I'm in Scotland

EKE_38BPM

and it is raining.

If any of you Edinburgeritesers wanna meet for a drink, let me know.

UndercoverElephant

Well I'm sure I could sneak away for one...

Where about are you, and how long are you staying?

EKE_38BPM

I'm here until Thursday. I'll let you know when I'm free as I'm going to some shows.
I'm staying in Balerno.

UndercoverElephant

Ah, completely the wrong side of Edinburgh, then.

How about a lunchtime meet-up tomorrow?

veronese68

I know we get accused of being London-centric but Scotland is very N London, I think you may be over stretching things. Have fun, it's sunny down here.

londonlivvy

Whilst on the subject of scotland, am going to Scotland this Friday (sorry for thread Hijack EKE) with boyf's mother and partner. We are all taking bikes. Suggestions for a day trip route (maybe 40-50 miles, scenic etc?). Staying down Leith Walk.

HamishD

EKE_38BPM wrote:

I'm here until Thursday. I'll let you know when I'm free as I'm going to some shows.
I'm staying in Balerno.

I lived in Balerno for about 15 years . ..

Redhog14

Got free time tonight for a pint in the vicinity of Waverley around 6?

UndercoverElephant

Hi Livvy,

I work close to Leith Walk. I'm no expert on the cycling round here, the sportives I've done have all been very pretty, though. There's a website that has loads of local routes on:

http://www.bikeroutes.org.uk/locatmap.htm

For a nice route, I'd cycle out to North Berwick and follow the route marked 76 on the above site. If you loop back to North Berwick, then the train can take you back to Edinburgh (it has bike carriages). This ought to work out about 40 miles or so.

I would recommend East Lothian, though, wouldn't I?

First.Aspect

londonlivvy wrote:

Whilst on the subject of scotland, am going to Scotland this Friday (sorry for thread Hijack EKE) with boyf's mother and partner. We are all taking bikes. Suggestions for a day trip route (maybe 40-50 miles, scenic etc?). Staying down Leith Walk.

Depends wat sort of route you want, and whether you have a car.

If no car and you want a flat route, head east - paging undercover elephant. I dimly recall that there is a nice road (the A198 I think) which takes you to North Berwick

If you have a car and you want a hilly ride in the borders, you could do worse than the Tweed valley area - I've had a stab att a 40 mile virtually traffic free route for you. Its a bit googled up along the Tweed (for some reason showing an unecessary route up a forest fire road instead of following the minor road south of the river).

google maps route

nickthetrick

londonlivvy wrote:

Whilst on the subject of scotland, am going to Scotland this Friday (sorry for thread Hijack EKE) with boyf's mother and partner. We are all taking bikes. Suggestions for a day trip route (maybe 40-50 miles, scenic etc?). Staying down Leith Walk.

Suggestion from Leith follow the North Sea Cycle Route (think it's called cycle route 1) to Forth Road Bridge. Over bridge then follow the fife coastal path, very scenic to Kinghorn or so (or carry on a bit further to Kirkcaldy, tho not much there). Then catch the train back.

If you're making good time you could try for anstruther, or possibly even st. andrews (more like 60 miles). From st. andrews there's the option to train back from Leuchars. Anstruther is a bit trickier.

meanredspider

Pfft - you guys are hardly IN Scotland - all the way down south there.

Seriously though, before I moved to Scotland, I had no idea how big it was - it just seemed a long way away. Then I drove up to Inverness from Cambridge for the first time and, on reaching the Scottish border, realised that I wasn't even half way. I blame the BBC weather map.

daviesee

londonlivvy wrote:

Whilst on the subject of scotland, am going to Scotland this Friday (sorry for thread Hijack EKE) with boyf's mother and partner. We are all taking bikes. Suggestions for a day trip route (maybe 40-50 miles, scenic etc?). Staying down Leith Walk.

Road cycling?

I would recommend heading east along the coast to Musselburgh. Once there you have the choice of keeping relatively flat along the coast or head into the hills.
For the hills head through Tranent and onto Gifford as far as you like.

Cycle route mapping websites will help with circular instead of out and back routes.

It is lovely.







When it's dry!

EKE, I have not been but a new cycle shop/cafe has opened up. A possible meeting spot for those in Edinburgh?
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ronde-Bi ... 04?sk=info

londonlivvy

Thanks guys for route suggestions - no car - we're all training it up from London.

Whilst the boyf would undoubtedly love as many hills as possible, I'm not sure on the state of fitness of mother & partner so trying not to be over-ambitious. I like both coastal ideas - my granny used to live in North Queensferry and I have cousins in Rosyth so could pop in for cake. humn...

I'll pop the hilly hills route into the garmin and could always send boyf out before brekky to do that and tire him out before we set off together.

First.Aspect

meanredspider wrote:

Pfft - you guys are hardly IN Scotland - all the way down south there.

Seriously though, before I moved to Scotland, I had no idea how big it was - it just seemed a long way away. Then I drove up to Inverness from Cambridge for the first time and, on reaching the Scottish border, realised that I wasn't even half way. I blame the BBC weather map.

