An excellent (and eventful) solo trip to the Scottish Higlands this April

Bikermike1411

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I've enjoyed reading many ride reports over the last few months, so here's my contribution to the collective record of GS trips big and small..... Warning: It'll be part narrative and part recollection. I may may miss bits out, particularly the dull bits.

And expect lots of Mandarin in the shots..... :)

After literally years of saying 'i'm going to go up to Scotland by myself', I finally grabbed the chance this year. I only had three days to get up and back, so was limited to how far I could get. I had intended to get up to John O'Groats (to scratch that itch), but discussing this on the forum made me realise i'd be pushed to do the trip justice in just three days, with the time being spent getting there and back, rather than enjoying the ride itself. Eventually, i settled on one day up, a day to do a loop and set off early on day three to come back down through the Dales/Lakes. Amongst many options I was given the Bunroy Campsite at Roy Bridge, about 20 miles from Fort William, was selected as my destination, mainly because it was handy for starting the day two I had planned. The day before I set off I asked for the best route up from Glasgow. I had intended to head up past Loch Lomond, but heading over to Blairgowrie then up to Aviemore before dropping back down to the A86 and heading across was considered more bike friendly, saving the west coast for the way back.

I've not done 'bike camping' before, and had concerns about fuel availability around the Highlands. However, I asked around the forum and was pleased to hear that it wasn't a major issue, as long as you plan where you can get to in advance. I've also camped plenty of times, so i resolved to just pack the usual stuff. Eventually, after much faffing at home, including nipping out to Winfields outdoor place at 9am to pick up a pair of discounted XXL quilted ski-pants to use as waterproofs (£10 bargain - we can't all afford Rallye 3 suits!) I finally got the bike loaded up and ready to go by about 10am on the Saturday. There's just something about a fully-loaded GS that looks right in my opinion. However, due to conflicts of interest at home I didn't actually get on the bike until lunchtime....

Untitled by mike Edmondson

I set the sat-nav for Blairgowrie and set off North.

It started raining two miles from my front door, so I had to stop and put on the ski pants. Fast forward 172 miles to Abington services just south of Glasgow where I stopped to fill up. I was a bit disappointed by this - I was hoping to get 200 miles out of the tank at a steady 70mph all the way up. I was fully loaded though.

An uneventful trip to Blairgowrie then ensued. I don't remember the mileage, but not much happened, apart from me steadily realising that getting to Aviemore may be pushing it (easy in a day, not easy when you set off two hours later than intended). A quick sat-nav check put me 100 miles from the campsite at 5pm, with an eta of about 7pm. I decided to fill up at Blarigowrie then cut across to Dunkeld and pick up the A9, which I really, really, REALLY wanted to avoid, before cutting west at Dalwhinnie onto the A86.

This was a great decision!

That road from Blargowrie to Dunkeld is an absolute blinder. It was (iirc) only about 10 miles, but a great relief after the monotony of 270 miles of motorway! The A9 was dull as dishwater, and I once again found myself wondering about all the double track you can see heading out into the hills as you head up towards Dalwhinnie. I must ask about that at some point.....

From Dalwhinnie to Roy Bridge along the A86 is another absolutely cracking ride. The view just gets better and better (something I found regularly the deeper into the Highlands I went over the weekend) until I arrived at the Bunroy Campsite just after 7pm. Trish and David were expecting me, and pointed me towards the busiest camping field....

IMG_5761 by mike Edmondson

It was drizzling lightly as I got the tent up, but a nice chap called Bill, who as it happens was a biker and lives about 30 miles from me, came out and gave me a cup of tea as a I looked like I needed one. The fact that I recognised it as Earl Grey meant i'd made a friend for the two nights I camped there!

Getting changed I walked 5 minutes back up the access road to the Stronlossit Inn for tea. And a well deserved pint.

The next day I was up and away for 8am. I had to catch the ferry from Malaig (about 60 miles away) to Armadale on Skye at 11am, which meant checking in at 10.30. I set off, then stopped about two miles down the road to take a picture...

IMG_5778 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

I filled up at Fort William along the way, then road down the coast road to Malaig. Yet another good road to ride....

The weather was cracking all day, blue sky all the way. I stopped to take another photo just above Malaig to prove to my family i'd actually gotten out of bed, and then another at the car park just as you get into the village. I then realised that if I stopped to photo every great view, i'd get nowhere.....

The ferry terminal was busy when I got there....

IMG_5792 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

And there's just something about having your bike strapped to a boat which says 'adventure' to me! Yes, I know I can get the bridge to Skye, but that's not the point, is it?

