Chickenstrips

[mboy]

Anyone been on one of Bruce & Simon's tours...?

Me and a mate have signed up to the Beyond 500 for this summer... https://www.chickenstrips.co.uk/beyond-500/

Looking forward to it!

[Dodgy69]

Hope they're nice hotels. Seems a bit unnecessary to me tbh. Why not just go with your mate and find your own digs.

[Cousin Jack]

Never used that company, but have been on assorted tours with other companies. Yes, you probably could DIY and book it all yourself, you might even save a few bob (but that is by no means certain). What you do get with a tour company is someone else to do a lot of the boring stuff, you just get to ride. Hope you enjoy it, sounds good to me.

IME most tour companies DO choose decent hotels, they don't get any repeat business if they don't

[mboy]

Hope they're nice hotels. Seems a bit unnecessary to me tbh. Why not just go with your mate and find your own digs.

Looked into DIY... Aside from the fact that trying to get any mates to commit was like herding cats, and if I organised it all I'd need the full payment up front etc... Rooms in hotels worth staying in in Scotland during the summer are in the region of £150 per night anyway (sadly!)... Yes I could save a few quid, but it's a lot of time and effort, and relatively speaking I am time poor and have the expendable income not to worry about the cost... My friend is very cash rich and time poor.

What you do get with a tour company is someone else to do a lot of the boring stuff, you just get to ride. Hope you enjoy it, sounds good to me.

Yeah that's kinda our take on it, at least for this year... My friend is self employed, I have a good job and not a lot of spare time on my hands and spend a lot of my own time planning my schedule for work... It'll be nice just to zone out and be told where to go and when to be there to be honest!

[Nordboy]

That's one hell of a Day 6.

[Mr Moofo]

Finding accommodation on the NW 500 and Skye is not only challenging - but expensive !

[wull]

Finding accommodation on the NW 500 and Skye is not only challenging - but expensive !

There used to be a cracking bikers b&b on Skye that did an incredible big breakfast, we went there for years then all of a sudden it was gone, gutted! It was the base most years for the zx9r forums Scotland tour.

[Supermofo]

Mate of mine is talking about doing the NW500 this summer and is trying to get me to go. Looks pretty amazing but it's a lot of motorway to get there, Scotland in summer looks mainly like Hertfordshire in March and I might get hunted down by Wull in a milk float

[Dodgy69]

I did the 500 a few years back. Stayed in a mix of pods, bnb and hotels. Plenty of empty pods, with the exception of the one at Applecross, we got the last one.
Actually, we had one night in hotel and bnb, the rest were pods. Pods vary but all have mattresses or bunks, some with kettles. and there's always a pub on site or close by.

I can put addresses up if needed. Those from deep south, Ayr could be a stop and the Savoy park hotel is ace.

[Cousin Jack]

I covered most of the NW500 with the missis and in the car just after Covid ended. The NW500 has become a victim of it's own success.

At that time the NW500 route was infested with large motorhomes, some even towing sizeable boats, who persisted in driving loops quite clearly marked "Unsuitable for large motorhomes". Some of the results were hilarious, as long as you had a couple of hours to spend doing nothing and going nowhere. Even when the road is wide enough for them to navigate they are bloody slow, and on some roads even a motorbike can't pass

Hotels in the north of Scotland are a bit of a mixed bag, but all expensive. Two were good(one in Lochinver, one in Inverness), one near Glencoe was crap. If you are thinking of booking I can supply names, but it was a year or two ago and hotels change, sometimes for the good, sometimes not.

We stopped in Ayr on the way back, and stayed in the Savoy Park too. I can confirm that it was good.

[Supermofo]

The NW500 has become a victim of it's own success.

This does worry me a bit as it's so often a youtube/magazine feature, along with watching 44Teeth doing it and seeing the state of a lot of the roads. They mentioned Adv bikes work well for the conditions of the road, on the GSXS I reckon it's gonna ping me out the seat every 5 mins. I also noticed the amount of motorhomes they come across. My personal preference is to do the Atlantic highway from Minehead down to Cornwall, that'll be busy too but I can get to Minehead without using motorways whilst it not taking forever, the weather is likely to be better and going outside tourist season is easier

[Dodgy69]

If I went to Scotland again, which I will, I'd probably leave most of the 500 alone. There's plenty of fantastic roads up there.

