Pentlands Bonk - 30/12/2006

So after nearly 24 hours of travel that involved slogging 35kg of luggage around 3 airports, 1 train, 1 bus, 2 taxis and several flights of stairs, I thought it would be a fantastic plan to go play in the Pentlands the next day. Neil and Fraser helped try to kill me, but in the end it really was my own stupid fault. My shiny new bike needed christening but my legs just wouldn't work.

I managed to get to the trails more or less in one piece. I cycled up the evil hill's little sister on what turned out to be a flat tire. We decided first ride flat tire was true to form for the FSRxc. Bertie pulled out a nail from his. I pulled out a 1cm thorn from mine. Neil and Fraser helped change the tire. The day was gorgeous, unlike the forecast suggested, but it was still cold enough for my hands to not want to function. I appreciated the help. We rolled onward. Evil hill itself required walking.

On the first downhill after the evil hill, Fraser broke his chain. Good practice with the chain tool. At the top of the next hill, we eventually came to a fence. I decided that I probably could make it home in more or less one piece, so I decided not to continue. Neil and Fraser decided that was ok and joined me, with, of course, Neil proposing a detour on the way back. We cycled back the way we came. Fraser learned the hard way that wet grass is less useful for stopping than loose gravel. He crashed, skidmarks and all, just by the gate midway down the evil hill. After the gate, we detoured left through the woods. Fraser and I chose to push or carry several precarious spots on the trail even though Neil assured us that they looked worse than they were.

We came to a nice stretch of wooded downhill. I took off ahead to take some photos. Neil and then Fraser came shooting down behind me and zoomed up the next hill. I opted for the weenie route and watched from a distance as they climbed and then zoomed down a fairly steep hill. Neil was down the other side before I had time to set up with the camera, but I managed to catch Fraser start the descent, tumble over the handlebars and wipe out with the bike ending up about 10m farther down the hill than where he ended up all because he couldn't clip in and therefore couldn't lean as far back as the descent required. I joined Neil at the bottom of their hill and Fraser soon rejoined us with a brake lever bent into a not very useful position. Poor bike. Once he and Neil fixed the brake lever, Fraser realised that one of the bolts from his cleats was missing and that was probably the reason he couldn't clip in earlier. He attempted to find it on the hill, failed miserably and instead reset the cleat with one bolt, hoping it would be enough to keep it in place for the ride home.

We followed the trail back to the car park and took one last singletrack hurrah for about a 100m descent from the car park. The rest was paved, but speed bumps at least made it interesting. Bunny hopping with a bike that fits is amazingly fun.

I made it home more or less in one piece with no new bruises. In that regard, the christening run was successful. My legs were not pleased with me, though, and demanded the 31st off. They didn't quite get it. Walking to and from Gorgie in 20-40mph winds isn't exactly restful, but it's probably kinder than another hilly cycle would have been.

Neil and Fraser took me for a jetlag-helping Pentlands run.

Fraser took a few tumbles. This one was the second, but no less spectacular than the first. Fraser is the orange smudge sort of on the left and his bike is the greyish smudge a little farther down the hill.

Full suspension was fun on the downhills.

Hills weren't any easier, but I think that had more to do with the combination of jet lag and yesterday's slogging of luggage and bike around three airports, one train, one bus, two taxis and up three flights of stairs.

Neil took my bike for a test ride...

...and had some fun with it. About two seconds later, he fell off the back.

Home for the holidays.... 18/12/2006 - 28/12/2006

Lanie, Pam, Gillian and me in New York at Rockafeller Center.

"Mountain biking" in the Pine Barrens lacks the topography but makes up for it with other challenges. Quaker Bridge Road was a mix of hard pack and sugar sands, the latter of which was quite annoying for non-motorised traffic. Still, it was a fun test of the new bike. I found a few patches of sand piles and tree roots to test the suspension. :)

Quaker Bridge across the Batsto River. Osama is the greenish ghost near the right.

Batsto River

The theme of much of my travels has been traffic. Welcome back to New Jersey. Here, have some traffic. On the way home from Kristen's, I spent 2 hours parked on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Fifteen emergency vehicles drove by on the shoulder, as shown, to help clear a jackknifed semi that blocked the highway. Still, better to be stuck in the traffic jam than be the reason for it.

During our run at Penn State, a photo with the Nittany Lion was mandatory. Ginger was kind enough to pose with me.

Ginger and her ginger person, Kristen

Ginger

Westward Ho – 18/12/2006

Heading west on the great big bus with the wings in the afternoon has its advantages. Sunset has been going for three hours and counting. The problem with sitting near the back of said bus puts a wing in the way. Not that I am complaining. The wing can stay there and keep doing what it’s doing.

