Edinburgh to Scottish Borders

Our clothes dry, our saddle sores scabbing over, and our drive trains shiny silver, we set out from Edinburgh on a fairly sunny and warm morning. We waved goodbye to Arie, who was faster out the door than us, knowing that we would probably catch up with him eventually over the next couple of days. I decided that since my bicycle was no longer making a creaking noise, I would fix the other noise maker - my kickstand which had been loose since Denmark. We had no specific destination as we pushed off into Edinburgh morning rush hour traffic (sedate, but with huge buses). First stop: a bakery we had stopped at the day before for some artisan bread (our first since NorCal) and baked treats. Second stop (unscheduled): public library for directions because the R1 bicycle route that we had been following appeared to evaporate as we came out of a park and merged with a large road. Third stop (unscheduled): Bike Station for directions and a map. Bike Station is a lot like the Bicycle Kitchen of my dreams: big, organized, with bunches of clear signs. This is not really fair to the Kitchen of today - I haven't been there is ages.











































































Yeah, we liked that place. A lot. And they ensured that we got on the right path out of Edinburgh. The first stretch is called the Innocent Railway. Innocent because it was pulled by horses - no engines. Now it is a beautiful bike path through the green.











This turned out to be a stunning day. Lots of rolling hills through beautiful forest or well-kept pasture land. Lots of old rock walls and sheep.


























We got one soaking squall in the afternoon, but otherwise the sun was out. Arie had warned us that there was a pretty nice climb on this day. We were now on the North Sea route, which Arie has done before, a few years ago. The climb was an incredibly slow accent, but long.

















With, of course, a fantastic view.

















Straight along the side of a hill, we just kept going up. At the top we stopped above a wind farm in a valley?
















And then began the descent. First, the relatively steep and long hill.

















Nothing like going down after you've climbed to the top. At what we figured was the bottom, the road flattened out and we had a surprisingly difficult flat, straight ride through a gorgeous valley. There was a slight head wind.
































And then we went around a curve, between the hills, and started to descend again.

















Softly at first, but gaining momentum.













Each turn made, we couldn't believe we were still going downhill. At one point Joshua said, "We are definitely below sea level now."












Simply glorious. After maybe an hour of rolling down a gentle slope, we arrived in Innerleithen. We knew Arie had planned to stay in town that night, and we decided to stay, too, after a beer and a large bowl of Chinese food.























































We hadn't seen Arie's bike yet, so we thought he might be staying in the other hotel in town. Ramona went to check, and found him in the front bar. We had a fun time catching up after the day we had had - best descent ever, etc. Innerleithen is where the North Sea Cycle route meets up with the Tweed River. Arie needed to be in Newcastle a day earlier than us, and he was planning to catch the ferry the same day as he arrived. We wanted to have at least one night, so we could hang out a bit with Budge. Since our schedules were basically the same, we decided to try to tag along with Arie the following day, and make it a really big one.

- rolling post

Edinburgh

Aaaah, Edinburgh. What a beautiful city. After spending a few days in the rain, camping in somewhat "wild" places, and showerless, a day of tourism on foot while our laundry was washing was well deserved.

We ate breakfast with Arie, and then we headed to a bike shop. Joshua's rear wheel was still making a creaking noise even after Ramona's excellent truing - in fact the mechanic said the wheel was perfectly true.














So here is a puzzle for all you mechanics.

• creaking noise coming from the back wheel on every rotation - sounds like spokes rubbing together

• wheel had many loose spokes and tightening/truing seems to reduce the volume and frequency of the noise

• creaking gets worse when cranking (climbing or accelerating)

• creaking can happen when the bicycle is being rolled

• the axle is not loose or bent (tested with wheel off the bike by 1. wiggling the axle and 2. observing the axle while spinning the wheel)

• there is a small (very slight) catch when rotating the wheel while holding the axle

• the noise is dramatically effected by how tight the skewer is. Tight skewer = worse: louder noise with less pressure. Loose skewer = better: small noise on every rotation and it take more force on the cranks to produce a creak.

Hints: There is one simple test I should have done which would have identified the problem and the bottom bracket is not at fault.

Post your answers as a comment. Maybe there will be a prize...

