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Day 13 Selkirk – Edinburgh via a bike shop.
Weather - Good.
Dr Pepper – Good
Terrain – Good
Campsite - Highly Recommended: Bonaly Scout Camping And Training Centre, 71 Bonaly Road, Edinburgh, Lothian, EH13 0BP, 01314 411878 (May be scouts only)
So far then my £40 bikes, which was brand new at the start of the trip, had had a few problems. The gears didn’t work, the brakes didn’t work (both common problems on all three bikes to be fair that we never had time to adjust), the pedal had repeatedly fallen off yesterday, and the rear cogs went in the first week requiring a £15 replacement. In all we were quids in from buying a more expensive bike, which may or may not have suffered as many problems, but it had set us back a lot to the point where we couldn’t complete our journey.
With just this one day to go, a short distance casual cycle to Edinburgh, we were hopeful there would be no further problems. First though we had to find a bike shop still (to fix the pedal) and were directed to one in Selkirk. After a brief detour we found it but it was shut. On the way back to the town we found a garage open, and coasted up to it because the pedal chose that moment to fall off once again. Anyway we asked to borrow a proper spanner and used our tool to put it on tight, which fortunately solved the problem. It meant there wasn’t actually anything wrong with it just we hadn’t been able to tighten it up properly. We gave the spanner back to the miserable bloke from whom we had borrowed it with thanks, then packed up but as we did so we lost half of the special tool we had been using (it is two bits as its other use is to screw the pedals off if need be). After a brief search we left, then not far out of town got a puncture. At this point it still wasn’t a problem as we had plenty of time but it was annoying nonetheless especially since once again it was on my back wheel, though this time only the one hole.
Finally on our way again we chose the A72/A701 route towards Edinburgh rather than the A7 as planned because at the time we didn’t know if the pedal was a temporary and permanent fix and there we more larger places on the route to fall back on if there was a problem – A decision which came in handy for another reason. As the picture above shows this was a beautiful section of cycling in the valley alongside the river Tweed, which I have heard is famous for Salmon fishing. In the picture you can (just about) see a man standing right in the middle of the river trying to catch some fish.
The pedal stayed on but shortly after that picture was taken in the middle of nowhere my back wheel crunched and started going all over the place. Stopping to investigate we soon found the situation not good, at the time we (again) thought the bearings had gone in the wheel, a partially correct analysis, but there was no fixing it with no spare bearings and since it was (of course) on the back wheel the rear cogs were in the way of everything and obviously that needs a special tool to come off anyway. Now nearer Walkerburn than Selkirk Martin set off in search of a bike shop while Lister and I took turns pushing the bike, which refused to roll properly at all and made it very hard work, as well as making a terrible screeching noise on and off.
3 miles later and Lister and I passed straight through Walkerburn, disappointed that it was smaller than we had hoped. We had pre-arranged Martin should call when he found a shop so we knew there was no point in stopping which saved us some time. The problem with using our 4mile: 1inch map is not just the difficulty with route finding but that it completely fails to give any indication of how big places are. On our map Walkerburn seems a bigger place than the next town, Innerleithen, but in fact Innerleithen had a big high street and supermarket where Walkerburn had nothing. Walkerburn did however have a sign (above) which we found funny at the time. It reads “Give us a brake” instead of the standard “Please drive carefully”.
There was reason to be worried at this point because to get home on Saturday we had to reach Edinburgh by tonight, and we couldn’t believe our bad luck, even with such rubbish bikes, since there had been no problems bike-wise all week. For my bike to let us down again was irritating to say the least and in Walkerburn we knew that if we had no joy at Innerleithen it would be another 6-7 miles walk to Peebles, and with another hour and a half to two hours down the drain we were in trouble. Very dramatic.
An hour and a quarter after we stopped for the problem we walked into Innerleithen, by which time Martin had phoned to tell us there was a shop. During the phone call there was a serious breakdown of communication where Martin misunderstood our request to ‘buy us all a Dr Pepper while you wait’ and just bought one for himself! We have since forgiven him. Above is the bike shop we found, a nice place in a converted church in which we spent the next couple of hours mainly doing nothing.
I didn’t write the diary today either so I am making this up as I go along (well not making it up obviously) three weeks after we came home, so the details are a little sketchy, but basically there was one bloke running the place who was friendly, Scottish, and very slow. In the shop were two people with very expensive-looking bikes already receiving his attention, something serious by the looks of it and it took twenty minutes before he came to us and in about two seconds flat got the cogs off with an enormous wrench.
Stupidly thanking him thinking that was all we needed bar a few bearings, we took it outside and set to work, but hit another problem when a nut we needed to unscrew was stuck in the wheel and we couldn’t get it out with our tools. Back inside the shop, where the owner was still happily hammering (literally) bits of these other people’s bikes, and it took ¾ of an hour to get served again. We had lunch during that time taking turns in waiting with the wheel in the shop and walking the length of the high street to the co-op to get some lunch. That all done we finally got served in the shop.
