Shaun McDonald's Blog

This Tuesday 8th December 2009, there will be another Edinburgh OpenStreetMap meetup. Unfortunately I won’t yet be able to enjoy another cycle out along the coast from Edinburgh to map some more of North Berwick, and return back to London on the Caledonian Sleeper. Not forgetting the significantly more people who came to the meetup than I originally expected. It’s great to see such great enthusiasm for a regular meetup in another UK City.

When I was buying the sleeper tickets for the return leg of the last meetup, I found that phoning got a better deal than buying the tickets online and picking them up online.

Further to my previous post about my bike. I had problems getting a proper chainring from half the bike shops in Edinburgh, so instead I got a second hand bike that was similar to my old one. 

The overall cycle was tough. First I headed out East from Edinburgh through Musselburgh on to the A199, out to Dunbar. Parts of the A199 have some nice cycle lanes. As the road is fairly flat and straight you can easily get the speed up to do a nice sprint. This was the easy part of the route, as I have done it before.

 

At Dunbar I started to head south towards Berwick-Upon-Tweed. Parts of this part of the A1 can be scary, however it the only way south close to the coast that I know of. In the middle of the Borders, I decided to head through Pease Bay again. It is a steep road down to the bay, where the caravan park is, however it is even steeper on the other side heading out of the bay.

 

As I had the map in TrekBuddy, I was able to find the A1107, which joins the A1 with Eyemouth in a loop. This helped me to stay off the A1 for a lot longer than I did the last time. It was a nice road into Eyemouth, with some great views of the North Sea. From Eyemouth I headed along the “Berwickshire Coastal Route”, which meant that I was on the A1 for even less, and I’d have even more data to be able to add to OpenStreetMap.org.

At the border between Scotland and England, I took a snack and photo break.

From the Border, it is only a few miles more into Berwick, where I joined the National Cycle Network Route 1 to head back to Edinburgh.

The National Cycle Network takes you on the quietest roads possible. This will usually mean that they are quite hilly, longer and going into the middle of nowhere.  There were some points where you could just see fields or trees, but no lights apart from my own bike or the occasional car. As you are heading west along the National Cycle Network, it does zig zag between Scotland and England a few times. At one point there is a bridge that was built in 1820, and still in use today.

In Norham there was a sign that was rather confusing, as it had the wrong National Cycle Network Route number. Just as well I used the name of the city I wanted to head towards, rather than the route number.

Just before Galashiels, I stopped to check the GPS and found that the phone no longer seen it. Unfortunately the battery in the bluetooth GPS that I’m currently using only lasts for about 12 hours according to the manufacturer. It lasted about half an hour longer, than the manufacturer’s stated operating time, so should I be happy that I couldn’t get the last bit of the trip? The cold weather didn’t help either, as batteries tend to have a shorter life when they are cold. 

From there on, there was no point in me taking any more pictures as I wouldn’t be able to Geotag them. Also it was dark so it was difficult to take any decent pictures. Finally stopping to take pictures does slow my average speed down considerably, and I was wanting to get home rather than be on the bike for a whole 24 hours.

From Galashiels I just hit the A7 north to Edinburgh. I did notice on the way that the signs appeared to change from green to white like a yo-yo. Is it a trunk road or a primary road?

Total Distance was about 150 miles in 17 and three quarter hours. Next up on the longer distance cycling is to head round the Forth again.

Now I just need to get the tracks from yesterday added to OSM (amongst the numerous other things I need to do).

Photos on Flickr

Map of the cycle

Today I took part on the CTC Saturday cycle for the first time. Total distance including getting to and from the start and finish was 51 miles.

Yesterday I took part in the first Edinburgh 20 miler ride of 2008. It was an easy, slow paced, group ride of 12 people around the west of Edinburgh. In total for the day, including to and from the start/finish I cycled about 26 miles.

Cycle Parking this way
Originally uploaded by smsm1

I noticed this sign at the Gyle Centre recently after they had move the cycle parking to another location. I wish there was more of these signs at supermarkets, as the bike parking is often hidden away so that you cannot find it. The same should apply to large offices, especially ones that don’t like you chaining the bike to the railings at their front door, and instead you have to park your bike somewhere else that often isn’t obvious.

This months Edinburgh Critical Mass had about 50 participants. 

This months route.

I am running rather behind on blogging

Last weekend’s Edinburgh Mapping Party went well. We had around 10 mappers at the meet up. Most of FIXME land has now disappeared.

Today, I was intending to cycle from Edinburgh to Berwick-upon-Tweed and back. Unfortunately on leaving the lights a Regent Road to head down on to London road, my gears started making a grinding noise.

The old gear cable has had one of the strands lose in parts of the cable. However the change of the cable hasn’t made the noise go away. So it seems that the gear unit will need to be opened for an half yearly service. I also need to get a new chain and front cogs for it too some time soon.  

Yesterday I took a cycle south on the National Cycle Network route 1. 

It was quite a nice day, with some awesome views in parts of the route.

From 20070804osmcy…

One of the great things about being on a push bike, is that you can ignore “Road Closed” signs, instead of taking a long diversion. In this case, a bridge on the National Cycle Network was getting replaced. Though there was a temporary scaffold bridge available for use by cyclists and pedestrians.

From 20070804osmcy…

Parts of the journey were quite tough, even so they were downhill on quiet roads, there was a strong head wind. At Innerleithen, I stopped for a short break to grab a pizza, so that I would have enough energy to get back home. From there the cycle route starts heading east to Galashiels and Melrose. 

From 20070804osmcy…

After Melrose, I decided it would be better to head back home rather than continuing south on the national cycle network. At that point I seen a distance sign that said that Edinburgh was 39 miles away on the A68. At that point I predicted that I’d be home some time between 12 midnight and 1 am.

As I was heading up the first part of the A68, which was quite a bit of uphill, I was starting to extend my prediction as to the estimated time of arrival home. However the downhill at the other side made up for the extra time to get up the hill, with me arriving home around quarter past midnight. 96 miles in 9 hours 45 minutes is pretty good, with a few breaks. It is however only a third of the speed required for setting some UK Road Records.

While I was out on my travels, I collected a nice track log of  my journey, so that I could add it to OpenStreetMap.org.

Map of route