The mechanic and the floor staff were nice and wicked helpful. They agreed to wash the drive train on both our bicycles and to adjust/replace our brakes/pads. We have cleaned our chains only a couple of times over the last year, so we had forgotten that all the drive train components were silver and not black. These guys were super thorough. They took the cranks, chains, and cassettes off and ran them through the parts washer. When they took the bottom bracket off the Fargo a puddle of water poured out - probably from the IJsselmeer last summer.

The day was spent wandering around. Joshua got a new rain jacket. We saw some other bike shops. We walked through the golf... lawn.






and a couple of cemeteries. Edinburgh does a good creepy cemetery tour, but we didn't catch one.











Inventor of logarithms. Yeah.

This should be familiar to beer aficionados.










In the park.


There's an amazing view from right by the National Gallery.












And we checked out Edinburgh Castle. From below
























and from within. Worth the 15 quid each











At the end of the day we met up with Arie again and had a delicious Nepalese meal and great conversation.

What is a Boat Lift?

The Fallkirk Wheel was mentioned a lot as I researched how to ride from Glasgow to Edinburgh. I knew it was about halfway, and that it was some kind of destination; I imagined a big, old mill of some kind, on a spectacularly large river. Wrong.













The Fallkirk Wheel is a spectacular feat of engineering. Rather than a traditional canal lock, this baby turns. A boat gets in the bottom, the wheel goes around until it's lined up vertically with the top canal, and the boat gets out at the top. We were lucky enough to see this.











Takes about 4 minutes.

This is where the Forth and Clyde Canal meets the Union Canal (the one up above). We rode up on the bike path, which took a little longer. But at the top, the views are also spectacular. And surreal. The canal just ends out in the air.











We followed the canal through a short tunnel, and then up past a couple of small, more traditional locks, and were back on a canal-side trail again. A lumpy, gravelly, sometimes muddy canal-side trail. Apparently this canal was used for horse-drawn barges.

Not much farther along we came to another tunnel. Yay! A respite from the rain, something slightly different, tunnels are usually fun.











This tunnel is really, really long. 690 yards long, and very, very dark. Here's a photo with flash. Caught some ghosts.











The surface of the path in the tunnel is a slimy and uneven cobblestone, with a wooden rail that is not confidence inspiring. With essentially no vision, on a slimy, narrow path, and a curved tunnel wall, it's not exactly a comfortable ride. But it sure was exciting. And so long. Basically looked like this.











Yeah, very exciting.

Also exciting were some of the bridges.











Yup, that's a boat in a canal. Yes, and Joshua, pushing his bike along a narrow, cobblestone path on a bridge. With a canal in it. I imagined this with horses pulling coal barges across. Yikes. Notice the height of the tops of the trees. Here's a bad photo looking down to the stream below.











But you get the idea. Very high up. Canal on bridge. Walk the bikes. It was near this bridge that we saw Arie again. We shared our disbelief at the tunnel, impressiveness of the Falkirk Wheel, and disappointment in the general state of the "bike path". Also, we were all pretty sick of rain. Arie sent us this photo.











We slogged on through the rain, and when we smelled food and saw a cafe near the canal we stopped for lunch and to dry out a bit. We thought Arie would see us on his way by, but he cruised right along. We were all hoping to reach Edinburgh.




































And for us the relief of our first night in a bed & breakfast, a hot shower, maybe even laundry, pulled us all the way into town. The rain only increased, and the path got muddier. Large branches were hanging down in our way. We discovered that the best places to ride were often the puddles, because those were the less gravelly spots along the path.

We did make it, however, and soaked, tired, and sore from all that rattling about. The first B&B we found was full, but they pointed us in the direction of a street where we found a whole row of places to stay. We went to a place that said it had vacancies, and they were happy to have us. They even let us park around the back with our bikes - and spray off our bags and bikes with a hose, to limit the amount of mud we brought inside. What should we see in back? A very distinctive bike that could belong to just one person. Later Arie saw our bikes and we found each other again. Amazingly, we were staying in the same B&B in Edinburgh.










Where we did our best to completely take over the room to dry out our gear and ourselves.























- rolling post