Glen certainly worthwhile and you might find the Glen Quaich climb interesting. Nice lanes in the valley around Auchterarder. Pop in to Gleneagles hotel to see how the other half live. Nice cafe at farmshop near Tibbermore. Kinkell Bridge is a beaut. If the traffic is not too bad, you can head west, south side of Loch Earn, then go up the climb to the ncn path up Glenogle. A nice circuit would go on the south side of Loch Tay, but quite hilly. Comrie Moor nice. Braco really nice cafe and one of the best Roman forts in Scotland.
812 216
On
OL47
Thanks for all the route suggestions. Last time I was up that way I got a puncture about halfway along the a822 to Dunkeld and had to ride the 10 or do miles back with a flat rear tyre. Lessons learned re: chancing it without a spare inner tube or pump!
@gembo and @ejstubbs - I think the beaver damn we found and forded was actually probably closer to 802 216 on re-examination probably about where the arrow is (click for bigger pic):
I think they had long left that area but I know that a family of them was resident on the east end of Loch Monzievaird in the summer.
@algo, many thanks
Thanks both for those pointers. I rather suspected it might be there. It's a fair while since I've been that way myself but it seemed a likely spot based on my recollection of the route. Might be a while yet before I go that way again by the sounds of it.
@gembo: Monument Road is eventually a dead end, but it does go a good way beyond the monument and the cauldron. It's popular with Munro baggers, it being a shorter and easier approach to Ben Chonzie from Upper Glen Lednock than the one from Loch Turret (and arguably a tad more interesting, in that it at least avoids the two mile schlep along the shore of the reservoir).
@nobrakes can your brother alert us when the Crieff Crystal Meth Geezer hits the Comrie and Crieff Gazette please
As per usual this ride wasn't yesterday, it’s also a long story so I’ve chosen to write it. With a holiday in Keswick planned I made a route for coming home last Friday. Unfortunately Thursday arrived and inevitably I was fighting off the cold the kids had started the holiday with. However with the forecast being blue skies and no wind I decided that at the very least I would head out past Penrith and enjoy the view at the top of Great Dun Fell.
When my early alarm went off I was feeling better than the night before so headed out before Dawn towards Penrith. My full route home was a rather ambitious 400km which given the lurgy was no longer going to be possible, however I could meet my family as they headed north through Gretna. The temperature was down as low as 1 degrees and there were some patches of frost. I didn't have an option for any proper winter leg covers as I had packed a week earlier. However leg warmers and 4 layers on my top kept me warm enough to get through dawn.
As the sky started to lighten (somewhere before Newbiggin) I could already see the Pennine ridge some 40km away and it wasn't long before I could see the pimple on the ridge which was my first target of the day. 2 hours after first spotting the pimple it had been slowly illuminated and become a shining golf ball on the top of the hill. Unfortunately I wasn't at the top of the hill, I had only just arrived in Knock. It wasn't until just under an hour later that I summited the climb. As @Greenroofer said upthread it is never Hardknott steep but the length of it and the location of the steeper sections certainly don't make the summit come quickly. By the top of the steep section I had named the click in my knee Greenroofer to remind me who had put me up to the idea of climbing it.
As with all climbs it eventually came to an end. One nice touch which @greenroofer's video doesn't notice is that the snow poles after the final gate are numbered and provide a nice countdown from 100 until you arrive. Something which would help if you were going up at full tilt (something I thankfully wasn't attempting).
The view from the top was everything you would expect and more. You could see the full vista of the eastern Lake District all the way from the northern end past Penrith down to the south somewhere around Kendal. It was also cold with frost still on the ground wherever there was shade so I couldn’t dwell longer than the time it took to eat a sandwich.
My options from the top were to return to Keswick, Ride north to Alston or head south. It's hard not to fell strong when you summit such a large hill in such glorious conditions so having checked a lift would still be an option if I arrived after 8 I set my sights on Barnard Castle where my route could intersect the northern leg of LEL. Of course I wasn't on the sort of bike which lets you do that directly (and it may not be legal) so my first job was to descend. Oddly despite the numerous signs warning people not to drive up the road there were a few cars parked along the road on my way down. By the time I was half way down the hill the golf ball had disappeared into cloud and would stay that way all the way through Brampton until the hill was out of sight somewhere around Kirkby Stephen.