Its about 60% the size of England, according to Wikipedia. But for me the geography makes it seem larger. Once you've been driving on an A road which is a single lane with passing places for a few tens of miles, the destination feels that much further from where you started!

thecrofter

East Lothian should be OK the next few days, as there is very little wind forecast, but it's a bitch if it's at all windy, that's why I tend to avoid it. You could head SW out of the city on the Lang Wang (A70) if you're after some hills, or out to the FRB and along the coast to Bo'ness and Linlithgow. Some nice quiet roads, the option of a train back if you find a nice pub. Really it's pretty hard to get it horribly wrong around here, until you get into the main Forth/Clyde corridor, even then if you know where you're going it's OK. Coastal route in Fife is quite good too, with the novelty of crossing the bridge, depending on the time of day the coast road can be busy tho'.

thecrofter

If you're staying on Leith Walk there is a pub called The Tourmalet on Iona St about half way down the walk.

http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/tourmalet-edinburgh

estampida

No pints for me but inners and glen t the next few days

round burg cycling

in leith and its dry, use the bike lanes to get to the road bridge or crammond island or follow the waters of leith, these roads here are not for touring with the kids

or a train ride to falkirk and the canal bike ride back to the burg

popularname

East Lothian route: http://maps.google.com/?q=http://share.abvio.com/f40f/7c31/4d63/d98e/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20110727-1900.kml

South West:
http://maps.google.com/?q=http://share.abvio.com/f40f/7c31/4d63/d98e/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20110719-1925.kml

Big day out with excellent cake stop in Innerleithen:
http://maps.google.com/?q=http://share.abvio.com/f40f/7c31/4d63/d98e/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20110724-0941.kml

You can shorten the big day out by just going straight down the road from Edinburgh to Innerleithen and then turning back. Fantastic road

Weather is, er, unpredictable here at the moment. Supposed to pick up in second half of the week.

Also, a train up to Perth and then a cycle down the quiet roads back is a good day out.

Butterd2

thecrofter wrote:

If you're staying on Leith Walk there is a pub called The Tourmalet on Iona St about half way down the walk.

http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/tourmalet-edinburgh

I used to drink in a pub on Leith Walk because it opened at 5am which was handy as I was working on the door of Sneaky Pete's until 4am. Can't remember the name but think it opened early for the Posties.

UndercoverElephant

thecrofter wrote:

If you're staying on Leith Walk there is a pub called The Tourmalet on Iona St about half way down the walk.

http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/tourmalet-edinburgh

The next street up (Albert Street has an amazing Sicilian Pastry shop too. Mmmmmm...

londonlivvy

OOH - loving the routes - will check forecast to see if inland or windy seaside wins the day.

Thanks UE and thecrofter for pub / eatery recommendations - lovely. Those two are both v.close to where we're staying.

If anyone has any super healthy but super nice recommendations (organic/ low fat / etc etc) then that'd win me even more bonus points.

suzyb

londonlivvy wrote:

OOH - loving the routes - will check forecast to see if inland or windy seaside wins the day.

Thanks UE and thecrofter for pub / eatery recommendations - lovely. Those two are both v.close to where we're staying.

If anyone has any super healthy but super nice recommendations (organic/ low fat / etc etc) then that'd win me even more bonus points.

er...what is healthy. Us Scots keep hearing people say it but we have no clue what it means.

First.Aspect

londonlivvy wrote:

If anyone has any super healthy but super nice recommendations (organic/ low fat / etc etc) then that'd win me even more bonus points.

Bring your own food up with you.

Applespider

Urban Angel has good food - fairly basic surroundings and not a ridiculously long menu but relatively healthy. Henderson's is an Edinburgh institution - all veggie and mostly organic.

But you're on holiday - so you're allowed to be bad and have haggis with buttery mash or proper fish and chips with salt n sauce. Plus, once you've had good Scottish fish and chips (particularly when out for a coastal cycle and eating them on a seawall overlooking a harbour), you'll never ever eat them again in London since fish suppers here are rubbish in comparison.

richVSrich

deep fried stuff is healthy right?

some of my mates are going up this weekend, but i cant...gutted..

UndercoverElephant

Not really someone who goes for the ultra-healthy myself, however, I've heard very good things about Iglu. But in Leith there is some excellent pub food available, I recommend The King's Wark on the Shore, and The Compass on Queen Charlotte St. Both do a wide variety of excellent food. Fisher's Bistro on the Shore is excellent too.

Oh and I caution against Popularname's East Lothian route, it's fine, but skips all the best bits of East Lothian. Much better to ride along the coast to North Berwick and do a loop from there.

popularname

Highly recommend Porto and Fi http://www.portofi.com/

They've opened a new restaurant on the Mound as well which I haven't been in. Get a bucket of curly chips...

popularname

Oh and I caution against Popularname's East Lothian route, it's fine, but skips all the best bits of East Lothian. Much better to ride along the coast to North Berwick and do a loop from there.

I think that's a fair comment actually UE - the route I put up is a club run and after I posted it, I wondered...

popularname

Oh and I caution against Popularname's East Lothian route, it's fine, but skips all the best bits of East Lothian. Much better to ride along the coast to North Berwick and do a loop from there.

I think that's a fair comment actually UE - the route I put up is a club run and after I posted it, I wondered...

popularname

Oh and I caution against Popularname's East Lothian route, it's fine, but skips all the best bits of East Lothian. Much better to ride along the coast to North Berwick and do a loop from there.

I think that's a fair comment actually UE - the route I put up is a club run and after I posted it, I wondered...