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

[firedfromthecircus]

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.

So does that mean there is no bail-out option?

 

[boxxer]

Re:

Loads of bail out options mate, pentlands isn't huge or massively wide and can always turn back.

Only slight PITA is that Flotterstone is a bit of a hike from hillend.....

 

[zigzag]

Hi Barry - there's a couple of decent bailout points on stage 2 - see map

The south westerly bailout hits tarmac at 'The Howe', and then points downwards at the east end of Loganlee Res. The other bailout is the saddle between Maidens and Bell's hill - broad downhill path till you hit the tarmac at Glencorse Res.

 

[firedfromthecircus]

Cheers Aaron. I think I'd misunderstood Velos post about where pt1 ends and pt2 begins. You plan on doing Maidens Cleugh twice and after the second time striking off for Bonaly?
If I've got that wrong again nevermind. :facepalm:
I'm finishing building the Heckler just now and I'll come along and ride whatever I can, just might not be much with the posse depending on where you go.

 

[zigzag]

Aye, I think we've still got a couple of things to figure out on the day...

It sounds like for part 1 we go up Maiden's Cleugh and down to Harlaw. For stage 2, I was hoping we'd then trundle round and up past Bavelaw castle, then a steep (but short) hike up the side of Black Hill (Ie. The SW red dot bail out on the map). Then along the most excellent Black Hill singletrack, down along the singletrack at the side of Threipmuir Res then into the trees around Harlaw Res and back up to the saddle between Maidens and Bell's (2nd red dot bail out)... from there, I think we've got a couple of options... 1. Either down Maidens Cleugh and up Phantoms, or 2. Countour round Maidens hill NE on the sheep track and take Scalextric down towards the woods up from the Outdoor center. There's probably an option 3 or 4 as well, depending on how we're feeling at that point - between the lot of us, I think we know the Pentlands well enough to stitch something together.

 

[jimo746]

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....

It's ok, eBay came up trumps this morning in the meantime I'm using an LX top pull mech which actually works very well.

 

[velomaniac]

Thanks everyone, I have not really done well at the being the organiser for this event, life just got in the way. As ZZ says, enough of us know enough to stitch something together. Stage 1 was only ever going to be the warm up followed by coffee. Stage 2 onward was where it was going to get interesting.

 

[dyson]

Re:

I'm afraid it's likely I wont make tomorrow now. My wife has to finish her dissertation this weekend meaning dad duties for me.

Gutted really as have been so looking forward to a retro outing with you all on my regular trails.

 

[firedfromthecircus]

Great ride, or at least, what I did of it. The rest of the guys are probably still on the hill as I type!
Aftermath will be here. viewtopic.php?f=29&t=348726