Thank you for registering No images? Click here Ride to the Sun"Somewhere during the night you will hear a voice say, "Why am I doing this? I am never doing this again!" Look forward to this voice. Welcome it. Laugh at it. Embrace it. Look forward to hearing it again next year. Just know that it will come and that you will ride past it and be stronger when it fades into the shadows." Chris Tirpak Let us get straight to the point. We had thought that RttS would be back to normal this year but with fears over Covid variants, and increasing numbers of cases again, that just can’t be the case. As in the previous email, we’d based our decision to try and run the event on there being no Covid restrictions in England by the 21st June, and Scotland following suit, and sadly that’s no longer going to happen. So what does that mean? 1) Well, we’re still riding the route 2) But very much back to basics We’ve decided that it’s not a good idea to encourage big groups to gather, so we are riding the event as normal with a group of our pals, perhaps 20 of us or so. We’ll be leaving Bitts Park around 8.00pm and aiming to get to Cramond for sunrise at 4.30am as per normal. However, there won’t be the normal semi organised chippy stop in Moffat, no pipers at the top of the Devils Beef Tub and no CycloRave. It’s rubbish we know but it’s for the best. We can’t risk people congregating in large numbers at those areas, and potentially increasing the Covid risk to others. We’ll be hiring a van to get our bikes down and cycling, as much as we can, in our own bunch or with other small groups. Here’s a link to the latest guidelines from Scottish cycling for folk to read and make their own call on what’s appropriate HERE. There will be water and bananas (spread out on the car park so that folk can socially distance, and not handed out the back of the van by Bananaman) at the Crook Inn and we’ll compile a list of food stops that will be open on the route (an updated version of this - https://www.ridetothesun.co.uk/downloads/directions.pdf). The Moffat Best Pizza and Kebab House will of course be one of them, but just without the tea, coffee, water bowser etc outside. Think of it as a retro, back to basics year 1 RttS – no midnight dancing and no skirl of the pipes. RttS was always about a sense of adventure, getting on your bike and doing something different. That hasn’t changed at all, but if you’d rather wait until 2022 we understand, but failing that hope to see you on the route and to watch the sun come up on Cramond beach. Stewart Brewing are still offering us some beer again, so at the Cramond beach grassy knoll, we intend to have the kegs set up in a way that means folk can take their bottle to fill themselves up with a socially distanced bevvy. We won’t have the great folk from Cycle Law Scotland acting as bar staff for this year, but they’ll be back in 2022. We’re sincerely sorry if this scuppers anyone’s plans, or you feel short-changed in any way, but we firmly believe we have to do the right thing and have it in a no frills format this year. Remember we're just two guys and friends that love to ride bikes, love putting on RttS and we'll always try and do what we think is best. The Scouts have reluctantly decided for similar reasons to not provide the bike transport service this year, but have already started planning for 2022. Just click here If you would like to join their email list for priority booking next year. We wish everyone well and hope to see you on the road. Sol Invictus Fraser and Gary We Ride Together, We Ride to the Sun Social media stuff - Facebook - HERE, Twitter – www.twitter.com/RidetotheSun and Instagram - www.instagram.com/ridetothesun_scotland/ Our partners who all make this happen and keep it a free event – please give them your custom, all grand brands and great passionate cycling people that we have a lot of time for. www.cyclelawscotland.co.uk - providing cyclists with unrivalled, specialist, personal representation with cycling accident claims in Scotland. www.marketingconcepts.co.uk - Award winning marketing agency. They help with our web and design stuff - Great folks www.shandcycles.com - banana / water / cyclorave sponsor at the Crook Inn and lovely adventure bikes, handmade in Scotland just down the road from Cramond www.freshstartweb.org.uk - help them, they make the RttS bacon baps and all money goes to them, and they help ‘give someone their lives back’. www.bikeboxhire.co.uk - best value bike box hire about, based at Gary’s hoose, but with locations all over! www.torm.cc - for Torm cycling jerseys, great jerseys, and smart as owt. Paul comes up from Kent each year to ride the event and is such a lovely fella – treat yourself to some of the lovely new designs or the RttS classic jersey. www.harts-cyclery.co.uk - our local bike shop, top notch service, occasional cups of tea and Graeme’s a great guy and massive cycling advocate. www.seesense.cc – the best rear lights about, without question. www.fenwicksbike.com – biodegradable bike maintenance products, so easy to use that even Gary cleans his bike now. https://www.smidgeup.com - Developed and tested in Scotland by midge experts in the harshest conditions, Smidge contains a dastardly ingredient that works by cleverly throwing the little bleeders off our scent. https://www.straightcutdesign.com/ - handmade custom frame bags and bikepacking gear, from Edinburgh. |