I got up way too early this morning for a Ryanair hop to Dublin. Given the choice of 4 hours of sitting around the airport or a few hours of exploring Dublin before 2 hours of sitting around the airport, I opted for the latter. Charlie picked me up at oh dark thirty, otherwise known as 5:30am. His plan was to use the drive to the airport as an excuse to get to work early and therefore accumulate more reasons to leave early on Wednesday for holidays. I still owe him big time.

Ryanair got me to Dublin around 9am. Much faff was required to find the one functioning cash machine in Dublin airport, buy a bus ticket for city centre (don’t buy them from the airplane!) and deposit my bag in the left luggage hold. The guy at left luggage was jealous of my adventure west and asked if he could go, too.

More faff got me on the right bus headed toward an easily escapable part of Dublin. The nice driver pointed at the tall spiky thing in the middle of the promenade and said, “There’s your landmark, my dear.”

City centre is mostly shopping so I picked a direction and started walking. I am good for remembering my way from somewhere, but I am also good for almost remembering it and getting myself in trouble for it later. Like the Delaware became Pennsylvania and my evil twin was actually right. It wasn’t the day for that, so I paid careful attention to where I was going. I walked in the direction of the big spiky thing and then beyond it. When the road bent right that’s where I went. Eventually, I found Dublin Castle and wandered the grounds there. They offered tours of the innards but given my early departure, I didn’t have the attention span for an hour tour of state rooms, libraries and other things that didn’t sing, dance or juggle to keep my attention.

Still looking for Dad’s Christmas gift, I wandered a few shops but left in a state of kitsch shell shock. The shops I found were worse than the worst of Edinburgh kitsch. My last project before heading back to the airport was lunch. I expected the airplane food to be inedible. Dublin city centre was marginally better. I stocked up at a grocery and headed for the bus back to the airport. When I got back, the left luggage guy still wanted to go. More faff gave me only an hour and a half of sitting around the terminal waiting to leave. Mission accomplished.

Superman Returns and Little Miss Sunshine are both worth seeing. I would like to see them again some time when I can hear more than half of the dialogue.

The gardens at Dublin Castle were open to all, but with restrictions. No four legged friends and no playing on the lawn. The mural here was protected by a pretty mingin moat.

Old meets new. I am sure the contrasting styles of architecture at Dublin Castle had a story. Having been awake since 4:30am, I didn't have the attention span for the 50 minute tour to find out.

Old, closer up

The cobbly courtyard of Dublin Castle

The River Liffey runs through Dublin City Centre.

The longest winter sunset ever -- five of the seven hours between Dublin and New York, the view from my window was great, wing or no wing.

MacCool was very happy to play ball with me.

River Tweed Megabimble - 17/12/2006

The Edinburgh Kayak Club's Christmas Night Oot at Viva Mexico, the Malt Shovel and the Bongo Club was followed by a Hair of the Dog Bimble on the River Tweed. Ali, Robin, Alan and Magnus showed up with kayaks. As far as open canoes went, Charlie paddled his Mobile Adventure Symphony and Amy paddled the club's Old Town Discovery with me. With all the rain, the Tweed was moving. We reckoned the Lyne to Peebles run would take about five minutes, so we headed upstream to a random spot on the side of the road to Stobo that looked reasonable enough for access. Despite the flush-like conditions, the River Tweed offered us our first proper bimble of the winter.

We launched probably around 12-12:30. Robin took advantage of a first descent opportunity in the wee burn at the get-in. Amy and I attempted a ferryglide from the burn and got flushed downstream instead. Amy and I couldn’t set the angle properly from the burn and the flush of water wasn’t going to let us fix it afterward.

Flush was fine, we caught up with the rest of the group within seconds and caught a river left eddy along the bank. I violated the first rule of canoeing, sort of. Thou shalt not teach thy significant other how to paddle translates to tandem canoeing as thou shalt not tell thy tandem partner what to do. In my defence, I was learning, too. Amy and I caught lots of eddies as we learned how to edge the boat, hold the edge and not crash into the banks instead of turn into the eddies. Gradually we got it figured out and our breakouts and breakins became much more smooth. We chose our eddies and hit nearly all of them. Amy took to paddling on the right pretty quickly, which I expect will make Bram even more jealous.

We stopped for lunch at the normal get in (Lyne) for a Tweed bimble to Peebles. Amy shared her wee chair with me and we had a lovely view of the river as we lunched. After lunch, we paddled on through the section that I remembered.

