1) Is there a nice way to cycle to central Glasgow?
2) Can I get my bike back on the train easy enough outside rush hour?
I should really know the answers to both questions but I don't.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Rout advice request
(51 posts)-
Posted 5 years ago #
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Think the Labour Party set to have a rout this Thursday, see also Tories, also not a flicker for lib dems, at least in Scotland. Greens I dunno?
However there is no nice way to get to Glasgow central. However if dry and easterly wind and you have company the union canal to the wheel and the forth and Clyde thereafter is ok, if monotonous. Usually wet after Falkirk too.
Sustrans starts and ends well. Canal towpath, WoL path, Kirknewton back road, east Calder farm track will have massive puddle, almondell nice, Livingston village pretty, the country park to the pyramids good, the railway path from broxy to airdrie deserted. You get lost in the badlands twixt airdrie and coatbrig mayb as they have burnt the signs, lot of wee radges on motorbikes and smashed glass. Uddingston to Clyde nice, Clyde walkway bit bleak.
You will get your bike back on train no problem. Slow train, or faster livi train or cross country (cheapest but remember to take your bike - I have a colleague who forgot and had to retrieve from Newcastle) or the queen st option no prob.
I have the Sustrans map which is of some help. There is probably a grim book about cycling through industrial decline and wasteland in it.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Greens are out of it. Polling between 3 and 5% I'm afraid. SNP for splitist Remainers Lib Dems for loyalist Remainers?
I want to get to Central station for 11h00 to meet my bro. Can't be getting lost in the badlands or spending hours on the canals. Think it took me three hours to the Wheel the last time I cycled to Stirling for work for a laugh.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Canal you do not get lost.mthe Linlithgow section is open again. 3 hours from your house to Falkirk via canal is probably right. . Takes me 5 hours from here to Glasgow. I go Ratho to canal access.
If easterly wind quicker.
So get up at 5, leave sharpish and canal it.
Though that option is not on your poll.
You can take the main road through subo land. Blackburn etc, gun free towns with bullet holes in the signs. Lot of traffic.
Given likely a westerly why not take the train to central then cycle home at your leisure, still would go with the canal over Sustrans or roads.
Posted 5 years ago # -
There is a prospect of me being tipsy for the return leg. Do not fancy trying to find Sustrans routes out of Unthank in any state other than blue-steel sobriety.
Five hours by Union and then Forth-Clyde canals? Tempting but I'd be pure clatty.
Posted 5 years ago # -
1) Is there a nice way to cycle to central Glasgow?
The canal path is nice if you don't mind slowing down for dogs and occasionally dismounting to shimmy your bike through various assortments of ironmongery. Roughly 60 miles.
I took the back roads to Linlithgow, then onto the canal path, as I can never remember if the Ratho-Linlithgow section is tarred and I was on my road bike. Your bike will cope regardless.
2) Can I get my bike back on the train easy enough outside rush hour?
I'd say there's a 99% probability. If you were very unlucky you might need to wait for the next train.
Greens are out of it. Polling between 3 and 5% I'm afraid.
In Scotland?
Posted 5 years ago # -
Those are my
principlespolls, and if you don't like them... well, I have others (of apparently dubious sample size): https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1130062632726224896I really hate electoral systems which encourage tactical voting.
Posted 5 years ago # -
I'm afraid so;
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1129907848182403072
All systems have an element of the tactical for marginal parties? There's always a quota?
Trick for the SGs is to cease being marginal. I wish to engage Mr Harvie on that subject.
Posted 5 years ago # -
All systems have an element of the tactical for marginal parties?
Probably. For some systems (e.g., STV) it is negligible.
I shouldn't have to be checking polling data before deciding how to cast my vote, anyway.
Posted 5 years ago # -
How tipsy? For example sober when back in Edinburgh and cycling again?
Canal towpaths flat as pancake except at join. Some curvier bits and of course aqueducts. But also straight sections. Also very obvious. At Twechar you can come off the towpath and cycle on the road for a bit as runs parallel as I did when the canal towpath was a river. East of livi you can come off and cycle into a stately home looking for a cup of tea as you have mistaken party balloons for a shop but be chased by a fierce bad dog like the time I went to wheel with mr Wingpig and Mr Uberuce. Then you can almondell it and Sustrans home or familiar roads.
Clarty yes but you can wash.
Might go check how far beyond Ratho the Sealed surface goes, might just be climbing centre, there has been work on the western half regards proper surface too and one day it will be paved all the way, tho still wet.
Posted 5 years ago # -
I shouldn't have to be checking polling data before deciding how to cast my vote
Amen to that pilgrim.
