North Berwick in a Westerly Gale

May 29, 2011

TRANING RUN TO NORTH BERWICK (WITH A CAMEO APPEARANCE OF HALF A PEDDLE)

 

It doesn't matter how many cycles I organise, everyone seems to have it's own unique style. I set off from Balerno for the 6 mile cycle to Roseburn bridge with rain lashing down and howling winds. The question was – who was going to turn up on a day like this with a wind at 35mph gusting over 50 mph.

 

I arrived at the bridge ahead of schedule and after 10 minutes wondered if this was going to be the first 'no show' for a training run. However, just then Arthur arrived quickly followed by Robin. As usual Richard never one to miss a training run but always seems to miss the Paris run turned up soon after as well.

By 10:05 I figured that was all the participants I was going to get on a challenging day like this and we set off to meet up with Steve further down the cycle path. Within a minute we were confronted by the council dumping waste dirty water in our path -. see picture below.

 

The weather brightened up and the sun came out as we reached Portobello promenade to take a group photo. (but where is Robin???)

 

What we thought was Robin raced ahead and we just took the picture and sent Richard to catch him up. However, it became clear to us that we didn't think that was Robin in the first place. One call later and we found him at the Cat & Dog home with a puncture half a mile back up the promenade! We cycled back to help him fix his tyre – I did ask him if he had swalbe marathon plus but he assured me these Gatorpuncture resistant tyres were the business. Hmmn, I'm not so sure he he.

 

With the wind gusting up to 50mph we were in North Berwick 10 minutes later, only joking but it seemed mighty quick.During the run to NB while cycling through Prestonpans I was overtaken by a plastic bag which must have being doing over 40mph as I was doing 35mph! It seemed to have a happy smiley face on it as it rushed ahead. The audacity of that plastic bag. A fab lunch was devoured at the Nether Abbey hotel (chicken/bacon club sandwich with salad and chips was top dollar). It's funny, you burn about 200 calories cycling down here and then put 1,000 back on!!! Luckily I had just finished my lunch when Richard decided to sneeze over my plate but left residue in my half drunk Magners & ice.

 

I suddenly lost enthusiasm to finish my drink and decided it was time to head off down to the beach and back through the town towards Drem through some quiet back country roads. Here was our first taste of the 50mph headwind – not fun but at least it was dry and sunny.

 

 By the time we made it to Drem, Robin decided that he was finished for the day and waited for the next train which was due 45 mins later. The rest of us decided to cycle to Longniddry and make a decision whether we would carry on from there. Arthur shot out of the traps so I decided to stick behind him and get dragged along. I did make a couple ofpoor attempts to take the lead but it was really a token gesture as I did not have the same stamina as Arthur so I politely left him to lead most of the way. Half way to Longniddry Steve saw a red object in the distance and thought he was catching us up only to arrive at the said object to discover it was a road sign – it was really a sign to say we were nowhere to be seen!!!

 

Arthur and I waved goodbye to the two aussies as they set off on their marathon cycle back to Edinburgh while we made our way to the platform to catch the train that Robin would just be boarding. Little did we know who else was boarding the train at this time as well!

 

As the train pulled in the guard stepped off and said no more bikes were allowed in the bike compartment of the train. My head dropped. However, he did say try any other door and as long as there are no bikes you can stand in the exit area with our bikes (which was kind of him). So, pressed the first button to get in and as the doors slid open I thought at first itwas an apparition. There in front of me stood a chap with a bike shouting at me, saying there's no room in here, but it wasn't just any ordinary chap – it was half a pedal Phil!!! A few seconds of comical exchanges were had before I had to race down the platform with Arthur to find an empty space and board the Hogwarts Express back to Auld Reekie.

 

What had transpired was that Phil and two others were late getting out of their beds and decided to head down to East Lothian later in the day but got as far as Haddington where Phil's other pedal snapped and came off! (If you remember on the Aberdour training run his other pedal came off). A decision was then taken to head to the nearest train station which was Drem. Phil had to cycle 7 miles (most of it uphill)on one pedal. I'm sure he's used to it now. In fact he's always asking me for a challenge in cycling so maybe he should consider cycling to Paris on one pedal?

 

 At Waverly we said cheerio to the other cyclists and Phil, as he walked with his bike (smiling, always managing to see the funny side of life) to Stockbridge to get a lift home.

 

Meanwhile, the two aussies were approaching Prestonpans. An hour later they made it to Musselburgh for a coffee stop. Again they were soon on their way but as they approached Seafield Richard sensed that Steve was not on his tail – he was correct – he was further down the road picking himself up from the road as he had been blown over in the wind! 2 hours later they were home. Well done to them for cycling all the way.

 

Every day is a different day when one of my training runs takes place – who's for the next one???

Graeme Bruce