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Didn't get me shizzle together 'til mid-afternoon so just went for a pedal from home. Sometimes you don't have to go too far from home to have a good ride. Obviously the weather helps, but it was still pretty ace.
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Past the filter beds below the recycling centre
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Woods in the country park
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Ayer's Rock???
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Hotel grounds singletrack
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Steps #1
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Steps #2
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Above the motorway slip road
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Shadows of the aqueduct
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Soul below acqueduct
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Birch woods at sunset
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Nice colours.
Very nice. West of Edinburgh I take it?
I went for a blast round the shitelands today - it wasn't raining but the trails were absolutely piss-wet though. Filthy ride. I guess we've had a week of rain thinking about it.
Always wondered what those reddish hills are - are they some sort of slag heap from mining?
Yes, between Livingston and the city of truth, light and beauty.
The hills are shale bings, remnants of the oil shale industry - basically a shale (fine grained sedimentary rock) with a high organic content. Sort of like a really crappy grade of coal.
Basically they quarried the oil shale, crushed the rock, heated it under pressure and a sort of oil comes out that can be refined into useful stuff.
You're left with the red shale that was dumped in huge quantities all over West Lothian. A lot of the bings have been levelled but the ones around Broxburn and the Five Sisters and Tarbrax bings were presumably too big to do anything with, so stayed. Most are SSSIs as they support unique flora that can't grow anywhere else.
looks lovely 🙂
How awful. A whole afternoon to fill, terrible autumn weather in such a terrible location. And to cap it off, having to ride a Soul.
Jammy bugger. 😉
Get that Soul out of Aus. I've got the only Soul on this continent.
Miles away from Ayres though - down in SA.