We really should have seen it coming. He got the nut off then took one look at the inside and told us we needed a new wheel. The hub was broken and clearly while we could get a new hub there was no way because it would take hours to fit, plus the wheel wasn’t worth anything anyway. We said no problem just give us the wheel we’ll fit it ourselves (he kept returning to his other project). He said fine, in fact he kept saying ‘nae problm’ and asked if we minded it being black rather than silver. After politely informing him we didn’t care if it were sky blue pink we were desperate, he handed it iver and charged a reasonable £25, which was about £2.50 more than our combined savings at the time.
I find it hard to believe to this day that on top of all our other little problems there was not one single cash machine in that town. Innerleithen had a big co-op and a full scale high street full of shops, but only one bank, which had no cash machine and was closed on this Friday afternoon. To top this walking in a Post Office I asked if there was one and the elderly shop assistant literally didn’t know what I was talking about – she didn’t know what a cash machine was! Asking another shop assistant it was clear the nearest one was up the road in Peebles. Starting to panic, I met Rich who had also been looking and he had the idea which saved us, to use the ‘cashback’ scheme at the local co-op.
Walking the entire length of the high street yet again we went in, bought a Dr Pepper or three and asked for £30 cashback. Nae problm she said, then we had another shock when rich’s card was not accepted. Fortunaltely mine was although the difference was unclear and finally we had our money, returned to the bike shop and waited for the owner to reappear to pay him. People are noticeably more trustworthy up here because for a while he was out the back with nobody in the shop we could have walked out with what we wanted including our wheel.
Another quarter an hour later after transferring the ring, tyre and tube, putting on the new wheel, and removing the brake because the new wheel was wider, we were back on the road and going as fast as we could to get to Edinburgh. The going was quite easy although traffic was busier than yesterday and we were in single file most of the way. There was a long uphill followed by a descent to a junction with the A701 which the map indicated was the Mid Lothian border. Not wishing to slow down going at about 30mph downhill I whipped out the camera and took a picture (above) of where we assume the sign used to be. In fact now looking at Ians picture (click here) of the same border we can be sure it was indeed where the sign should be!
That was a good section with more spectacular scenery although we left the Tweed behind at Peebles, where we did not stop to look around. Approaching civilisation at Edinburgh we were at last pretty happy about the day and confident of getting to our planned campsite in plenty of time. To recognise this good news we promptly made the bad decision of stopping at a Tescos for dinner food and drinks for the evening, which meant that we had to carry the heavy cans past about a dozen other supermarkets including at least one other Tescos. Martin however made up for it by providing this great novelty photo opportunity when not all the cans quite fitted in the bag. And yes I did nearly fall off after I took this picture going at about 20mph about a foot behind him!
On the picture page (last film) you can see some of my other attempts at picturing this scene. Shortly after this and still before we passed the Edinburgh sign the local council provided us with further amusement, of which we just had to stop and take a picture. We had seen some cycle lanes on our travels but this one, all of 15 yards long, really took the biscuit and for me represents a significant waste of public money. Personally, having cycled the length of England, I have come to the conclusion that all cycle lanes are a waste of money. To start with all the drivers ignore it and drive over it, especially when the painting of the lines actually makes the road lane not wide enough for a car, like in this example.
There is not physically enough room for even a standard car to pass without going in the cycle lane so just what does it achieve? The other major point is that while this particular ‘stretch’ of cycle lane is just ridiculous, none of them last very long and on a regular basis we found suddenly you have to feed back into the traffic simply because the road narrows and there is no longer space for the cycle lane, so it just ends! It is madness and I honestly feel they are a waste of money.
When we stopped laughing we arrived with a sudden mass of other traffic at the Edinburgh bypass and there we found the unspectacular sign, which we also took this partially successful timer photo of. It really felt like an achievement and while obviously not as good as our original intentions, we can at least go home saying that we have done ‘Land’s End to Edinburgh’ which I can tell you is quite a long way! It also meant that we saved about £50 each on the train fare.
Edinburgh is a big place and it took over an hour to locate the campsite, which was not exactly ideally suited as it was actually back outside the bypass to the Southwest of the city. In the original plan of course we never intended to go into the town centre so it would have been more on the route. However it was a Scout site and so we knew it would be good value and we could have our trademark enormous fire out of masses of pallet wood on the woodpile which I think must have decreased in size by a half before we left.
The photo shows our tent in the background in the morning. The campsite is highly recommended although it may be scouts only, and also one of the more efficient as for the first time of the five scout sites we visited we were actually asked for proof that we were scouts. At the others we had just said ‘yes we are’ and that was that, but the warden asked to speak on the phone with someone back home for proof. Our friend Lee Lines did this and that was that, although how he knew Lee was in the scouts remains a mystery… and again no details were taken so had we left a mess there would be little they could do. Anyway a great site with excellent facilities and in fact there were at least two other groups also camping.