Landing in Skye on time at 11.35 I followed the cracking road down towards the junction with the A87 near Harrapool. I'd been thinking all along the way - I intended to loop straight back off the island at the Kyle of Lochalsh. The fact is it's a 25 mile ride from Harrapool to Talisker, along a cracking road, but it's in the wrong direction.... but i'd been to the Talisker distillery once before, about five years ago, and it wasn't that far. And besides, they do make a good whisky, and my wife really likes it, and she'd appreciate the gesture of having it 'from the distillery'. So the decision was made to deviate from the planned route and head west to Talisker.

The ride was great, the distillery was shut as it was Sunday, so I took 'the' photo and vowed to an Australian couple who'd just turned up that i'd buy a bottle from the Co-op down the road from my house cheaper than I could buy it from here anyway....

IMG_5830 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

On the way back to the bridge off Skye I had to stop and photograph some of the scenery....... I'm a geography teacher by day, and i'd literally been teaching this stuff the week before (glacial landforms and economic activity in glaciated landscapes). Guess the kids will be seeing my holiday snaps after Easter! :)

A corrie.....

IMG_5867 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

A hanging valley....

IMG_5868 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

I'll look them up on an OS map when I get time.

Anyway, I then headed up the A890 to Strathcarron, before turning left at the junction towards Tornapress where I picked up the Bealach Na Ba. This was another 'tick box' I had to do. What a great (if mildly perilous) road. It wasn't so much me as the car drivers coming the other way.....

IMG_5881 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

The view from the top was amazing, but windy. Veeeery windy.

IMG_5889 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

IMG_5900 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

I headed down the other sided of the pass into Applecross. I was expecting to find it to be small and welcoming. In fact there was a huge car park full of hordes of tourists and a very modern looking cafe. I decided not to bother getting off the bike. I put Shieldag into the sat-nav and checked it twice against my trusty mini road map. It wanted me to go over the Bealach Na Ba again, but the map showed a wiggly white road going right around the edge of the peninsula. I ignored the sat nav and set off north along one of the windiest, most enjoyable and most scenic 20 miles i've ever ridden. It's an absolute gem of a road! I only stopped once, because there was an opportunity to take the GS about ten feet off road and photograph it by a stream.

IMG_5918 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

Admittedly the photo looked better in my mind...... I also need to find someone to show me where I can take the GS off road to take better pictures too.....

Anyway. From there I headed east following the main roads (which are all scenic and very quiet at that time of year) across through Kinlochewie, Achnasheen and Achanalt to Garve. I stopped in Contin to refuel (where I got talking to a guy on an R1200ST - what a cracking bike and rare by his account!) I then headed down the the Muir of Ord to find out that my favourite distillery (Glen Ord) was shut. Bloody Sundays..... oh well, we're back up this way in October so i'll have to drop in then. You can't actually get Glen Ord in the UK anywhere but the distillery. They send it all abroad! What a waste..... no photo this time as the Glen Ord distillery looks more like a factory then the 'pretty' Talisker frontage. And I was hungry and wanted to press on to the chippy at Beauly...

Untitled by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

Well worth a stop, excellent fish and chips (i've been there before when i've been up this way with the family) but the wait time was horrendous.

Then had an excellent ride down to Drumnadrochit following the A833 over the tops. Me and my wife spent our honeymoon here, and we got a picture of our three kids sat on the fibre glass Nessies in the Nessieland car park. I though it'd be fun to get a picture of the bike by the Nessies then send it to my wife to show my kids.... 'Guess where Daddy is?'

Untitled by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

I then realised I needed a pee so badly my back teeth were floating. No bother, there's a car park with public toilets just around the corner. When you have three small kids you kind of learn where the bogs are pretty quickly. This is where it all went a bit pear shaped.

Getting off the bike I noticed an ominous burn on the exhaust Y piece at the left hand side. Then I noticed the oil dripping from the LH crankcase.

Shiiiiiiiiiit.

I used the facilities, grabbed handfulls of toilet paper and went back out to investigate, wiping up the excess (oil) and seeing if I could source the cause. There's only so much you can do in your leathers. It was 6pm by this time and I had two options, limp back to the campsite or call the RAC. There was still oil in it, and there was no more dripping, but I was thinking that could be because the bike had cooled down and whatever leak had occured had contracted. I opted to limp the 30 miles to the campsite, stopping every 5 miles to check the situation.

This took two hours, but at each stop there wasn't much to see, other than fresh oil weeping down the left side of the engine. I assumed it was either the sump plug or the filter, as i'd done the oil the day before I set off. I figured that the small drip would catch in the sump guard and i'd be ok. And the oil level wasn't going down that much....

Getting back at 8pm I quickly got the bike on the centre stand, got out my torch and had a look. Between that and a handfull of fresh toilet roll I quickly traced the source back up the engine cases, on to find oil on top of the crank cases (so not the sump plug then!) to what I thought was the oil pressure switch on the top of the crankcases on the right hand side. A quick post on the forum identified this as the oil temperature sensor, but it was definitely the source of the leak.

