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Difficulty: Leisure/Medium Day Rides (15-40 Miles)

Surface/Terrain: Combination of Road and Traffic-Free Path

Distance (Miles): 32.7 miles

This section provides some stark contrasts, taking you through the Moorfoot Hills and some of the most isolated areas of the Scottish Borders, through the small county of Midlothian and ito the heart of Scotland’s capital city.

There are no steep climbs, but the first 11 miles involve near constant climbing into the Moorfoot Hills.  This is rewarded with some lovely scenery amid the hill farms and sheep grazing on the sloping fields and rewarded further by a long and gentle descent stretching most of the 13 miles down into Edinburgh.

While Midlothian was very largely a mining community, the routes passes through some pretty countryside and the attractive villages of Temple and Carrington before entering the Edinburgh suburbs.  The route from Sherriffhall (at the Edinburgh City Bypass) is not the most beautiful route into the World Heritage Site which awaits in Edinburgh’s city centre, but it links up to a traffic-free path on a former railway line taking you very close the ‘Royal Mile’ in the heart of the city.