Scotland 2002

First trip of the season, a 4 day trip, 6th to the 9th of April

Day1 - Day2 - Day3 - Day4

The ride up to Scotch Corner at 7am had been cold and dull. The forecast for Scotland was pretty good but that was a long way North, I turned up the heated grips to gas mark 9 hoping it would make me feel warmer.

It's 8 o'clock and here we are at Scotch Corner  David my long time biking buddy rummaging in his top case for lord knows what.

Oh, it's a camera! Well done Dave!

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Left to right in the picture below we are...

Graham (Kid)       Kawasaki Gpz 500

Paul (Patto)          BMW 1100Rs

Dave (Donkey)    1100 GoldWing

John - 600            Thundercat

Richard                 600 Fazer

Martin (Ebbo)       R1100Rt (But I'm on the other side of the camera :-)

It was time for off, 60m to the next stop at the Little Chef at Southwaite, 10m North of Penrith on the M6.

Surprise, surprise by the time we arrived at Southwaite the sun was shining! Things were looking up. To get to the Little Chef you have to cross over the motorway by the footbridge, as usual we searched all over before remembering to go over the bridge :)

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After a good feed and a refuel of the bikes it was time to head north again, this time quite a long haul of about 100m to the outskirts of Glasgow. On the way Graham's backpack unzipped and one glove was lost. Then we all got separated when Donkey decided he was low on fuel. After refueling, Donkey dropped back and we lost him too! We all managed to regrouped a couple of miles south of Glasgow (mobiles are such a blessing) and we were ready to join the fray of the Glasgow motorway system!

Surprisingly we made it through the traffic and across the Erskine bridge without difficulty, On the other side though we hit the Bank Holiday traffic heading out to Loch Lomond on the A82 and made very slow progress. After breaking free of the traffic we were in need of a break ourselves so we pulled off the road somewhere around Arden and found a nice pub by the side of Loch Lomond for a drink, this time we lost Kid! His bike had stalled in the pub's car park and thinking we had gone on he went out of the car park and headed up the road toward Tarbet. At first we never missed him as we had all parked in separate places, but eventually the penny dropped and we waited, feet up, for Graham to ring...

Arden, Lock Lomond, Richard programming his phone

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Sure enough, he rang after about 30mins, he was in a Cafe up the road and would see us at Tarbet (wonderful thing mobiles!)

In the heavy traffic we all got separated again, just getting away from  the Pub broke us up in to 3 groups. When we all meet up at Tarbet we learnt John had taken a tumble on his Thundercat. A very poor surface and wet road had conspired to bring him down on a bend. We all compared notes as John put his indicator back together, and had all noted how bad the road was just there. In the end he was very lucky. The fairing panel was slightly scraped as was the generator case. But that was abut it, no damage to clothing even. Dead lucky!

John and Richard fixing the indicator.

Time to move on, Next stop Tyndrum and the green Welly Stop for fuel and a break just 22m away, would we make it!

Yes we did, Here's the gang at Tyndrum in the bike park of the Green Welly Stop. Ever since Southwaite the weather had been improving, by time we arrived at Tyndrum it had reached the mid 70's clothing was coming of in all directions. The Green Welly is very geared up for bikers and it was very busy, handily placed in the middle of the bike park was a bucket of soapy water and a sponge to wash your visor, excellent. There is also a Little Chef, not visited by us but worth knowing about. This was our last stop before Fort William so refuelled and refreshed it was time to go.

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Its 31m to Glencoe and had it not been for the traffic it would have been a superb ride, over Rannoch moor and through Glencoe. We were enjoying it so much when we arrived at Glencoe we took the old road around Loch Leven the B863. If you have time I really recommend it the scenery and view over the Loch is superb. The A82 was rejoined at Ballachulish for the last leg to Fort William just 8m to go!

I wish I could say the last few miles were uneventful but sadly not... Our little group was joined by a band of Nomad trial riders, escaped from the International 6 day trials. They jostled in and out of the "nose to tail" traffic, riding on the wrong side of the road intimidating everyone. I was quite happy to see them go on their way.

Here we are finally at Guisachan House Fort William Parking is around the side and well away from the main road so quite secure. All in all this proved to be an excellent choice being just 5 mins away from the Centre of town and very comfortable. Bikes were unpacked and abandoned. Refreshed we headed for the bright lights for Food & Beer, Total mileage: 350m

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Day1 - Day2 - Day3 - Day4

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