Usual story, will head to Cargo pub for 6:30 then along to Bonaley shop for 7.

If it stays dry might be interested in exploring the line pointed out by bigjim descending from the Castelaw track towards Boghall and re-ascending to Windy Door Nick on the Caerketton ridge, before some japery descending off the ridge towards Swanston.

Went out last night so will skip this.

Gardening!

I was out last night for some ‘skills training’ in the Hermitage, including a super special roosty-drift-back wheel-tree stump type crash.

Went out last night so will skip this.

Gardening!

Settling in to married life well I see.

I can’t make tonight, but fancy joining you gents again sometime, possibly next week.

I think I’ll be coming tonight. I was planning a dive through the hermitage last night too but a front wheel encounter with a distinctly human jobby on arthurs seat left me going home directly instead!

I’d be up for exploring that path – I rode it a couple of times down to Woodhouselee but there must be at least a sheep path to Boghall. Don’t know much about the other bits either so that;ll be fun.

google map

From the Castlelaw car park, there is now a made footpath to Boghall. There are a couple of stiles to be negotiated and the first of these can be easily missed if heading North to Boghall (it’s just past the memorial). It terminates at the little wooded, signposted walk at the Boghall Burn.

More fun is had by heading North from Castlelaw car park on the obvious higher track, heading for the quarries and cutting W of the woods to around NT231646, then NE up onto the ridge to NT236650 but this leaves a sharp descent to cross the Boghall Burn around NT237653 to collect the track up the glen to Windy Door Nick. It might be preferable to head directly up Woodehouselee Hill to Fala Knowe.

NT231646 NT237653
These are map points, yes?
What do they mean & how do they work? I’ve tried putting them in a map search with no joy.
What’s the deal?
Cheers.

they are british national grid coordinates. Google earth etc uses WGS84 which is a different coordinate system. An OS map or a site with OS maps might support OS coordinates, though you could probably drop the NT as that is the 500km square identifier

Oh hang on, I was confused by the way they had been written, you’d need to keep the NT, as the numbers in the NT231646 represent both x and y., the first three x (longitude) and the last three y (latitude). The NT represents the grid square, so the full 6 figure ref is 323100,664600

Streetmap will be able to use these coords, multimap has gone crap for that since becoming part of bing.

druidh interesting to hear there is a proper path there now, it used to be pretty vague. The memorial is quite creepy and overgrown unless they have cleared it!

I notice there is now an unfinished signed path around harperrig reservoir so they are obviously putting some investment into new routes.

Will join you this evening – see you at the shoap.

I’ll be at Cargo for 6.30.

See you there Steve, I’m on the white Whyte.

And I’ll be on my brown Zen – really need to wash it to bring it back to black!!

I am a “maybe” for this one

Can only be there in spirit, again… but hey, I get to work late in Cumbernauld to make up for it 😆 🙄

i’m coming, woo! i’ve done most of my rides around that eastern bit and i love it there! prefer going down from windy door nick to boghall and then the souterrain, but i’m totally up for going the opposite way! (black inbred)

I’ll be at the Shop for 7. White van, red inbred.

Leaving in a few mins (for the shop)

Akshully, I’ll wait at the Bonaly Car Park

Cheers BigJim.

I did that route about an hour before you guys (on hols tomorrow needed to be back early), never ridden through so much sheepsh@ in my life! It was a serious dung-fest.

Loads of branches along by the memorial, good fun hopping over them but I can’t help but feel they were put there to discourage cyclists?

We joined just after the memorial, having sort of freestyled across a couple of fields. Once we found the path to Boghall it was pretty good, nice dusty singletrack, once we’d cleared a couple of logs/fallen trees.

The descent from the top of Caerketton to Swanston though, fast grassy bobsleigh run!

Class ride and lovely evening. Good to go up Boghall, not a climb I’ve done for years. Pretty hard overall tbh, legs are a bit leathered – not been out a great deal of late.

Sorry not to be more public spirited with getting the ale in – wasnae sure if others shared my thirst for a tin of stella on the street. Tesco bloke was a bit urgent with getting the shutters down to be fair.

I like Iain’s suggestion of pencilling in a pint on the way back if there’s a decent alehouse with a beer garden. There’s a hotel in Polwarth were you can sit out (the Etrick?), nothing special though – I’m sure there’s loads of places to choose.

Aye – despite thinking I just needed a wee “loosening-up” ride between road tours, that turned out to be a fair bit of climbing. I enjoyed the descent off Allermuir in the gathering twilight…

All that happened to me tonight was angry nature…

Any objections to a tagalong next week?

What a great ride that was. Can’t believe I managed to fall off into the only muddy bit we saw all night, actually can’t believe I fell off on that corner at all :oops:. It was definitely a chippy before a shower – even had to go home to get cash and back out to the chippy!

Thanks for the guiding 13thFM and everyone else who had a hand in it. Should have realised when you suggested a route how much climbing we’d do!!

Legs really feel it today.

guiding

I was going to apologise for just taking us where-ever the hell I fancied but if it qualifies as guiding then thats fine by me!

Thanks everyone for the patience while we sorted the route out, think it worked out nicely in the end once Keiran got us onto the F.O.P path.

lots of cameras out on the ridge, anyone got any photos to share?

Ah the 13th floor monk approach to route choice – just keep going up Watch out if you see him conspiring with Rob!

sounds a good one chaps – I was just being lazy last night

Watch out if you see him conspiring with Rob!

I’m doing it in Rob’s honour, until the man himself can grace the slopes again. However, the Whyte has now proved its climbing credentials so some of Rob’s lines might be up for grabs if this weather continues…

Aye great ride, can’t beat a bit of exploring based on seeing a track, tired legs today and I can still smell hot brakes. Where we crossed the Woodhouselee field towards the monument, you could climb through the tree belt to the left up the hill instead. There are some little sheep paths in it but loads of fallen branches last time I went through, but you could create some lines through with some time. That would lead you on to the FoP path. The tiny path in the bottom of the valley had kind of disintegrated since i last rode it, not that there was ever that much there.

I reckon we followed the blue line (approximately!) and should maybe investigate the red line, minus the direct line through the gorse obviously…

good ride. might have to put some gears on my scandal, might have made it up some more of those climbs. crampons and ropes would also have helped.

crampons and ropes would also have helped.

i concur! i felt like 13thfloormonk was a school boy and i was a fly having my legs pulled off, one by one… but yeah, that was cracking, nice one!

Hey, I’m not the only one to blame, I was chasing Garry_Lager up some of those slopes, the man obviously had the scent of beer in his nostrils 8)

I’ll try and get a couple of pics up once i get home tonight.

Indeed a great ride, cycling to work this morning was distinctly slower than usual.

Steve, don’t worry about the fall, it could have been worse, you could have ridden into a wall on the canal towpath…

Doug

Ooo, sorry I missed this one. Been itching to experience a daylight group descent eastwards off Allermuir too… I usually cut off to the left near the bottom to end up back on Shearie Knowe / JZ bottom section, adds a little more climbing for entertainment!

I should really try and make it to one of these rides some day. If I got to between the Slateford Road aqueducts for 6:40 would I meet the crowd coming along from Cargo?

I had completely forgotten about the crash on the canal towbath – you’re right, that would take some going to do anything that stupid 😉

@ChrisL – we were a bit later than that last night as we were waiting to see if anyone else turned up but we’ll not be past by that time. Would definitely catch us if you wait there.