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A trip to Scotland by motorcycle with the lads.

Scotland With The Lads 2005

Renwithnell
2005-09-26 17:15:51

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Day 1

There's a group of lads I usually go out with on a Friday night. I know them from Rivi, the local biker haunt. We go to town and they drink and being teetotal I drive. We have a laugh and look at the ladies. Looking is all we do, any ladies foolish enough to talk to us are scared off within 10 minutes with innuendo and rude comments. Still, it's better than watching TV.

Then someone made a suggestion to ride up to Scotland. Slowly over the next few weeks the suggestion became a plan, BnB's were booked and arrangements made. It was decided due to the lads owning motorcycles of the sporty persuasion that they would go up with the bikes in vans. Me, being the fool that I am, decided to ride up.

So, it's the Bank Holiday Monday at the end of May. I'm at the gf's in Liverpool and I hit the highway at 8:30 in the morning. Straight onto the motorway network and up the M6. It's a pleasant enough day, dry with a light breeze and the riding is easy. I stop every 40 to 60 miles as I travel up through Carlisle then onto the M8 in Glasgow. While stretching and dawdling along the M8 a Transit van passes me with some looney hanging out the window and waving. It takes me a moment to realise this looney is one of the Friday nite lads. So now I'm following 2 Transit vans over the Erskine Bridge and up past Loch Lomond.

Loch Lomond seems to go on forever. The road is twisty and narrow and I'm stuck behind a convoy of cars. Eventually I get to Crianlarich and hang a left to Tyndrum. As I roll into Tyndrum I spot the 2 Transit vans parked outside The Real Food Cafe. I pull in and go inside for a brew and a bite to eat. The lads are enjoying a brew and admiring the girls working behind the counter.

We set off together to make the final 35 mile run into Oban, the place set to be our base for the next 5 days. The road again winds ...