Past Neidpath Castle, we found an awesome surfing wave. Everybody saw it and everybody lunged for it. We spun our nearly 17 feet of canoe and paddled forward frantically to slow ourselves down. It worked beautifully and the surf was magic. At one point, I think Alan, Robin and Charlie were sharing the wave with us.

Further downstream, we found surf wave with a much more convenient eddy beside it. The wave was smaller so the community surf wasn’t an option. We took turns with Alan and Robin playing. The nice thing about big, tubby boats is they’re slow to do anything. Slow to slow down means slow to be kicked off a wave. Inertia has its perks!

The second wave was the last good surf of the day. Our bimble took us into Peebles through a park, so we had spectators as we inadvertently beached our boat during a break out. The last rapids of the day were at the weir in Peebles. The water was high enough that it was easily runnable. We were last to run, choosing a line left of centre through a friendly stopper. Amy got splashed as we bounced over it. Ali had a look of horror on her face as we caught the eddy where she sat on river left. She was expecting 10 tonnes of canoe to come slamming into her and for that, we let her down. We parked the canoe very gently beside her and helped her out. Amy hopped out and beached the canoe so I didn’t even have to get my feet wet. Bram would be so jealous.

At the getout, everybody was jealous of my changling cocoon. Before the drivers departed, Robin asked if there was room for two. We found room – he got an arm hole – so then Ali asked if there was room for three. Charlie and Amy took pictures of the resulting sight. Then Charlie decided it was a perfect opportunity to run behind us and kick me in the butt.

It felt great to be paddling tandem and paddling stern no less. Better still that I (along with too much alcohol the night before) actually made Amy feel tired by the end of the trip. Hopefully more open canoe adventures will await this winter!

Robin squeezed in a first descent at the get-in.

Amy paddled hard.

Charlie bimbled.

Magnus bimbled.

I shared my warm cocoon with Robin and Ali.

Charlie attacked the cocoon.

Pentlands Mudbath – 16/12/2006

The rain stopped on Thursday. I have wanted to cycle in the Pentlands since I got here. Also, I wanted a good test run with Neil’s Chameleon before having to return it. The three conspired together to get me to forsake a canoe trip for a mountain bike trip. Jason met me at mine. He declined an offer of a “modern” mountain bike (my 10+ year old Coyote) and chose to stick to his trusty, suspensionless touring bicycle. After much faff, all mine unfortunately, we met Jim along the canal near the mean swans.

We cycled along the canal and then the Water of Leith Walkway toward the Pentlands. Recent rains made the Water of Leith look very, very runnable. I nearly hit a few pedestrians and a dog with my rubbernecking. We took a short break at one bridge to discuss fantasy lines before continuing toward Balerno. The path was very muddy, so I felt like I had been mountain biking before really mountain biking.

We reached Balerno in what felt like less than an hour and the evil hill Kate warned me about waited for us. Jim started up. I was right behind him. Jason fell in behind me. I motored past Jim and worked my way down to Granny Gear. By about half way, I felt like I could have run the hill faster than I cycled it.

First to the top, I took advantage of the chance to cycle around in a few lazy circles to work the lactic acid out. Jim wasn’t far behind me. I took a few bites of lunch as Jason rejoined us. Our original choice of roads in had what seemed a convoy working its way out, so we opted for trail entrance #2. We followed the road around, turned left at a wee sign and found a car park and visitor centre. Turns out, Heather and Robin ran past us at the visitor centre. I thought I recognised Heather.

Jim led us around the loch trails, through splotchy mud and tangled trees. I fell twice still clipped to the bike and had other hardware problems, putting me happily in the rear of the group. I met up with the boys again at the cobbly bit. We followed some farm trails and worked our way along the loch. One wee trail off the main walking path was reasonably clear and not too slippery to bound along at a decent clip. Soon we were back on a bigger road and another big climb awaited. Again, I worked my way down to Granny Gear and occasionally needed to swerve on the climb as the bonk fairy told me it was definitely lunch time. At the top of the hill, I rode around again working out complaining legs until the boys caught up about a minute later. I wasn’t the only one thinking lunch, so we stopped for a quick break.

After one more wee climb and a gate, we transitioned from wooded to open trail. The wind kicked up a little and the break meant we were cold. I faffed in motion while Jim dug out a jacket. We continued. A few ups and downs later, I decided that needed gloves if I hoped to use my brakes, so I stopped for a moment, too. The trail was wide open ups and downs, making for a quick, fun ride. Sharing the trail meant occasionally quick had to be sacrificed for politeness. We caught up with Jim at the next gate, which led to a steep walk-only uphill for the next section of trail. I slipped and slid my way up hill with bike. With the others behind me. In retrospect, it would have been more polite for me to let them go first, as both of them were much better prepared for walking. Cycling shoes are not meant for loose rocks and gravel!