Reckon I'd go up the east side of Lomond, Never ridden the Dukes pass, it's somewhere around there i think. There's the A87 from Invergarry to skye that's great.

I'd do a bit of research, ask our Northern friends for any recommended routes, book digs about 150 miles apart, depending on routes.

Once that sun rises whilst you're having breakfast, fun to be had.

[Trinity765]

I've organised a few group tours myself as I don't mind doing the research, admin and routes. It used to keep me busy through the winter.

If I was going to make the effort to get from the south coast of England to Scotland I would stay in the west and leave the east alone apart from popping over the Cairngorms for lunch in Braemar and back. I'd have one or two bases and explore the highlands without having to pack up the bike every day and carry luggage all the time.

[mboy]

Finally tomorrow (actually today now!) is the day of reckoning... Of I jolly well go!

[Sadlonelygit]

Is this the time to tell him it will be nose to tail with campervans on the west coast!

[Druid]

Why has nobody mentioned the midges?

[Cousin Jack]

Why has nobody mentioned the midges?

We don't talk about midges. If you know, you know. If you don't you will find out.

[Bigyin]

Why has nobody mentioned the midges?

He'll know by day 2 as day 1 is getting there .... hopefully the traffic isnt too bad but the banter should be a good laugh and i know a hotel they stayed at near John O Groats on previous trips is one i ate and drank at while i stayed in a local B and B and the food was good.

People who have never been to Scotland before dont realise once they go north beyond Glasgow everything is single carriageway and covered in tourist traffic and halves the expected miles per day you could normally run elsewhere but the tour lot are well aware and adjust accordingly

[mboy]

Home... 1955 miles in total and 8 full days in the saddle...

Spent a significant amount of time over the last week following Simon Weir pretty closely... Fantastic rider and one of the smoothest riders I've had the fortune to ride with

Routes were fantastic! Even better than I had hoped for... And I'm not easily pleased.

Both Bruce and Simon are top guys and good laugh. Simon's route knowledge is out of this world! I say this as someone who has an encyclopaedic road knowledge and a photographic memory myself, but he has totally blown my mind in this respect!

Midges were nowhere near as bad as they could have been, only really made much of an appearance on the one day.

Traffic was nowhere near as bad as it could have been on the singletrack roads too... Not non-existent for sure, but could have been a whole lot worse!

Weather mostly played ball, although both Monday and Thursday mornings were pretty wet, Thursday especially so which caused the route to be shortened slightly for safety reasons (missed out on the road from Oban to Lochgilphead and on to Inverary basically as roads were washed out and winds treacherous, so not too much thankfully)... Otherwise, it's mostly been 15-20deg and sunny for the last 8 days!

Only bad bits were Bruce getting a 48hr bug in the middle of the trip so couldn't join us for almost 2 days sadly, and me on the first day of the actual trip (so my 2nd day on the bike) locking my keys inside my top box! Yeah... Fortunately I was quite resourceful, and managed with Bruce's help to source a power drill and an assortment of drill bits, and I drilled the lock out successfully and gained entry to my box (which still shuts, but obviously doesn't lock now). Hey ho! That was me in the yellow vest for a day as penance...

Oh and the VERY near toppling over incident that occurred when I was coming down Bealach Na Ba from Applecross, following Bruce, an idiot in a camper van coming the other way that passed the passing place on a narrow section forcing us to stop, and when I did, a gust of wind caught the bike and my foot slipped off the tarmac and down into the ditch beside the road... God only knows how but I reacted quick enough to slide right off the seat (engine still running and 1st gear engaged!!!), but I was stuck! Managed to just about hit the kill switch with it in gear so I could at least release the clutch lever, but had to wait for Bruce to be able to move his bike to safety himself, before he could get off it and come and hold my bike upright so I could sort myself out and get back on it without dropping it into the ditch and on top of myself! Annoyingly his insta360 video files corrupted (he's had a gripe on social media about it already), hopefully he says he'll have some footage from the on bike security camera's he had fitted recently... Fingers crossed!

I'll sort some pics out when I'm a little less tired. Although to be fair, given the mileage and the sometimes inclement weather, I didn't actually take all that many truth be told!

But yeah, overall, had a great time... Riding with Chickenstrips won't be the cheapest way of going touring for sure, but it's arguably the least stressful way to do it, and the level of detail put into everything by both Simon and Bruce is incredibly impressive...