Trip to the Highlands

[bonio]

Unable to go to Ireland this year, I signed up for a short trip to Scotland organised by a local group of riders. There were to be 10 of us in all, only one I’d met before, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

 

Friday.

9am. Thetford. Pair up with Chris on his rubber-band powered F800ST. Two 800s mean the bikes were well matched for power, if not for beauty.

 

11 am. South Holland. Coffee at The Mooring Caff. As the review on Google puts it, “Don’t…”. Soon we’re in the Wolds and out comes the sun and shines on the magical B1225. I make the happy discovery that Chris is a spirited rider.

 

1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm Yorkshire. How did God create such an enormous county?

 

Night at the Premier Inn in Bishop Auckland. I’ve brought an alarmed disc lock.

[bonio]

Saturday. 9am. Grey skies. We take the crazy rollercoaster A68, with a junction behind every blind summit. Over Carter Bar and it's then bends bends bends to Jedburgh, then rain and miserable, crowded roads.

 

At Jedburgh.

 

Scone for lunch. I mean, I have soup and sandwiches, but at Scone. And by a miracle the rain stops and the roads dry up and the magic begins. The A93 through Spittal of Glenshee to Braemar, on to the B976 and the A939 to Grantown: 80 interrupted miles of rider’s delight: sweepers, tight bends, straights, hairpins, dizzy summits, green pines, golden larches, auburn bracken, and bare, bare moorland. And all on Freakin’ Dry Roads. “Nice roads”, I say to Chris when we arrive.

 

Leaving Spittal of Glenshee

 

Panniers off and preload set lower, because we’re here for a few days.

[bonio]

Larches on the road to the Lecht

[Stu]

Sounds like a good trip 

 

 

54 minutes ago, bonio said:

magical B1225

Shudder!! 

 

Sends shivers down my spine does that road! 

 

Takes me back to 2005 when I was out on a group ride and one guy decided in his wisdom he would do something stupid causing a 4 bike pile up!! 

 

It was a steep learning curve that day and one that will never be forgotten for me! 

[bonio]

Sunday. 9am. Time to go riding and we’re off to Dunnottar Castle, which gives us an excuse for retracing yesterday’s route over the mountains.

 

Bikes 

 

Dunottar Castle

 

Monday.  A wet wet wet ride to Fraserburgh, a granite town eking out a grey existence between a granite sky and a granite sea. Aside from the Asda café, the day’s highlight is the nicely fast-flowing, curvy A98.

 

Back at Grantown 

 

Tuesday. Destination Loch Ness. Route uncertain, but it involves a U turn in a muddy farmyard, while the farmer’s dog makes us throw stones for her by balancing them on our engine cases. Then a nadgery road over a misty moor, past the still waters of a mystical lochan wreathed in glowing golds and ochres of autumn, and then, down, down, down to the monstrous Loch at Fort Augustus.

 

Mystical lochan

 

The Caledonian Canal and Loch Ness at Fort Augustus

 

Back in Grantown in the evening, we’re outside talking about bikes and I say how I fitted crash bungs on the bike the first day I had it, “here they are,” I say, pointing to the place where the bung had been previously and now no longer was. The real problem is that bung is mounted on the engine bolt, but the engine seems firm enough, best option seem to be to carry on as is.

 

Wednesday. 9am. Our last time to cross the mountains; two last hours of astonishing bends and exhilarating landscapes at the start of the long ride home.

 

The bridge at Gairnshiel Lodge

 

Thursday. 5:30pm. I’m just 10 minutes from home, close to the middle of nowhere, and here’s a lad with a moped stopped by the side of the road. The power cut out as he was going round the bend and now it won’t start. In the end he leaves the scoot at a nearby farm and I whack up the preload and give him a lift into town. Then home.

 

Italian bike with Scottish mud

 

Saturday. Wash the bike. Notice that the other crash bung has now gone missing.

[Gerontious]

happily, you are used to U turns.

[bonio]

To be honest, it wasn't quite the same without the Umleitungen and the furious finger-stabbings of the sat nav that follow. And Tennants is no match for Grimburger. Blinding roads up there though.

Edited October 16, 2021 by bonio