I'm sorry I haven't a cleugh

I was going to dismantle and, if there was time, rebuild and true a bicycle wheel today.  I cleared the garage specially, but then looked in the corner where the spiders and woodlice live and remembered I was going to chip out the old cement and redo it.  So that became the morning's task instead.

Mid-afternoon I decided I needed a bike ride and was going to just ride to Bush and do a circuit there.  Randomly I explored a path that leads up to the A702, thinking I could whizz along a bit and come back into Bush using the northern entrance, but the going was good and I decided to go to Flotterstone and maybe ride up to Glencorse reservoir.  Halfway around the reservoir is the rocky ascent up Maidens Cleugh that leads to the saddle by Harbour Hill, and since I was on my mountain bike I thought, why not?  It'd been a while.

I crunched and skidded and winched my way up.  I lost my balance a couple of times, which is terribly embarassing because last time I rode up in one go.  It's about a mile of riding, and takes me about 15 minutes to the gate and stone stile.  A slow trudge up the grass, for it was too steep to cycle, then took me to the top of Harbour Hill for the views.  You can see most of Edinburgh from there, from Arthur's Seat in the east to beyond the Forth bridges to the west.  There was no rolling path to the top of Castlelaw for the ride back down, and I wasn't for riding down past Bonaly reservoir and have to winch my way up again towards Allermuir, so I retraced my steps and was back down at Flotterstone in just a few minutes.

Back home for a hot shower and a big plate of cauliflower cheese!