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.
Cycling to work yesterday I could smell roasting coffee and on my way home I investigated and found that Brodies has a factory shop, just across the road from the main entrance to Newhailes. I bought a kilo of Kilimanjaro beans. I doubt I'd even have smelled the coffee if I'd been in a car.
Any other life enhancing places which you found because you were cycling and not driving?
Most parts of the Water of Leith.
Thing about bikes is that it's easier to wander about, stop, look up go through gaps and down paths that cars can't.
Old railway paths are my favourite places to go where cars can't. I like just jumping off the bike, propping it up against a tree or a hedge and going for a wee scramble around to find interesting bits of old architecture (concrete as well as bricks!)
@ Kaputnik, Sounds like you need to design a credible, stylish, practical and lightweight stand for bikes. Once you've done it let me know so I can copy the design ;-))
(one side of bar tape done, pausing for a brew before the second side, is it just me that finds the "permanent" aspect of applying bar tape scary??!)
"is it just me that finds the "permanent" aspect of applying bar tape scary??!)"
Probably not.
I recently put some foam (Grab-On copy) on drop bars - real fiddle getting them over the brake cables - used lots of Fairy Liquid. (Other brands are probably available - but why bother...)
The first side of bar taping is always a faff for me, even though I've done it quite a lot now. The foamy, stretchy tape is much easier than the Fizik microtex stuff I now like using. Doing the "other" bar seems to take mere minutes in comparison as you can just reference the completed bar that took so long to get right.
Ahh, top tip time, for conventional handlebar grips (motorbike or bicycle) firm hold hairspray is the business, liberal application to the inside of the grip and it will slide onto the bar easily, once there it dries off and the tack/stick ensures the grip doesn't move under any provcation I've encountered, once it's time to come off there is virtually no residue.
OT, My grandfather was a chemist and their labs spent a very long time trying to make a better household detergent than Fairy, they failed and our family have used it ever since!
Travelling too fast and in too enclosed a thing distorts the impression of the distance covered, the altitude gained or lost and generally detracts deom experiencing landscape at the human scale.
I need new bar tape but I'm still not sure everything's set up optimally. I'm also loath to spend any money to re-upholster the never-used drops.
"I'm also loath to spend any money"
Old inner tubes should cover that.
I've just transferred some bar tape from an old set of bars to a new set.
I can't work out how to get it round the brakes, the gel tape was a big disappointment - just same tape but with bits of jelly padding underneath, making it trickier to wrap the tape correctly.
I can't work out how to get it round the brakes
Flip the hoods back on themselves then do a sort of figure-of-eight loop around them. Youtube videos are much better at explaining than I
I use the short strip wrapped around the back of the clamp first to cover any deficiencies in my wrapping technique ;-)
I reckon in a car you might completely miss the point of this thread and go wildly off topic !!!!
just joking !!!!!
Lol, in the car (or indeed on the roadbike!) I miss my ten minute meditative peace and quiet on the old railway before finishing my run into work every morning. :)
The Hermitage.
http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1005625
Since the Access Legislation it's OK to cycle through - mind pedestrians and dogs etc.
I was once told off for cycling on the road to the house by a ranger in a van - I was going to an official event there!!!
Quite a lot of woodland and path work going on at moment to make it even better.
If you've never been, route continues along Blackford Glen Road (not a single moving vehicle yesterday) to the foot of Liberton Brae.
Totally agree with chdot, the Hermitage is just lovely. Not as 'commuter route' as the WoL path between Colinton village and Juniper Green and Balerno, not as immaculately gardened as the Botanics.
Is the old concrete bomb shelter still visible on the glen road? It's been ages since I was along that way, as I usually join at the Lang Linn Path bridge and walk or ride through to Greenbank.
The Moorfoots are wonderful at this time of year - lotas of calling birds - curlews, grouse, lapwings, oystercatchers etc - you can only really soak in that atmosphere if you get out of the car.
Love The Hermitage - used to walk there a lot when I lived in Blackford. Now occasionally I go at lunchtime at work.
Hermitage was the first place I saw goldcrest and green woodpecker. Also used to be a regular haunt for kestrel and peregrine.
The Moorfoots are wonderful at this time of year - lotas of calling birds - curlews, grouse, lapwings, oystercatchers etc - you can only really soak in that atmosphere if you get out of the car.
It's coming up to toad time (or is it frogs? I forget) at Heriot Water. Last year I cycled up there on the second weekend of April and the road was covered with them. You'd have missed them in a 50mph car, but you got a great view from a bike. Actually, you wouldn't have missed them in a car - several had been squashed by motors.
There were already a few squashed frogs on the road between the left turn for Heriot and Innerleithen :/
At Aberlady reserve (a wonderful place), the frogs and toads were at "it" the last couple of weekends. Later in the summer it's fun seeing all the young'uns leaving the ponds (then getting trampled on by nature lovers)
kaputnik: There were already a few squashed frogs on the road between the left turn for Heriot and Innerleithen :/
I rode down that way this morning - turned left into Heriot though. Didn't see the frogs but did see buzzards and a dead badger. Maybe not one for the Wildlife Highlight of the Day.
yeah I saw a dead badger at one point also. I thought at first it was a dead panda :/
Ha! I see so much road kill but badgers are unusual. A panda would be unique.
90% of badgers dead on the road have been killed elsewhere (e.g. near Apple Pie Shop of Karnwath) then placed on road as artificial roadkill.
Pandas are different.
Speaking as someone who lived in The Forth until I was two I was amazed to hear the words Carnwath and espresso mentioned in the same sentence (in another thread). It's a shame they spoiled the best bit of the town with a dead badger (i.e. the road out).
But back on topic, once the junior peleton gets over their bad colds we might make it to the Engine Shed. There must be more cyclists than drivers find that place by accident.
Is the old concrete bomb shelter still visible on the glen road?
Still trying to find out if it was some sort of air raid shelter, or a 1950s culvert from the time of Blackford quarry.
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