Scotland Tour 2008 - Day 1

HELLO!

That’s it! It’s all over…:( :(

We had a superb trip, filled with breath-taking views, amazing roads and fantasatic people. All in all we are a bit tired but the amazing experiences we all had kept us going through all the pain and tiredness. I managed to take over 730 photos, so I will try and sort them out and post the best ones in chronological order….so here we go!!!

 Day 1 - Perth to Inverness

The morning of the big trip! Ultra excited, things were already packed and ready to go the night before. All that was needed was to get up, pack some last minute things and off we go!

The bikes were fuelled up, the luggage was on the bikes and all gear was ready, so we saddled up and headed for Inverness.

The first of many photos - Group photo at Aberargie

It was looking very overcast but we were hoping for some glimmer of sunshine. After we took the first photo B mentioned that he needed petrol so we filled up in Perth and continued north until we had our first break at the House of Bruar. It was still too early for lunch so we continued on and decided to stop when we got to Spean Bridge.

Toilet stop at the Laggan Dam

We carried on to Spean Bridge where we ate a quick and slightly disappointing lunch, although I had Cullen Skink and it was tasty. We then headed up to the Commando Memorial and looked over to the Nevis range.

The Nevis range, still overcast…

The Commando Monument, commemorating the Commandos who trained in this area during WWII

After a wee rest we headed up along Loch Ness, stopping at Urquhart Castle, but we didn’t go in cause it was £6.50 each…no thanks.

Urquhart Castle, nice to look at but not worth the £6.50pp…sorry.

“How far have we come? Is that IT?….oh….”

After steaming up the Great Glen we arrived at Inverness. We drove around for a bit, and then decided to head over to Fort George, an old fort that was now used as a military establishement. We did however arrive slightly late…and it was closed. Oh well, B and me decided to risk the chance of getting shot and walked around the closed Fort to take some pictures. Pretty cool really.

Fort George, closed to everyone….oh well.

The Fortifications, really smart and quite a drop some of them!

After the disappointment of driving an extra 10 miles down some crap road only to find it closed and then trying a burnout on the gravel only to have Em fly forward and sit on my back….we headed back to the digs for the night; The Travelodge!

We had some nice pub grub at the golf restaurant and then went to get some kip…only we couldn’t because some girls had decided to have a party in the room above us and then start smoking outside our open window. Earplugs did the trick and allowed sleep in an unusually loud Travelodge.

That concluded Day 1 of the tour, and the forecast was looking good for tomorrow! OOO!

Chocks Away!

‘Twas the night before christmas and not a creature was stirring…EXCEPT FOR YY GETTING READY FOR A MEGARIDER”

We leave for the Scotland trip tomorrow and I am really excited.

I started fitting luggage on to the bike and we will start filling it up tonight with all our crap.

There’s still a little bit to do but we will hopefully have a relaxing night before the big ride tomorrow.

 

I can’t wait! 

 

Thanks for looking folks and look back in a week for an extremely big update with hundreds of photos and some videos!

 

Gordon

 

YamYam Milestone

The Countdown Begins…

Well, actually it already has.

2 days to go and I am getting mega excited. For those that don’t have a clue what I am talking about, we (me, Em, Blair and Kirsty) are riding around Scotland, anti-clockwise. Perth to Inverness to Freswick, to JOG, across the very top of Scotland to the North West, down to Ullapool, then down again to the Isle of Skye, where we shall stay for 2 nights and head around Skye, then down via Oban to Lochgilphead where we decide if we want to (read if we can be arsed) go round the Cambletown twig, before heading back home to Perth….breath.

It’s a 7 day trip starting from this Friday, 23rd May till Thursday 29th. All the B&B’s are booked and we are gearing up for the long journey, which will take us round the very pinaccle of what Scotland has to offer, and by gum I am excited. I hope the weather is going to stay nice, but we’ll just have to wait and see! Looks promising though.

So anyway, to prepare for the trip, I spent tonight working out how to mount my helmet cam on the bike to capture some of our journey. After 20 minutes of non-starters, Dad came out and asked what I was up to. He then did a Dad special and managed to rig up a mount for the camera. It consisted of an L-bracket hacksawed a wee bit, with a jubilee clip and the mount for my dogcam. A few moments later and we had a rig! It looks like THIS:

CHECK THAT OUT!! HAHAHA, brilliant.