The next section of trail was a bit technical, lots of loose and not loose rocks to navigate through. For the first part, a wall and barbed wire fence adorned the left, suggesting some caution. Then the trail opened up and at one point became marshy. Eventually, I found myself in the rear again and I fell twice more. I had trouble keeping the back wheel under me. I felt like I could have used an extra 10kg in the caboose to help weigh it down!

I chickened out of one last rocky downhill, even though suspensionless Jason went cruising down with no problems. We worked our way long the loch as the wind kicked up and spat a little more than mist at us. As we cycled toward the treeline, I realised that I had left the suspension fork locked out for nearly the entire cycle. Oops! The rocks felt plenty squishy with it locked out. I experimented with it in the next bit of trail, bopping over tree roots like they weren’t even there. I want one!

We took a second, smaller trail around a smaller loch. Getting away from the boring, wide walking trail put us onto a much smaller, twistier trail of dubious merit. Erosion made some wee bumps into head-over-handlebars ruts so after two tries, we went back to wide and boring trail. Instead of dodging rocks, we dodged people and dogs. The trail quickly brought us back to the visitor centre, where we took a quick break. Robin and Heather ran past again, this time all of us recognising each other. We said brief hellos and discussed the upcoming evening. They ran for home as we prepared to cycle for ours.

The predicted 3pm rain arrived at 2pm. Cold and rain made for bitter cold downhills into Balerno and onto the cycle paths. I squinted and looked a little bit to the right in valiant but useless effort to reduce the amount of pelting I took to the face. My nose was numb by the time I was on the Water of Leith trail.

My legs ached a good ache on the cycle home. My backside and shoulders ached a whiny and complaining ache as well, but I did my best to ignore them. We found sun by the time we reached the canal and it stayed with us for the rest of the way home. Jason and I bid farewell to Jim at the mean swans and I bid farewell to Jason not far from my flat. Neil’s green machine was in desperate need of a bath, but I felt more in need of one myself. It took me nearly an hour to wash the mud off me and enough off my clothes to toss them in for a proper wash. I finished the day even more convinced it was time to upgrade my mountain bike to a girly bike that fits.

The Firth of Forth and Edinburgh looked so far away from the hills. Thankfully, it was downhill most of the way home.

The evil hill from Balerno was the toughest of the day. It was Granny Gear all the way for me.

Jim silhouetted by the Pentland Hills

I came home just a tiny bit muddy.

Great Santa Run – 10/12/2006

My friend Alan coerced me into joining 2000 other people in dressing up like Santa and running a short distance in the name of charity. The Great Santa Run was held at Princes Street Gardens on Sunday morning. Just over 2000 people turned up to run, walk or slog their way around 2 laps of the gardens to benefit the When You Wish Upon A Star charity, who hoped to use the proceeds to send 100 children to Lapland to meet Santa.

I arrived at 10:30, picked up my Santa suit and met Alan beside registration as I enclaused myself in red and white felt. The suits were one size fits some, meaning I could gain 100lbs and mine would still fit just fine. With all of that extra fabric around me, I was very happily warm. After suiting, we wandered to the main Santa paddock, where hundreds of Santas and a handful of elves grooved to bad 80s music. The 80s became the 70s and soon 2000 Santaed runners were YMCAing their warmups.

The DJ had us count down our own start and soon we were off and running. The first few out of the gate actually got to run. The rest, well, it was more of a stroll than a run. Alan attempted to run and occasionally charged around bimblers on the grass. I followed. The first turn bottlenecked Santas for ages, putting a stop to Alan’s and my attempts to run. As we turned, the bottleneck eased and we got the chance to jog. Occasionally.

Up we went, spectators surrounded us on both sides and closed in to photograph the spectacle of 2000 bearded men and women careening past. We alternately stopped and started, bobbed and weaved, and enjoyed occasional fits of running interspersed with walks. On the way back down the hill, Alan saw two friends as we enjoyed another burst of running.

As we approached the starting area, we came to a dead halt. LIDL had donated goody bags to the event, and this particular bottleneck was a collection of queues of Santas collecting their loot. We queued, found our way through, and escaped out the other side. I saw Neil armed with camera just past the start line as we began lap 2.

