Gimlet wrote: Sat May 30, 2020 12:10 am
The road has a hint of the A82 alongside Loch Ness about it...
Now that is a stonking bit of road!
Last time I rode that was about this time 5 years ago, me on my shitbox commuter SV650 with the largest givi panniers and top box known to man.....
....and a mate on an Aprilia Futura with a set of huge, noen, throw-over panniers that were determined to take every opportunity to throw themselves off the Aprilia.
See the hills in the background with the snow on them? This is the same bit of road, the A9, the week before we were due to go...
We were carrying out a recce' run for a charity John o'Groats to Lands End motorbike ride I used to organise and were trying out a potential new route.
Rode up from Kent to Wick in one hit, about 13 hours riding and only making it thanks to the fine selection of hot pies on offer at Scottish service stations....
....and stayed overnight with a mate, a maniac GSXR 1000 riding train driver, who lives there.
Set off from John o'Groats in a howling gale.
And then it started raining, in only the way that it can in Scotland. Biblically. Dour, brich, torrential rain.
After 8 hours we were on the A82 by the side of Loch Lomond and it had stopped being fun. There were rivers of deep torrential water running across the road, which even if you went through on a closed throttle at barely walking pace saw the front and back washing out simultaneously, and meanwhile the locals are driving like it's a glorious summer day; which to be fair, for them it probably was. Our textile gear was soaked through, my gentlemens bits were so cold and shrunken I was starting to get worried about how I was going to piss.
We stopped at a visitor centre by the Loch and it was like that scene in "Withnail and I"....
...when we asked the lass behind the counter if there was anywhere to stay locally so we could hide from the rain and dry out and have a restorative drink or 10. She directed us to a country Inn a few miles back down the road.
Very odd place. It was as if someone had given a Hollywood set dresser a huge budget and been instructed to make the place "look as Scottish as fuck". Roaring fires, crossed swords, all the staff in kilts, more stuffed dead wildlife than you can shake a stick at...
..and the bint on reception was very keen to explain to us at great length, as we stood there shivering and dripping all over their wood floors, that the place, and in particular our shared room, was haunted. Cue my mate, Nick, loudly telling me in front of her that if I woke up in the morning covered in something it was ectoplasm, definitely ectoplasm....
A bottle of whiskey for Nick and a bottle of Amaretto for me soon put the world back on an even keel and we retired to the room, separate beds, pissed and glad we were no longer out in the storm that was battering the outside of the place.
Woke in the morning to bright sunshine and a brisk wind and a noticeable lack of ectoplasm. Set off and things were a lot better than yesterday but it was still pretty sketchy. Back end spinning up everywhere, the front pushing on the brakes. We were taking it as fast as we dared and had just, at a quick stop to re-attach Nick's panniers for eleventy billionth time, agreed that you couldn't ride a motorbike on this road, in these conditions, any faster than we were doing....
...when we were overtaken by a BMW GS, fully loaded with huge metal box panniers and top box, 2 up with a Howard and Hilda couple identically dressed in the their BMW textiles. Both of them sitting bolt upright and leaning the fuck out of it. Going about twice the speed we were. The pillion gave us a cheery wave over her shoulder as they fucked off around the next bend...probably while they were listening to The Archers on their in-helmet speakers and talking over the intercom about how disappointed with breakfast at the B&B they were and "I don't like an undercooked tomato with my breakfast, Howard, and as for those baked beans! Well!".
We stopped at the next layby and agreed that we would never, ever, tell anyone what had just happened.
Anyway, the A82 looked like it would be a fucking hoot in the dry and it's been on my bucket list, when I get the Ducati finished, to pop up there during the week in summer when the weather looks good and attack it with some gusto. If for no other reason than to restore the balance and "Fuck you mr. & mrs. BMW!"...
