Tuesday 7 February 2012

Moon wanderings...

After a frosty week Saturday was as forecasted a wet miserable day.
I beat the weather though by getting up and out at 5am for a pre dawn night ride -:), 5am?  hell yeah i got a new bike to go ride!.
It was a surreal 2 hours riding through the woods that were frozen solid  and mud free, frost glinting in the beam of the 2 magic shines, i love night riding, often in your own wee world surround by blackness.
I rode along the secret trail at Tyninghame staying above the beach then home through  the woods again for breakfast. No one around and with no wind it was eerily silent, just the odd car could be heard in the distance.
I did listen to the I pod for a while, `Escape from New York` soundtrack, an amazing soundtrack, i loaded it the other evening after mentioning Snake Plissken.
I have got an early 80s film thing going on this now and watching loads of that stuff each evening while sampling some cider...
Escape from New York was the first film i ever watched on video (top loader of course), one of many classics by John Carpenter...
There is a new DVD out of the film with all the cut outs - released due to the amount of fans of this film and the character... `Just call me Snake...`


Anyway the Moonlander was super smooth on the roots and frozen foot prints in the brick hard frozen mud. By 8am the day was done as the heavens opened.
On a weeks holiday i have been out the last 3 days now on the Moonlander in clear cold days following hard frosts at night, perfect winter weather for beach riding and taking pics.
I always enjoy this weeks holiday, every day is a Saturday, beach riding, then home for a hot bath and cider in front of a roaring fire... Peace...

And i am loving riding the Moonlander on real soft sand,  it is also smoother over rocks and there is more grip on slime covered rocks exposed by the tide. Definitely harder work on the tarmac, i had to work to keep up with Jason's Pugsley and Andy`s Salsa Mukluk on Sunday on the ride down to my local beach at Tyninghame, but i knew it would be harder work on the Moonlander, that is why i will keep the pugsley as better suited when there is trails and road to ride to the coast.

Sunday was a fantastic clear day. Andy brought a hip flask of Glenmorangie and after sprinkling some on the Moonlander we had a toast, it has been blessed! ...



Look here at the pugsley 65mm rim and 3.7" Larry tyre print on the left,
And the Moonlander 100mm rim and 4.7" Big Fat Larry tyre print on the right, a lot more float and a lot less effort to ride through stuff like this...



Exposed by the tide , ruts in the rock left by cart wheels from when Seaweed was gathered on the coastline here over 150 years ago...



Rock crawling on exposed rocks, i love this as so many different options of lines...


Peffersands and time for some dune surfing, Jason had a go on the Moonie, and is still grinning -:)...





Yesterday i rode 8 miles to Dunbar on the road to John Muir Park. quite hard work to maintain a decent speed but can be done, i just had to see. Down at the Park...








The east side of Spike Island is very soft if an incoming tide, along with dunes here is where the Moonlander comes into its own. On the pugsley it is often a granny ring grind along here, today i flew along on the 36t ring!, this bike rocks!



In the pic you can see a mono pod, i attached the Go Pro seat post clamp to it, then made a camera clamp and glued a clamp to a joining section for a quick release mount, using the mono pod i held out the camera low to the ground to show how soft the sand is, look at the foot prints then check out the Moonie print -:)

Song is from a classic film i`m watching tonight, Theme to `The Warriors` (1979)...






Hedderwick sands filling up with the incoming tide...







Then today some riding along Gosford Bay and Longniddry, just an hour or so...







My new bike meets one of my old bikes from many moons ago, yep its a Raleigh Twenty -:)...


Tired legs from 3 days riding the beast but its off for its debut ride to the WW2 sub wrecks with Jason tomorrow then east to North Berwick.
We have some low tides  later this week so hope to go where no bike has cycled before... more soon...


7 comments:

  1. Snake Plissken? I thought he was dead...

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  2. Its got a cult following... i`m one of them -:)
    Need to do a blog post on John Carpenter films soon.
    This week i have also watched `Halloween` `The Fog` `Christine` and `Assault on Precinct 13`
    Another of my favourites of his is `Village of the Damned`

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  3. All that Moonlander pictures.
    You are so cruel!!!! LOL

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  4. Never underestimate the power of the FAT side Tommy... resistance is futile... -:)

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  5. Nice video. Looks like you're really enjoying that bike!
    DummyDiva

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  6. Another great film.

    Surly should be paying you...or giving you free bikes or something.

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  7. Yep, Hey Surly wake up!! and make Coastkid your official European Ambassador!!

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