Satisfied I'd found the source, and without much I could do as it'd gone dark, i got in my tent and got my head down, ready to investigate in the morning.

The next day, after necking a flask of coffee, and following a bit of advice from fellow GSer's on here, I got to work.

IMG_5926 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

I was grateful it wasn't raining, but the clouds looked ominous. Thankfully it stayed dry. And I was aware that there are worse places to break down!

The brass switch on the right was the offending item....

IMG_5925 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

After dismantling my luggage rack to source two 8mm bolts to use as bungs for the fuel lines it was off with the tank...

IMG_5927 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

My phone was plugged into a 12v cigarette lighter power supply routed through my Fuzebox, set to 'constant' so I could liase with the forum for advice......

Thankfully i'd brought some basic tools - my Teng 1/4" socket set and the fantastic Teng 'Bits Box'. Everyone needs one - that means YOU. Go and buy one, now, if only for this amazing little ratcheting hex-bit spanner. It has a lot of very fine 'clicks' on the ratchet, meaning you can get it into tiny spaces and unbolt stuff with very little movement of the ratchet. Like the oil return pipe bolts....

IMG_5931 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

To get access to put a spanner on the oil temperature switch! Yes, that is a 19mm Ford spanner. I had to borrow it from the campsite owner, and I'm still kicking myself for putting my own spanner roll back in the tool chest before I set off.

IMG_5935 by mike Edmondson, on Flickr

I had two choices - remove the switch and get a lift into Inverness to source a replacement crush washer (which was the likely source of the leak as the can corrode over time) or nip it up and hope for the best. With nothing to lose I opted for the latter, tightening it just a bit less than 1/8th of a turn, before reassembling the whole thing. The hardest part of the job was actually taking the tank off - without the quick release hose connections of later GS's it's a right pain in the arse! The rest took about ten minutes!

I the got the bike up to running temperature (4-5 bars on the oil temp display) and checked for leaks. Nothing. Job done.

It took me another hour and a half to get everything tidied away, the panniers packed and the tent dropped and away stowed, but I was ready to go for about 12pm. Faced with a 335 mile trip on a bike which 'may' break down again I opted for the 'direct' route, following the A86 back across to Dalwhinnie (still a great road) where I stopped to check for oil leaks and found none, just the last reside from the previous day which had worked it's way down as the engine got hot. Once it'd been wiped off there was nothing. I hit the A9 and sat a 60-70mph (dependent on the speed camera zones and the dual carriageways) all the way to Perth, where I filled up at Tesco (£1.12 a litre) and ate half a cheese and ham butty, a piece of reduced price granola, a snickers and washed it down with a tin of Red Bull.

I should point out now that you may have noticed a distinct lack of reference to food stops and consumption of local culinary delights. In contrast to other GSer ride reports, this venture was done on a massive budget and whilst i'd love to dine out on the local produce every night I just couldn't afford it. Besides, my priority was keeping moving at this point! And I'd already shelled out £20 for a burger, chips and two pints two days earlier........

Main roads then past Glasgow, just clipped the start of the rush-hour but no major issues, stopped for fuel again at Carlisle services (£1.32 a litre) and the other half of my butty, a snickers and another tin of red bull - it's all about momentum - before getting my head down and heading home. I called in at my folk's house in Blackburn to let them know I was ok (Dad took a picture but hasn't sent it to me yet) and got back at 8pm, just in time to put the kids to bed.

All in all an absolutely cracking three-day weekend away. Even the mechanical didn't spoil the trip - I was prepared enough and had enough knowledge to sort it myself with a little help from the forum, and i've now got a reason to head back up later this year - I still need to do the west coast route up to Fort William. The GS was, for me, absolutely the best bike I could have gone away on. I have my Honda Blackbird in the garage and bought the GS to 'try', due to ongoing shoulder/wrist problems. 50 miles on the 'Bird had me in agony last summer. 1050 miles on the GS in three days and I can honestly say I could have got back on and kept going. They really are an amazing bit of kit, and I should have overlooked my prejudices and bought one years ago.

As far as the experience of a solo trip goes, it couldn't have worked out better. Yes, I packed far too much stuff, but that's part of the learning curve. I'll be far more efficient next time! I didn't have to please anyone but myself, I was on my own route and my own time. If I wanted to go somewhere off the planned route, so what? If I had to cut something out, it didn't matter. I stopped to eat when I wanted to, where I wanted to, without a committee deciding what to do next. It was fantastic.

I was expecting to have a lot of time to think on the trip, but the reality of riding a bike (whether it's a short trip or a long one) is that you don't actually do much thinking. I found myself so absolutely immersed in the experience that everything else - home, work, everything - went to the back of my mind and I just got on with enjoying every minute of it.

