We arrived at Fisherrow Harbour early for this Lothian Cyclists outing. The weather was forecast to be sunny and relatively warm, which made it tricky to decide exactly how many layers to wear. After unloading the bikes, I decided that I would start without my jacket and folded it up neatly to stow away underneath the spring clip of my pannier rack. Everything was ready to go when I couldn’t find the car keys to lock up. So all our bags and coats were searched multiple times as well as inside and underneath the car. I had just about given up all hope of finding the keys when I finally noticed that I’d put them down on the bonnet. D’oh!
Musselburgh Harbour on a fine March morning
By this time the rest had arrived and led by Alison, we made our way, a little late, along the coast going east out of Musselburgh. Our route took us past Cockenzie power station; that familiar part of the Forth landscape, now under demolition. After we passed that, we turned towards the harbour and followed a seaside track until it met up with the road again at Port Seton.
At that point, I noticed that I had a puncture in my front tyre. Luckily, the pavement where I fixed it was like a suntrap, so it wasn’t that unpleasant a delay. Scott helped me by finding the offending article, a sharp thorn-shaped piece of dark glass or stone. We got underway again, with me hoping that I didn’t get another puncture, as I only brought the one spare inner tube.
After catching up the others, who were waiting at the entrance to one of the car parks along Longniddry Bents, I noticed that my jacket was no longer in place on my pannier rack. I backtracked for a bit but couldn’t find it, so made a mental note to return by car afterwards in case I could find it by the side of the road., then I raced on to catch everyone up again.
Route 76 between Longniddry and Haddington
We skirted the edge of Longniddry then took a right which led us to a disused railway track, heading in the direction of Haddington. Colette and I found ourselves towards the front, so after a while we stopped to let the rest of the group catch up. That was when I noticed that Colette’s front tyre was punctured too! Bad things happen in threes after all – two punctures and a lost coat, so I was hopeful that there were no more unpleasant surprises in store. It was certainly very lucky that Norah had similar sized tyres to us and was able to offer Colette her spare inner tube, which we very gratefully received. Thanks also to Tony for helping with the pumping up using his old but very efficient long handled pump.
The puncture fairy paid us another visit
So after all that mallarkey, we arrived in Haddington a lot later than expected. There we met Andrew, who set off a bit early in case we set too blistering a pace. In the end, he was waiting there for about an hour! We found a nice cafe and had lunch with bright sunlight streaming in through the windows. It got so warm that the door was eventually left open, and it was good to find that it was also pleasantly warm outside, as we left the cafe to retrieve our bikes.
The return leg was through flat farmland that lies to the south of Haddington. However, after West Saltoun the road started to get a bit more undulating, and Lisa, who had been having some technical problems with her mountain bike, opted to leave it by the roadside and get the bus back to base. We later found that she got home safely and intends to treat herself to a well-deserved new bike!
We then turned right onto the Pencaitland railway path, which we followed for its full length. At the far end, we regrouped and then divided up into those going back to Musselburgh and those heading back into Edinburgh. Those of us going to Musselburgh were in for a treat, as we freewheeled down past Carberry, then sped on into Musselburgh before the traffic slowed us down in the town centre. Soon we were back at the harbour and packing up to go back home.
We made a detour to trace the early part of the route as much as possible, but my bright green jacket was nowhere to be seen. It was not until we got home and Colette was unpacking the car that she discovered my coat was hiding under one of the seats! Then I remembered taking it off the rack to look for the car keys, and clearly I hadn’t put it back on after all. What a twit!!!
As a little postscript, the next day we went out for another ride, and discovered that Colette’s rear wheel and mine too both had slow punctures, meaning that we accumulated a total of 4 punctures between us in one outing. If this continues, we will have to get ourselves some bulletproof tyres!!!