So there it is! It works a treat! There is no vibes from the bike and it is solid as a rock with a little bit of solid adjustment should I need to. The angle of the camera was pretty much perfect as well, with maybe some down angle needed.

The Dad Special. King-ding-a-ling.

I have a video of my quick jaunt with the dadcam mount but I will refrain from posting it up……..

It’s brilliant, and well hidden so when we leave the bikes out it will hopefully be safe.

So there you go. I will maybe take some stills from the video to show you what it’s like, and then the Scotland Tour 2008 DVD will go on sale….haha.

The HID light is excellent and I have found out why the high-low beam thing was bust, the gaffa taped wiring loom obviously has a loose connection, because when I turn the bars to full lock left, the full beam works….so I’ll have to sort that out on Thursday when I am off! I also had to re-fit my stock wedge bulbs because the bloody japanese LED ones started flickering again. HOW ANNOYING IS THAT. It’s like a really bright strobe light going off at the front of my bike. Oh well, it looks cool with the warm top half and cold bottom half….sort of…:(

Note the reflection off of the screen, smart.

I’ll post before Friday and then it’s a week of (hopefully) glorious riding pleasure.

Thanks for looking folks

 

Gordon

Gentlemen, Start your engines

Work finished at the usual 5:30pm and I was quick in getting away from the office due to me wearing my Hardas and Furygan. It was typically uneventful and the warm breeze was nice as I tottered along.

As I approached the curve on the A8000 the traffic was at a standstill and in front there was a CBR thou which had passed me earlier on. We began filtering through the cars, which were stopped, pretty strange even in the worst queue to the bridge.

As we headed along the big straight I glanced up at the overhead info sign and it said “Forth Road Bridge - Closed.” What? Did I read that right? Closed? It’s not windy…hmm

So we continued to filter, but at a quick lick, both of us knowing that there was an accident somewhere along the way. It was quite cool filtering with the CBR boy as he was quite fast at filtering, so we were weaving in and out of the cars, which were standstill still….still… when we finally got to the front there was around 30 bikers all standing around with their helmets off chatting away. It was bizarre! I pulled up behind the CBR and a bloke on a Transalp started chatting to me, asking what was going on and I was like, “I have no idea!?”

So after a few minutes we both shut our engines off and got off and started chatting about commuting to Edinburgh and my GSR, which he said was in great nick! Cheers matey! He asked what it was like and I said it was good and once you get over the throttle issue its great.

We continued to chat for 10 minutes, all the while some car driver is peeping his horn unintentionally as he tries to get his jacket off, without getting out the car. By this time the CBR bloke had his helmet and gloves off and was nodding along to the Transalp boy who was in full flow.

And then, what can only be described as an exact replication of the Suzuka 8 Hour endurance race, the lights changed to green and all the bikers ran for their bikes! I had kept my helmet and gloves on so that when this time came I could get going but you should have seen some of the bikers grappling at their gear to get away quick.

I got on my bike and started it up, Transalp getting his helmet and gloves on quite quick. CBR boy was taking ages and did a redliner as he tried to get things co-ordinated. I said cheerio to Transalp and then 30 bikes shot off from the lights. It was breathtaking and such a cool feeling. The variety of engines was amazing too, from deep harley twins to the litre sporters, we were all in full swing and it was glorious.

We then adopted a staggered formation all the way across the bridge, me being about 4th from the front, and cruised across the bridge. It was something else I tell you and I wish I had got my camera out (like one bloke did) and took a photo.

Anyway, I then headed home and noticed that my screen that I had fitted back on last night was ace. Takes so much of the wind blast off my chest and makes the bike more slippery through the air, which in turn makes accelerating quicker. Brilliant!

Turns out that a lorry had crashed and from what I could see, took another 4-5 cars with it. Hope no-one was hurt.

A great moment however and I am sure most of the other bikers were loving it too. This is why we do it!

Cheerio for now,

3 days to go!! HO HO HO HO HOH OH O HO OO HOHO I can’t wait!

 

Gordon