Kaim repeat by MTB

Harebells

Anne was off shopping this morning and since it was sunny with a nice cooling breeze I decided to have an outing on the MTB initially I thought I'd head up to Fairlie but I couldn't resist the pull of Kaim downhill. What a great view just the same as yesterday (blog entry below). Spent a bit of time in the quarry sorting a couple of little bits of trail before zooming down the Kaim hill trail.
PM did a bit of essential garden maintenance (according to Anne that is) and then a little walk up Goldenberry hill to scatter some flower seeds at the top, great view from there too.

Return of the Scarecrows

West Kilbride Scarecrow

The Scarecrows are back!
All this week the scarecrows will be on view around West Kilbride, its a good bit of community fun.
I was over visiting my sister and I missed the parade through the town but I hear it was very well done, I also failed to get my effort finished on time so it'll just keep until next year.
View some scarecrow photos here.

Managed early today, before doing the Scarecrow rounds, to have a walk over Kaim and Caldron Hills, wow! clear cool and sunny what a view!
View walk photos here.

No time

Sculpture on the Kilmacolm cycle track

Don't seem to have had much time for blogging I've been using most of my on line time to relink my photos and more time making some videos.
Cycling has been mainly on the road bike, trying to keep cool and away from the biting bugs.
Last week I did a long circuit (long for me) from home over to Kilmacolm via Loch Thom, on the way back I used the cycle way to avoid the climbs and came across scuptures by the side of the route that I didn't know existed.
The one pictured above was an early one and I thought at first as I approached there was a battle re-enactment going on.
It was a sunny Sunday and there were lots of folk out on the cycleway enjoying the nice weather come to think of it that was the last video I made up view it here.

Oh well time to get off line and get on with painting the house woodwork hopefully only a days work before I'm free to get on with more easygoing activities.

On line storage

With Yahoo yet again moving all my photos and knackering my links to my blog I've been looking for another way of uploading and sharing photos on line and came across this. Don't know yet if I'll use it as I'm a busy relinking all of my blog to Flickr at the moment. Once thats done I may well change. Meanwhile back to relinking my blog photos. Ho hum.... yawn!

Get your free HUMYO.com online file storage

Watching the tour

View from above Kelburn

Sitting here watching the Tour de France while working on today's photos, what a spectacle, great photography and cycling thrills, Robby Hunter just took the sprint finish, wow! How these guys can keep it up day after day beats me, but I love watching it.

Today Anne and I went around Kelburn, it was lovely, a good cooling breeze, good views, kind of strange condition though with mist on the hills but still good visibility out over the Clyde.
Took quite a few photos view them here.

Scottish mountain bike through routes

I've been amusing myself looking at OS mapping and trying to work out through routes based on some guide books I've acquired over a few years.
The results suggest quite a lot of possibilities for multi day outings on the mountain bike all over Scotland.
I've spent even more time making maps and putting them on a site..
Now I'm spending yet more time linking that site to streetmap.co.uk maps to get OS info, just seems to go on and on.
Keeps me amused on wet days though and on good days I'll just have to get out there and cycle them, it could be a life's work.

The past week I've got out on the road bike over a couple of nice routes.
I like the road bike at this time of year its too fast for the bugs to catch and bite me and that little extra speed keeps me cool.
Kilmacolm loop andUplawmoor loop.
Both are great runs on nice quiet roads.

Its raining outside so I guess its back to the never ending map work.

Drumlanrig

Drumlanrig Castle

Anne and I decided to go down to Drumlanrig Castle, I wanted a change of scene for the mountain bike and thought that the routes would be short enough to spend a couple of hours then have a walk.
The entry is £4 per head but its worth it for the trails the walks and the shower/changing room.
Rik gave me a map (for 50p) and I went off to do the black and red run although the black is more of a red extention.
The trails were nice and dry, most of the technical stuff was rooty bits although there were one or two rocky drops as well, much of it was fairly natural lines through the trees, so it felt less like a prepared trail than outher places I've been, great stuff.
A few of the bends were a bit tight for me (can't do an endo flip or whatever its called) but that kept the speed down I suppose.

Afterwards we had a bite to eat and a wander around the garden.
A thouroughly good day out.

Video here.

Troon to Failford

Ayr Harbourside

Graham and I arranged a MTB outing today, I thought we'd go up to the cuts at Cornalees but when I left to pick him up the clouds looked a bit heavy up that way so we opted for a central Ayrshire route - Troon to Ayr and Failford.
The funny (nice) thing about central Ayrshire is that all around can be showery and overcast but here the sun can be splitting the skies (sometimes) and so its worth a good look about to see the cloud cover before a final decision.
Just as well, Anne said it rained in West Kilbride around 11am, not where we were though, it was sunny all through our 4.5hours cycle, so right decision (for once).

There's nothing technical on the route just some nice single and double track by the beach and the River Ayr with a pleasant lunch stop for beer and grub at Stair Inn.
On route we passed a group of MTB'ers heading the other way one commented he expected to see the video I was taking on the internet-so here it is.

Some Ayr photos.

Watching a spider

The weather has been a bit unpredictable recently and the bugs have been awful so haven't been out on the MTB much although I've been up the Kaim downhill and the windfarm but thats about it.
Was down trying to see the Peregrine Falcons at the local crags but they were nowhere to be seen so I spent some time watching bugs and came across several spiders over water pools.
They had good webs with a little silk thatched hide away at one end.
One of the spiders was busy feeding on a bug in the middle of the web so took some video of the goings on and it can be viewed here.

Turned out one of the peregrines was in the grass behind me and I only noticed when it flew off, there's a lesson somewhere here I think.

Graffiti Castle

Kelburn Castle's Graffiti Art

On our way from Fairlie to Largs Anne and I sneeked into lower Kelburn today to have a look at the graffiti art on the castle.
The castle roughcast is to be redone in a couple of years so the Earl of Glasgow decided to 'decorate' it with graffiti art, I must say I'm impressed.
I love the way the art integrates with castle features although one or two of the smaller sections are a bit fussy, its great though.

Video slide show here.

Local stuff

Young Peregrine Falcon

Just been doing the usual local stuff for the past few days.
The weather forecast has shown rain every day and it has been showery hence the lack of gallivanting.
I've a notion to get away for a few days when the weather improves but every time I'm out those damn clegs bite me to bits, even insect repellent doesn't put them off, I'll need to get something a bit more powerful before I head off somewhere.

Anne and I have been down viewing the peregrine falcons a few times over the past week or two, today one of the youngsters was flying about and a couple of days ago I managed to video them feeding.
Previous video can be viewed here.

Today i was out again on the MTB getting bitten by bugs, up the wind farm, Fairlie Moor, and Goldenberry hill, lovely apart from the clegs, later I did a bit of video garden safari, view it here.