Thanks to my granddaughter’s school trip I had a Thursday free, and Alan Graham put up this run with one of my favourite roads included – Dalwhinnie to Spean Bridge. The forecast was brilliant. No brainer, but 9:30 @ Kinross was a challenge.
Six met up at Kinross services – Alan – BMW 1250RT, Alex Muir – Bandit 1250, Frank Dolan – NC750X DCT, Ian Jones – BMW S1000XR, Kenny Anderson – Ducati Multistrada, & me Steve Middleton – TDM900A. The route is familiar to us all, stops agreed and off we go.
Oooops – where’s my indicators? They were there arriving at the meeting, but there’s no signalling going on at all, not even intermittent. Ah well. I’m at the back following Ian so stick with him and copy his moves which gets us up the M90 & A9 to the coffee / brunch stop at the cosy Deerstalker in Dalwhinnie. Seat off, fuses opened, extractor found and signal fuse extracted. Looks fine, Ian agrees. Ah well, the fuse probably wanted a rest after 14 years duty, so I put in the spare, check all works OK and tidy up. Good coffee.
I celebrated by getting out of the carpark right behind Alan and enjoyed following him along a road he seems to know well. We made (very) good progress to Spean Bridge and joined the trail into Fort William. My left hand was feeling the strain of clutch slipping in the queues but it was good slow riding practice (every cloud ….) Not so good was the split the activity had opened in the stitching of the palm of my left glove – grrrr. We fuelled up at Morrison’s, reviewed the access point for the Devil’s Staicase site and set off for North Ballachulish. Only Alex & I wanted a visit pic so we joined the tail and set off around the Kinlochleven loop to Glencoe – another gem of a road.
Alan pulled us up at the public benches just before the end of Glencoe’s street and we took lunch in glorious sunshine with the western end of Loch Leven in one direction, and the
Pap of Glencoe in the other. Anyone else ever been up it? Weirdly the carpark gate was locked shut, so we parked on the street. We found the public toilets just around the corner, after the Mountain Rescue station.
Off again in some traffic but the bikes made for some fun gap-hopping up the glen and across Rannoch Moor until we met the back of the slow/stopped traffic shown on Ian’s Google map. Alan led us down the vacant RHS and he got the the front just as the lights changed and led the queue away. The rest of us were spread back in the queue and either side of some other bikers who didn’t have our cheek to filter. The 60mph average cameras from Tyndrum called a halt on most overtakes but the Glasgow traffic peeled off at Crianlarich (the three cars in front of me didn’t bother to signal right at the roundabout – grrrr) and the scenery could be admired. Down Glen Ogle we made progress and pulled into the carpark at Lochearnhead for a debrief and Thank You to Alan. My photo of us all giving him a thumbs up was rejected by the Gallery here, presumably the system thinks it is a rude gesture!
The excitement was not over. I led three of us off towards Crieff, the others deciding to go directly South, but we found the back end of a queue not far down the road. Fitering up the RHS to the head I spoke to the supervising policeman – with a spade in hand – to be told of a 40 Ton roadblock and no prospect of a clear road anytime soon. Three point turns later we set off back and down to Callendar, Doune and I waved farewell to Alan at the end of the M9. I got home at about 5, after some 285 miles.
Great day, great weather, great roads, great company – just what biking is all about. Thanks, Alan.