Lap 2 was pretty much lather, rinse, repeat of lap 1. Same bottlenecks, same bobbing and weaving, same spectators nearly getting trampled by running Santas. We waved to Alan’s friends on the way down the other side. This time, the bottleneck queue through to the starting area was for our official commemorative medals. By the time we had queued, the path out the start looked reasonably clear. We ran most of a lap 3, finally enjoying the opportunity to run somewhat consistently. There were not outright bottlenecks, but plenty of ducking and sidestepping around the slowest of the lap 2 Santas. We careened past Alan’s friends a third time and sprinted toward the awaiting bottleneck back to the starting area, with 3K under our jolly belts.

I found Neil among the photographers on stage, going mad as usual with his camera. After talking about the charity and sharing a video of the 2005 Lapland flight, the event closed officially with a more amoeba than circle of Santas arm-over-arm, singing (or humming) Auld Lang Syne. A few Santas charged their amoeba bumps inward, dragging the rest of their attached Santas with them. I got stepped on by at least half a dozen people. My nearly pristine ill-fitting trousers became as muddy as everyone else’s.

We returned to Neil et al’s flat on Clerk Street and were joined by Neil, Kate, Dave, Tre and Chris for a long lunch at Peckham’s. After lunch, we wandered to the Bike Co-op so I could try on bikes. I didn’t buy anything, but I pretty much talked myself into a girly model mountain bike. It’s a shame in a way, because mountain biking Santa would have been an appropriately muddy end to the costume that was already disintegrating off my body.

Neil’s blog is here and his photos from the event are here. I think that might be the back of my head in the last photo on his blog.

Ho Ho Ho! I'm the one in red.

The first lap of the Great Santa Run was more of a shuffle. By the time we did our (unnecesary) third lap, we could run somewhat consistently.

Dancing Santas

Post-run Santas

River Teith Mega Flush - 3/12/2006

I thought last week was a flush. This weekend, the river was even higher. On the way into Callander, we saw the River Forth well out of its banks and wondered if we would be catching eddies behind cows and sheep on our way down the Teith. The second car park in Callander was totally underwater and the water was rising slowly in the primary car park. Callum drove through it and created a wake that capsized one of the boaters waiting to run the river. Thus began the 3* assessment that wasn't and an assortment of river adventures only half of which I witnessed.

Ali and I were separated from Callum into Derek's group. We thought it a bad idea as Callum was our ride home and he had his keys, but we were assured the groups would never be all that far apart. All of the beginners went to David's group, as well as Callum and Rhian for their 3* assessment. Most of the experienced paddlers went with Derek's group, again not feeling the wisest of plans. We launched from the car park and didn't see the other group again on the river.

The river level was higher than the last flush that I did with Magnus and Dirk. We ran the whole thing in a little over an hour. Normally it takes two to four hours, depending on water level. Wave trains rivaled Stanley and River Awe in size at times. The water was much more chaotic and boily, also like Stanley. I remember thinking I wanted nothing to do with swimming in that water. The boils and the big waves intimidated Kieron. He caught eddies beautifully when he didn't think about what he was doing, but otherwise it was a struggle for him. Primarily for his comfort and also for the cold, we didn't spend a lot of time in eddies. Because of all the debris in the water near the usual get-out, we took the opportunity to get out just below the last rapids, skipping some interesting waves but also skipping some potential swims in not great circumstances. The only downside was a slightly longer walk to the get-out layby.

Ali's and my fears of shivering at the get-out were realised as we waited over two hours for Callum to get back. Most of his group got to the expected get-out about an hour after we did. By this time, we were huddled in Jean's car for warmth. Rhian joined us. Next, we moved to Claire's car when we heard that Callum, Charlie and David were chasing boats and Jean went to see about picking them up farther downstream. Eventually, all three were found. Callum walked to the car with a look on his face that explained it all. There was a story the delay and it wasn't a good one. I walked up to him, hugged him and said, I don't know what happened out there, but you look like you need one of these.

Callum had an epic. The beginners group had a mass swim at the get-out and he went chasing the boat that got away with Charlie and David. Eventually some trees started slowing it down. Callum went in there to get to it and got into trouble himself. He got flipped, rolled up, decided he liked upside down better to avoid one tree limb, attempted to roll and missed. Repeatedly. Callum was then in the water getting washed through the trees with Charlie paddling alongside yelling, Get out of the trees you muppet! Callum then got stuck. In the time it took Charlie to get to the beach to get out of his boat and look again, Callum had freed himself, but I'm sure to Callum it felt like eternity. Callum swam for all his worth and got out on the bank. His boat and paddle were long gone downstream. Charlie found Callum pretty quickly. The two of them found David a good ways downstream with two extra boats and a paddle, as well as a debt for a pint at the pub later.

The Teith at spate. I looked longingly at the playground, wishing I could seal launch from the slide...

An important skill to learn...