How tipsy? Not very. Couple of pints tops, but my inhibitions and planning skills pretty much dissolve after the first gulp. Met my pal in the shop on Friday, got invited to theirs for a G&T and then tried to make a curry and man it was complex. Pretty sure I'd wind up on the ferry to Arran or in a fight in Balloch or something.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Brewdog's nanny state is good out of the bottle, less so in a glass as goes a little flat. It has been brewed to be 0.5per cent but to actually be beer. Two of them would be a fifth if a pint of strong ale so 2.5 times weaker than a half and half shandy.
Putting a ginger beer into a half pint of IPA is also nice, if you have a bartender willing to put a half pint in a pint tumbler. Though that might be too strong for you?
Posted 5 years ago # -
I will just have fizzy pop if sobriety seems like the best option. But this will be the first time in five years that I have seen my auntie and we both like to bond over the gently hypnotic effects of a glass of beer and I think we will go to the Bon Accord after lunch in the Singl End because Bon Accord is the motto of the city we were both born in.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Ritz next door was my preference for post 11pm drinking back in days of early closing
From Bon accord take bridge to nowhere path then veer to cowcaddens then take the canal home, simples
Posted 5 years ago # -
Did recce mentioned upstream. Loads of people out in towpath and water, families et cetera also spotted Edinburgh Cycle (Cam? Young chap drinks cider wears. Black t shirt with red razor blade motif)
Surfaced until at least Broxburn. We came off here and went through almondell country park. Sat eating a 99 watching numerous Swifts up high.
So maybe surfaced all the way to Linlithgow, as certainly surfaced there.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Toying with the idea of riding home. Not sure it's going to gel with my smart-casual vibe and even moderate drinking though.
Mate of mine in Switzerland wants us to do Pedal fer Scotchland in September. I imagine that takes the Sustrans route?
Posted 5 years ago # -
Pedal for Scotland is on closed roads, so choose its own path.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Pedal pour Ecosse, hundred takes the route via Kilmarnock if you want 100. One helluva slog
The shorter one goes through torphicen on the closed road as Monsieur Verte Roofer dits, nae whaur near Sustrans which goes pyramids, country park livi village almondell Balerno
I did the recce today in red chinos and an icebreaker zipper, black with red zip. I described this garb as Civvies
Posted 5 years ago # -
Surfaced until at least Broxburn.
What kind of surface?
Posted 5 years ago # -
Tarred road surface narrow in places due to veg. Some bumps as tree roots underneath, two puddles in entire stretch
Posted 5 years ago # -
@EdinburghCycleCam tells me (on twitter) that it isn't tarred to Broxburn.
Whom to believe?
Posted 5 years ago # -
Well. It must end after I came off which is east end of Broxburn before Edinburgh cycle cam declares this is Broxburn BUT it must then re tar as it is tarred in Linlithgow Innit
Posted 5 years ago # -
All this for the forthcoming book Centralbelter: One man in North Lanarkshire.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Can I get my bike back on the train easy enough outside rush hour?
If you take the Airdrie - Bathgate line there is plenty of space. As well as the random space officially for wheelchairs, some trains also have proper cycle spaces (three tip up chairs with straps to attach bikes). Some of these even have little bikes on the outside of the train so you can find them. Others rely on you knowing they are there and spotting the three chairs with their backs to the window.
At rush hour guards let you stand with your bike in the door areas - at least on the Livingston - Edinburgh stretch. I don't think I've ever seen someone left behind with a bike since the line was upgraded.Posted 5 years ago # -
It is surfaced to Linlithgow, I don't know beyond that.
Posted 5 years ago # -
It is surfaced to Linlithgow, I don't know beyond that.
Thanks. It's surfaced from Linlithgow to Glasgow as well.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Tbh. I'd ditch the bike and just get the train.
I took my bike through once when I was travelling for work, it was a pita to get on, I had to stand with my bike half way to Bathgate and then had to try and extricate it from the pile just after Livingston to get off at Edinburgh Park.
This saved about 20 minutes at each end but subsequently I just dumped myself down and read for an hour.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@steveo, outwith rush hour and indeed outwith queen st route any time, taking bike is a dawdle.
Anyone for a CCE ride to Falkirk wheel and back? Jolly adventure
Posted 5 years ago # -
If time is of the essence, would definitely use the road to get to Winchburgh at least and if not Linlithgow.
You can follow the A8 and A89 cycle paths to just past the big viaduct and turn right along Peniel Pl to cut off the Ratho wriggle and the Broxburn bend.
I cycle that route along the canal at least once a month and honestly can't remember anything remarkable about the surface - so it could be paved or unpaved - not unpleasant. The most memorable thing on recent rides has been the wonderful smell of wild garlic N and W of Winchburgh.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Greens are out of it. Polling between 3 and 5% I'm afraid.
Last I heard, the Greens are in third place in Scotland ahead of Labour and the Conservative and Unionist Party.
Posted 5 years ago #
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