ROYAL COMMONWEALTH POOL - INNOCENT PATH - BRUNSTANE STATION - BRUNSTANE BURN - NEWHAILES HOUSE & GROUNDS - BRUNSTANE BURN - INNOCENT PATH - COMMONWEALTH POOL

All rides are FREE but booking is recommmended. Please see additional details about our rides.

DATE: Sunday 27th July 2008

TIME: Meet at 9.45 a.m for 10.00 a.m. start. 3½ hour leisurely cycle ride including rests & a coffee break.

STARTING POINT: The Royal Commonwealth Pool, Dalkeith Road (front steps).

ROUTE SUMMARY: This ride offers a relaxed cycle, largely away from traffic exploring places of interest on the east of the city.

DISTANCE: Approximately 9 miles.

DETAILS: We may have done this route in April, but the changing seasons & new faces will make this a totally new adventure. A super ride for children & families.

"Auld Reekie" may have been burning with intellectual fervour in the 18th century, but it was also smoky with the filth from factory chimneys. The "Great and the Good" of the time were happy to work in Edinburgh but it was not where they wanted to relax. For that they moved outside the city. Villas were built all around the outskirts, as Edinburgh's lawmakers, doctors & intellectuals took their pleasure with a lung full of country air.

Perhaps nowhere embodies this spirit of the Scottish Enlightenment of the mid-to-late 1700s - the searching, drinking in a& sharing of knowledge - as the library at Newhailes House.

I don't think we'll be allowed in the library with our coffee & sticky buns, but as the "Great & the Good" of the TryCycling fraternity I'm confident we'll return from our adventure with wellbeing restored, new friends & a little more enlightened!

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