How do you plan your cycle trips? By what you think your limits are? Or by where you want to go? And do your use apps, or a paper map or just follow your nose?
On Saturday 6 May an older man and his wife in England were crowned. Up here in Scotland there was bunting, outrage, apathy, protests and more interest in the ceremony than many were prepared to admit.
The weather was dull, with heavy showers and thunder forecast. I was six months on from my partial knee replacement. I wanted to go for a day’s cycle trip to avoid the coronation. I was also building miles with a view to doing a 100 miler later in the summer. Fifty or so miles I thought. I ruled out Fife. I’d been a number of times recently and it was time for a change. I ruled out the Dalkeith Country Park loop. I’d done that too often, too. East Lothian, I thought. Gifford I thought. The WhiteAdder Reservoir I decided.
The reservoir, in the Lammermuir hills in East Lothian, is 245 metres above sea level. That doesn’t seem much for someone who has cycled over the Himalayas, but that trip was in 2001 and cycling up steep hills is not something I’ve done much of in the last few years because of my arthritic knee.
Given the distance of around 60 miles return I chose my 22 year old pink Cannondale road bike over the heavier more practical Bob Jackson tourer. Light weight with no mudguards it’s fast and easy but not useful for carrying bulky waterproofs. It’s also not ideal on off-road muddy paths.
I looked for my Spokes East Lothian map and couldn’t find it. Not to worry, I thought. I was sure I would remember the route once I was on the road. I believed there was a national cycle network route to Gifford, and after that it’s pretty much straight up.
I set off without a paper map, without decent gloves (I could only find one of them), in shorts, with a woolly hat, an orange cap, and a windproof jacket that would last two minutes in heavy rain.
In Musselburgh I was forced into the door zone of parked cars by the male driver of a private hire taxi. In frustration I gestured to him as he bullied his way past. This turned out to be a mistake. He veered into a parking place further down the street, waited for me and roared abuse as I cycled past. He then pulled out and overtook me again. Again he roared. Finally he took off down a street to the right. I knew what he would do. Sure enough he was waiting for me up ahead. More abuse followed as I cycled past him. Shaken, but not put off, I pedalled onto the shared use path that runs along the River Esk up to Whitecraigs.
From Whitecraigs I joined NCN1, then turned left onto the route that takes you through a farm, up a steep hill, and up onto the Pencaitland railway path. It was oddly quiet, very few folk on bikes, just a couple of horse-riders and dog walkers. Was everyone watching the coronation? Were they put off by the weather? Or were they taking advantage of the long weekend and had gone further afield? The path, smooth red gravel, runs for around seven miles. It’s a pretty tree-lined route and it was busy with low flying blackbirds and floating white blossom.
There’s something meditative about cycling alone on a lightweight bike. I’d brought a bluetooth speaker for my handlebars and, when there was no-one else on the path, I listened to music, humming along, smiling, sometimes breaking into song. I got to the top of the railway path, stopped to watch a hare bounding into a hedgerow, found the NCN sign, turn left onto the road towards West Saltoun, cycled a few miles to East Saltoun and lost the NCN signs. I couldn’t remember whether the NCN continued to Gifford or whether it turned towards Haddington.
Without my paper map, and too lazy to use an online app, I followed the road signs to Gifford instead. While there was little traffic, the road was fast and several times I was passed by drivers who were too close doing what felt around 70mph. As a nervous cyclist (who wouldn’t be after being run over by an HGV driver) it was an uncomfortable ride. I pushed on as fast as I could, willing Gifford to come into sight. Despite the fear, it was exhilarating. Here I was powering myself through East Lothian on my own with my new knee. I felt strong, fit, liberated. What could possibly go wrong?
In Gifford, some twenty miles from Edinburgh, I stopped at the Lanterne Rouge, a much-loved cafe used by all sorts of cyclists. Oddly, there was only one other person there with a bike – an older man with an ebike who looked at me askance when I said I was going up to Whiteadder. It’s steep, he said, shaking his head. I know, I said, smiling. But I’d forgotten just how steep it was. The last time I’d been over the Lammermuirs it had been on an ebike from Dunbar.