And I don't think I'd get that on a beach!

Can't wait for the next trip! :thumb2
 
Well done Mike enjoyed that, we're off on the 21st May for our annual pilgrimage that's wetted the whistle a treat.
 
Good report, glad that you enjoyed it.

Now that you are home get the tank off and remove that switch. You may well find that there is corrosion of the alloy casing as well as the crush washer. I refurb'ed my 1150 at 69,000 miles which included 7 years of winter riding and found exactly that problem. The other point IIRC was the oil connection to the cooler on the lower left side of the engine. The same issue, the crush washer was almost rotted away and their was significant case corrosion. I dressed it with a fine file used as a draw file and then covered in fine wet and dry. New washers and all was still good when I sold the bike with 96,000 miles on the clock.

Look here

PS. Fit stainless QD connectors to the fuel lines, worth their weight in gold!
 
Good report, glad that you enjoyed it.

Now that you are home get the tank off and remove that switch. You may well find that there is corrosion of the alloy casing as well as the crush washer. I refurb'ed my 1150 at 69,000 miles which included 7 years of winter riding and found exactly that problem. The other point IIRC was the oil connection to the cooler on the lower left side of the engine. The same issue, the crush washer was almost rotted away and their was significant case corrosion. I dressed it with a fine file used as a draw file and then covered in fine wet and dry. New washers and all was still good when I sold the bike with 96,000 miles on the clock.

Look here

PS. Fit stainless QD connectors to the fuel lines, worth their weight in gold!

He'll Packer, yours looked perforated!!

I'm going to go right round it, checking the whole lubrication system. I've also got a large-ish blister under the tank, so I may see about getting it stripped and repainted at the end of the season. Or put it in the loft and fit an adventure tank........ Painted Mandarin, of course!

There was a thread on the 1150 section recently about QR kits, it's definitely on my to-do list



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great read.....im in oxford and would love to do a trip around scotland...its the long ride up that stops me....i get 5 days off every 3 weeks so might just do it....not sure about doing it alone tho....
 
great read.....im in oxford and would love to do a trip around scotland...its the long ride up that stops me....i get 5 days off every 3 weeks so might just do it....not sure about doing it alone tho....

Oxford would add about 200 miles or so, so about three hours. Set off early! I was aprehensive about going solo, but I realised I've been riding by myself for years now - this trip was no different, just a bit longer on the days and I had to carry my camping kit. I'm also in the RAC if needed, and there's not many places you can't get a phone signal....

The beauty of a single campsite trip was heading back the campsite on day two I knew I could just get my kit off and relax (or, as it happened, fix my bike) rather than stress about having to set up camp again.

I won't hesitate to go again as soon as I'm able to do so!
 
Nice little write up that. Thanks for taking the time.

Certainly, touring by yourself is easy - nobody to please but yourself.

If you need conversation/contact, there is always people in the pub.
 
Glad to hear you enjoyed it after a fair bit of prep, thanks for bothering to write it up. The west coast will surprise you, it has some nice wee roads, beaches and pubs
 
great read.....im in oxford and would love to do a trip around scotland...its the long ride up that stops me....i get 5 days off every 3 weeks so might just do it....not sure about doing it alone tho....

I do a trip up for a few days every year, and I only live about 25 miles south east of you. First time I did an overnight stop in Kendal which split the journey almost exactly in half, but did the return journey (530 miles) in one hit and just stuck to the A roads and motorways, took 10 hours to get home with quite a few stops and no rushing.

There's nothing to be worried about, especially if you stick to main roads all the way up and back, the worse that could happen is you break down and then that's what the AA (other breakdown providers are available) is there for, and with 5 days off every 3 weeks if it doesn't work out you only have to wait 3 weeks for the next opportunity....simples :)
 
I do a trip up for a few days every year, and I only live about 25 miles south east of you. First time I did an overnight stop in Kendal which split the journey almost exactly in half, but did the return journey (530 miles) in one hit and just stuck to the A roads and motorways, took 10 hours to get home with quite a few stops and no rushing.

There's nothing to be worried about, especially if you stick to main roads all the way up and back, the worse that could happen is you break down and then that's what the AA (other breakdown providers are available) is there for, and with 5 days off every 3 weeks if it doesn't work out you only have to wait 3 weeks for the next opportunity....simples :)
Agree with OSB. I live 20 miles south of @aeronut7 and Kendal is a good place to stay overnight. I usually start later in the evening on the last working day before the holiday to reach Kendal campsite by 10 pm. Then it is like starting from Kendal all fresh day 1 of your vacation. The return is ways the hard part, but then clip along on the motorways and do a direct return to home with minimal.of hassles.

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