My next challenge was crossing the North York moors, although the road had been gently updulating almost all the way from the bottom of GDF the real climb up to started 30km later with a 250m climb over 4km. A fraction of GDF but with a runner almost overtaking me on some of the steeper sections it didn’t feel any easier. At the top I was rewarded with my final view of the Lake District and after a bit more climbing a ride past the Tann Hill Inn (Britain’s highest pub). Finally I enjoyed the stunning scenery (other than the nose to tail traffic on the distant A66) and wonderful road down into the North Yorkshire Dales and past the incredibly picturesque hamlet of Whaw. Unfortunately though Barnard Castle wasn’t at the end of this dale so I turned up the ominously named Stang. This time the climb was front loaded with half of the 250m climb coming in the first kilometre.
The descent into Barnard Castle was rapid and unfortunately marked the end of the quiet roads. It seemed like the whole of Northern England had come for a sight test with nose to tail traffic through most of the town. However it did provide a selection of cafes one of which served the most excellent large slice of Nutella Cake. Although I chose it because of the presence of a cycle rack and couple of touring cyclists outside I would recommend Nobia & Sons to anyone passing through. The outside tables were full so I took my cake along to a bench and ate it while watching the traffic queue. The café was my only real stop of the day and the one chance I took to refill a water bottle.
The stretch out of Barnard Castle wasn’t nice as it with busy traffic and a number of uncomfortable passes. Including the only one which made me jump during the day. This was an oncoming car who just couldn’t wait half a second longer and pulled out to overtake while in my periphery vision. Probably not dangerous per se but you don’t expect to suddenly have a car beside you moving sideways towards you.
Thankfully once I reached Newbiggin the traffic levels had started to tail off and I was left to climb in peace. I don’t know if this was because of a road closure notice on Yad Moss or because there really isn’t much up that way anyway. As the day was marching on and I guessed the diversion was lengthy I ignored the road closure signs and hoped for the best. The best turned out to be a fleeting glimpse of a barn owl flying away from the verge. As for the road closure, it was for 10m but they had converted the verge into a gravel track so no problems there. The sun was setting as I approached the summit, nicely highlighting the final view of Great Dun Fell (now out of the clouds again). After more than 100 miles of riding since it first appeared at dawn, sunset seemed like the appropriate time to wave goodbye to the dome and begin my descent.
The final 70km of the route into Gretna contained around 500m climbing. Less than the 7km ascent of GDF. As the sun was setting it was time to pedal on, although I did stop outside the Brampton Co-op. I had earmarked it as my final restocking point for the original 400km plan but instead I sat on the loading bay, finished my sandwiches and stretched my back which was now quite sore. At that point my head unit was showing about 3,850m of climbing for the day and I wondered if I would be seeing 4,000 by Gretna. As I rolled onwards towards Longtown my average speed was final creeping up but there was nothing to climb. I think the 10m of climb to cross the motorway was the only notable addition to the daily total. I don’t normally use the Strava correction tools but in this instance it corrected up over the magical 4,000m mark so that’s what I did.
Crossing the border and rolling into the carpark at Gretna was a huge relief and the sign of my family standing by the car to welcome me was delightful. They are the ones who made such an adventure possible.
Things the ride taught or reminded me.
Wow. What a ride. Chapeau sir.
Having GDF for breakfast & Tan Hill for lunch & Yad Moss for tea is a grand day out in anyone's book.
Your write up makes me want to have a crack at GDF someday (it will probably take me all day though...)
That's some ride, @acsimpson, well done.
Your write up makes me want to have a crack at GDF someday
14 laps needed to Everest it. Only 104km.
Just in case you were wondering...
@Fenchy - I wasn't.
@acsimpson, fabulous write up.
Sorry, would be 208km to Everest it, forgot about the downhill bits.
Just in case that makes it more appealing...
@acsimpson - sounds absolutely brilliant
There are loads of place named Newbiggin including many farms. Does anyone know what it means?
There's a recent Cycling UK article by Rob Ainsley about cycling along rivers. It includes one from Newbiggin following the Lune to Sunderland Point near Lancaster - sounds lovely if you can work out a way to turn it into a circuit. Link https://www.cyclinguk.org/cycle-magazine/great-rides-britains-rivers
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