It’s around nine miles to the reservoir from Gifford. I treated myself to avocado on toast with an egg on top and bought a fruit scone to take with me to eat at the top. I rammed that into my frame bag and set off up the hill. Google maps told me there were two routes to the reservoir, one that looped round through Garvald (11 minutes longer) and the shorter one that I knew.
I went via Garvald. It was the coronation. I was strong. I was fit. I was bold. I was a middle-aged woman at the top of my game. I was also clueless. I had no idea what was coming. The roads were narrow, quiet and beautiful. They were also very steep. There were at least two major fords with the road sweeping steeply down to them and sweeping even more steeply back up the other sides. Twice I had to get off. Not because I was out of breath but I simply didn’t have the strength in my legs to get the bike up what seemed like perpendicular roads.
Around a mile or so on from the second ford the thunder started and the sky smeared troubled grey. The air felt moist, thick.
I stopped, looked towards the hills. Looked back down the way I had come. There was no way I was going back through those fords and Garvald. I was committed. I pedalled up past a lone woman in a long skirt and walking boots (where was she was going?), we exchanged pleasantries, I continued up, and down came the rain.
It was a torrent, a maelstrom, a sudden dreadful sousing sent straight from the hereafter. There was nowhere to shelter. No sheds, no overhangs, not even a tree. I stopped, pulled on my hopeless jacket, and got back on the bike. Up up I went into the hills as the single-track road turned into a stream and then a river. My shoes filled with water. My black shorts slicked around my thighs. Thanks to my friend Al, I was wearing a Stolen Goat cycling cap. It kept the water off my glasses. I could see at least.
A driver loomed out of the dark towards me, flashed his lights and gave me a wave. I pedalled on. Each time I hit the crest of a hill another higher summit loomed into sight. And another. And another. I laughed. I muttered. I sang. I cranked up my speaker. Up I went with Shakira and Sonic Youth and Destiny’s Child and Beyoncé and Bob Dylan and Joan Jett and Patti Smith.
Still the rain came and still I kept going, the speaker spluttering in and out of life. I had no idea how far I had to go. I prayed that my tyres wouldn’t puncture. I prayed that my chain wouldn’t break. My legs pushed and turned, pushed and turned, and then, there it was, the slate glint of the reservoir on my left.
I didn’t stop to look at it. Didn’t stop to take a picture. I turned right onto the ‘main road’ and kept on pedalling. It’s one of the world’s great mysteries that the road is not downhill from there all the way to Gifford. There is however, a row of trees that provides a fulcrum of shelter. I stopped, ate half my damp scone too fast and hiccoughed.
By then my adrenaline had dissipated, my legs were heavy, my fingers red and numb and I was doused through. I was thirty miles from home. The music floundered and stopped. My phone died. I was less liberated and more fucked.
Up I rode towards Gifford. Up and up until the rain trembled and stopped and the sky breached. The downhill should have been a relief but I was trying not to get cold and trying to stop my brakes steaming and grating. Safe in Gifford I asked a local how to get onto the NCN. Turn right at the golf course he said. That turned out to be the same fast road (B6355) I’d come in on. I kept going. Losing my nerve I hugged the edge of the road, knowing that I’d only encourage the close-passers, which of course I did. But at East Saltoun I found the NCN again and I was on my way.
As I cycled back along the Pencaitland railway path I puzzled over whether it was uphill or downhill. For years I’d thought it was downhill towards Edinburgh until somebody recently told me the opposite. Cold and wet, my fingers now numb, I thought most of it was downhill. I do, of course, stand to be corrected.
Back in Edinburgh my hands were so cold it took me a minute or so to get my key into my door lock. It seems I am that person who no longer listens to limits. I cycle where I want to go. I cycle where I think I should be able to go. I follow my nose. I am hopeless at understanding online maps.
That night I ordered a new fancy waterproof cycling jacket from the Netherlands. There’ll be a Brexit bonus tax to pay when it arrives. In years to come we’ll remember where we were for this coronation. I’ll remember it fondly – on an old pink road bike getting a sousing on the Lammermuir hills.
The route I took is here. Take gloves. And a waterproof jacket. And shake that ass up those climbs.
SANDERLINGS 