Eight of us assembled in the glorious morning sunshine at Dobbies, Stirling. Heading out left for a change towards Stirling, unfortunately the road was closed so a quick hop on the motorway to the next exit bypassed the closure and we headed off to Denny and the Carron Valley.
Through Stoneywood on the B818 to Fintry. Ian managed to find us some tiny roads with lovely bends as we headed north to Aberfoyle. We were coming back to Aberfoyle for lunch but first we went out past Loch Ard, Loch Chon and Loch Arklet to the banks of Loch Lomond at Inversnaid for a leg rest.
To get to Inversnaid we had to negotiate the long single track dead end road. About half way along we met three full sized tourist coaches coming the other way. There was not room to pass but the coach tried anyway slowly pushing along one of our bikes towards the drop off at the side of the road, fortunately managed to stay right on the edge of the road but the bike (who shall remain nameless) left a lovely BMW handguard shaped scratch along the side of the bus (well deserved), the bus drivers waved thankyou and went on their way..
After that excitement we had a leg stretch at Inversnaid and headed back along the same road to Aberfoyle for our lunch stop. The Riverside carpark behind Aberfoyle Coop was chock-a-block full of bikers so lots of bike chat and a lovely long lunch from the car park cafe. We eventually decided it was time to head back so up through Dukes Pass, Brig o’Turk, Kilmahog, Callandar and back to Dobbies.
Excellent weather, roads and company. Good run. Thanks to Ian M for organising and leading the run and to Ian N for TEC duties.
Great report Marcus, detailing what was an excellent club run. Also thanks to Ian McIntosh for organising it for us all to enjoy.
Thank you very much for the run report Marcus! Glad you enjoyed some of those roads through The Carron Valley – some terrific scenery through there too. Our first diversion wasn’t actually due to any road closures. That was down to our TEC, informing me over comms, that the route from Stirling to Denny we were about to take would consist of loads of junctions in very built up areas. Hence a quick reroute and one motorway junction. Thank you Ian N – you could say a case of the tail wagging the dog.
Enjoyed the run and, of course, the company.
Note to self – avoid Callander on a sunny Sunday! Fortunately, being on bikes, a mile of filtering made short work of the queue.
Enjoyed the run, thanks to all involved in organising and participating. Good report Marcus. Looks like the Gpz developed a cam-chain rattle at low rpm, I think that this has been developing for some time and is very common due to the ratchet design of the tensioner which can only tension in 1mm increments, currently looking at how to overcome this design flaw.