Pentlands (actually bring a) Retro Ride - Saturday 14th May

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OK Troops, The Pentland Ride will not be a well planned slick operation cos I'm useless :facepalm:

Due to a combo of mental and physical fatigue, pure laziness and the fact I'm easily distracted and can prevaricate for Scotland I've done Zilch in the way of research for this ride :oops:

Also my Chronic Fatigue is giving me serious gyp and it seems I probably have a bit of Aspergers Syndrome which explains why I'm moody/grumpy/argumentative and often quite rude to people such as you guys. :( With the amount of Syndromes I have its often a struggle to get out of bed :roll:

So please bear with me, it'll still start and end at Flotterston. It'll still hopefully get rolling by 11am. It'll still involve rolling over paths around and over the Pentlands. However it will often involve me consulting with you guys about where you'd like to go. I will be picking the brains of those in the know like ZZ over what might be best to ride. I hope we get down to the Hunters tryst for some pub grub around lunch time. I hope we all enjoy ourselves and I might be last up most of the hills :oops:

Sorry but at the moment I am not great at stuff.
 
was hoping to make this but me mate has rather inconsiderately organised his birthday day/night out for this ocming sat so i wont make it.

im taking him out for his annual bike ride either in stirling or dunfy then we shall be hitting a few drinking establishments.

gutted to miss this as last few times in the pentlands have been great.

have a good un.
 
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Velo, I've never ridden around there so it'll be all new to me, we could do the same loop twice and I probably wouldn't notice :LOL:
If it's time spent on the retro bikes with retro bikers then it'll be all good :D
 
The route you have written up earlier in the thread should be fine Velo.
Personally speaking due to my current condition I need to know beforehand what the route is, or at least the first part of the planned route. With that route I will know from the first climb after we turn off the road if I am capable of making it back round to where I can peel off. If I can't make that climb I know I can get back to the van without issue, so I am hoping we can stick with that.
 
For stage 2, I'd PMd with Velo about an alternate route that takes in the following:

An alternate for Stage Two that cuts out the tarmac descent from Loganlee Res to Glencourse Res and gets us the Black Hill singletrack and Maidens descent instead... take a left up north side of Black Hill for the lovely singletrack descent down to the east end of Threipmuir Res. Then across and up again for the Maiden's Cleugh descent. It's more climbing for sure (including a short hike-a-bike up Black Hill), but does mean you're getting some nice offroad downhill rather than losing all that height on the tarmac.

It gets us to the same place, but gives us some lovely Black Hill singletrack (and it will be very nice, because it's going to be dry all week) and a woosh down Maidens instead of a tarmac descent.
 
I'll let ZZ take over for a portion of stage 2 but I'll wrestle back control near the bottom of Maidens Cleugh. We need to climb again back over Phantoms Cleugh then around the front of Capelaw hill before a final grassy descent down to the woods around Dreghorn Barracks and then some urban paths to Hunters Tryst pub for a late lunch, at the pace we move we might not make it :LOL: . Remember to bring cash, we are not booked in, we're just showing up and seeing if we can nab a table so have some food with you just in case we are turned away.
Stage three will be working our way around the edge of Hillend and then down to the valley floor for some tamer low level stuff along paths and farm tracks back to the Flotterston.
 
Start point will be Flotterstone Visitors Centre:
http://www.pentlandhills.org/pentlandhi ... _centres/3
Which lies behind the Flotterstone Inn off the A702 near Penicuik.
There is a carpark and public toilets. We will assemble from 10ish for a 11am start.
Stage One will be a tarmac climb to the mid point of Glencorse Reservoir then off road Northwestward between Bells Hill and Harbour hill down to Harlaw reservoir where a catering van can supply you with coffee to help you deal with the warm up.
Stage Two will involve handing the rains over to ZZ. I think he knows what he is doing, it sounds good. At the bottom of Maidens Cleugh we will head north skirting Bonally reservoir before a long fast descent down to Dreghorn Junction by the A720 bypass. Watch out for sheep as they can leap out in front of you !!!
We will then make our way across a field, under the bypass and around Dreghorn baracks by some entertaining single track before heading along a path to The Hunters Tryst Pub for refreshments. This pub has a beer garden if the weather is nice and a couple of log burning fires if it is not, they also do food.
Stage Three is back south of the bypass through Swanston village to paths and tracks above the golf courses that will take us eastward to Hillend Ski Slope which we skirt before heading south on the eastern edge of the Pentlands to Boghall farm. At this point we will leave the pentlands and using a combination of tracks and paths head back to Flotterstone through Midlothian farmland. Another stream will need to be forded.
At Flotterstone another pub exists if any more refreshment is required.
 
jimo746":3m9m7hml said:
RobMac":3m9m7hml said:
firedfromthecircus":3m9m7hml said:
Is anyone looking for anything?

Aye a woman :?

I'd take an M900 XTR front mech, top pull, 28.6 over a woman right now :LOL:

Or some purple x-lite crank caps...

How desperate are you? I have one on my M-Trax that I was thinking about selling (or swapping for a 31.8 BP for the Yo that will be crossing the Atlantic in a month or so!)

I also have a broken one (the band went ping at the bolt) not sure you can replace the clamp but you can have it as it was just going in the bin....
 
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