Finishing touches

I visited The Bike Station today and bought some second hand parts again. This time I came home with a bottle cage, a saddle and a plastic rock ring/chain guard. I was also looking for some extra fasteners for the front pannier but I did not find anything usable.

The bottle cage required some grinding with Dremel as the screws on Dora's current bike had too large caps. Simple job and now her bike has a bottle cage as well. The saddle was a little bit unplanned purchase but by accident I spotted softer and a tiny bit wider saddle for Dora. I guess it is women's model as it was uncomfortable for me but she preferred it. Unfortunately the chain guard did not fit but I paid three pounds for those three items so I wont complain.

Tonight we made 13km ride with fully laden panniers and this time I had the tent and front panniers. The bike starts to deserve its new name "the Mule". No more sudden turns. Otherwise it feels quite ok and actually the ride is more comfortable because of the extra weight.

Packing exercise, bungee cords and clothing

We decided to use the front panniers after all on my bike. A week or so ago I bought a simple front pannier rack. I am not totally happy with the way how I managed to attach it but I think it will do. After all, the items in the front bags will be more bulky than heavy. Today we packed our bikes to see if everything fits and at the moment it looks good. We try to have as light backpacks as possible and place everything heavy in the rear panniers.

Finding decent bungee cords turned out to be a bit more difficult than I first thought. The bungee cords are elastic cords with hooks at the ends and such cords are handy for securing tent on the top of the rack. I bough a set from an eBay seller but those cord were plain rubbish. They were elastic only on one direction and some of the hooks came of right away. I got a refund and headed to local B&Q store and bought a set of much stronger cords.

On Saturday we did 45-50km bike ride to the Edinburgh airport and then to Craigie's farm and finally back home via Cramond and Promenade. On the way to airport we visited Alpine bikes in Stockbridge as I managed to convince Dora that she should get bicycling shorts as well. We managed to find women's cycling shorts with separate over shorts so that should be fine now. Near South Gyle it then started to rain and I can tell my rainproof trousers were totally dry in the wardrobe...

Bicycle theft

On Saturday morning we went to the garage to install new front pannier rack to my bike. When the elevator door opened I saw right away that Dóra's bike was missing. It became painfully obvious that her bike was stolen. She took it quite badly and I was not happy either. After searching around we reported the theft to the police.

But we were not about to give up our plan to do the trip. On the same day we found a decent second hand bike with reasonable price. Luckily Dóra's bike did not have lights or pannier rack attached so we did not lose them. Unfortunately I had just put brand new Schwalbe Marathon tyres to her bike.

On Sunday we then made a 30km ride just to get used to the new bike and find the right adjustments. The new bike turned out to be quite nice after couple tweaks. We cycled to Craigie's farm and deli where we had some chocolade cake with ice cream. We even managed to get some sunshine on the way back along the Edinburgh Promenade. Life started to feel better again.

Yet another preparation ride

Today we did a bit longer bike ride. We wanted to check some new paths and look how the cycle path continue after Cramond harbour. Cycle paths near our flat were pretty busy as there was some kind of theme day going on. When we reached the harbour we spotted a nice footpath next to the river. Initially it looked good for bikes but we encountered several sets of stairs. Oh well, some bike carrying exercise then.

After tackling the path and stairs we headed towards Dalmeny estate and we biked through it towards South Queensferry. I think we originally wanted to go back to Crammond harbor but there wasn't really suitable path - dashing through someone's backyard did not sound like a good idea. The route was scenic and involved biking along the beach side next to a golf course.

At South Queensferry we had a pub lunch without beer and headed back along the cyclepath 76 or 1, I am not totally sure which one it was. When we got closer to Leith we made yet another turn and biked rest of the way back along the coastline between Crammond and Leith. This time the wind was blowing in our face but we have to take it as a preparation for Hebrides environment.

The total distance was around 44km with many stops. The route on the map is based on my mobile phone's GPS tracking application.


View Leith-South Queensferry-Leith in a larger map