Summer 2019, UK and Scotland

Quite right. I have used both Kurviger and Michelin, both are very good. And Tripadvisor too. I use it almost every time when selecting a hotel.
Like years ago, my wife chose a hotel randomly from New York. I checked it from Tripadvisor, it was selected the worst hotel in New York, few years in row. We chose another hotel :)

But really, everybody says stay in Scotland. And I believe you.

Looks like you are all set.

PS On post #19, the roads the fellow suggests are near enough all included in the links and pictures in posts #14 and #5.
 
l'd agree that avoiding large cities is a good idea. Use the bike to see the countryside, save the cities for weekend breaks. At least that is what we do.

At the end of the day it is up to you.
 
I'd be tempted to spend 2 or 3 nights in say 3 locations and then go out without luggage on day rides. The Corran bunkhouse is great, a few miles south of Fort William. Its rooms are like a hotels, a new lounge that's great and it is next to a restaurant and across the water by free ferry as a foot passenger to a nice pub. Oh, and it has a kitchen so you can keep costs down by doing your own breakfast (or they'll provide one) and evening meal. You have the Ardnamurchan peninsular to ride, the Road to the Isle and then the ferry and Isle of Skye ( a great long days ride)
How about Tain as well, NE of Fort William. 85 miles South of John O Groats, a nice small town with a fair few places to stay and eat and you can do the single track lesser used roads up the centre of the very top of Scotland.
Lastly how about the far quieter area of Dumfries and Galloway. Totally different scenery to the grandeur of the far North.
 
I'd be tempted to spend 2 or 3 nights in say 3 locations and then go out without luggage on day rides. The Corran bunkhouse is great, a few miles south of Fort William. Its rooms are like a hotels, a new lounge that's great and it is next to a restaurant and across the water by free ferry as a foot passenger to a nice pub. Oh, and it has a kitchen so you can keep costs down by doing your own breakfast (or they'll provide one) and evening meal. You have the Ardnamurchan peninsular to ride, the Road to the Isle and then the ferry and Isle of Skye ( a great long days ride)
How about Tain as well, NE of Fort William. 85 miles South of John O Groats, a nice small town with a fair few places to stay and eat and you can do the single track lesser used roads up the centre of the very top of Scotland.
Lastly how about the far quieter area of Dumfries and Galloway. Totally different scenery to the grandeur of the far North.

Good advice there. Remember that Scotland is not a huge country. You can ride from Edinburgh around the NC 500 and back in a single day in summer. A tiring day but it does indicate what is possible. Dumfries and Galloway and the western borders could be covered from a base in Moffat for example. The Buccleugh Arms there is well known to many on this forum (but no personal connection as far as I know.) Likewise, Skye and the north west could be covered from around Fort William or Mallaig. Don't forget the north east also which has many good roads and if you include Speyside and Deeside, some interesting places such as distilleries to visit en route, maybe using Grantown on Spey as a base?

Get an old fashioned map and a pencil and start from there!
 
There’s a couple of Americans posting a RR of the UK and Ireland trip they did in the summer on the ABR forum at the moment. Might give you a few ideas and a little inspiration.
It’s called “left to live” :thumb

Which ferry port are you using?
 
Moffat for example. The Buccleugh Arms there is well known to many on this forum (but no personal connection as far as I know.) !

I've never stayed there but a good friends has, lots. A group of us camped near St Marys Loch some years ago. One of the group had a bad pie/pint..blah, blah. He was ill, really ill. Close to 999 ambulance ill. A call was made to the Smiths at the Buccleuch re a room. They drove across, collected both bike and rider, took rider to a hospital at their end, then back to the hotel for a room and bed. Way, way above and beyond any hospitality I had ever seen.

Apologies, thread hijack
 
Early June. I'd like to be in Finland on my cotteage during Juhannus (that's our midsummer party). Couple of years ago I noticed that you celebrate midsumemr too. We wanted to see Stonehenge and were there just in midsummer. And so were hundreds (or thousands?) druids and the whole area was full. They did not let us go there, too many people.

We are coming from Lappeenranta

Further east than I have been, I am up north every winter for a week or two. I've been there in midsummer, good party!
Early June should be good, midges and school kids should hopefully be few in numbers. Lots of good advise above on where to go. Just explore, see what you find, try the beer and have a few drams.
 
There is only one big city in the UK. That city is London. All the rest are quite manageable. Ride into them and stay in them, if it suits your plans to do so.

Spoken like a true Londoner! Complete pish.

Why go to any big city on a motorcycle? Better to enjoy some of the finest roads in Europe around the north.
 
Spoken like a true Londoner! Complete pish.

Why go to any big city on a motorcycle? Better to enjoy some of the finest roads in Europe around the north.

As I read it, the bloke is a tourist to the UK, who has two weeks in summer to go Epping (outskirts of London) to Scotland and back. An easily manageable task, Scotland (as your compatriot pointed out) not being that big and (as we are told many times) the good driving / riding roads being mostly limited to the west / north west. He can do the lot.

Let’s assume, just for now, that he likes seeing things other than the road vanishing away into the glens. Maybe he likes the cultural museums that Edinburgh can provide? Maybe he’d like the old town of the city of York, with its Nordic heritage? Nobody is suggesting that he has to anchor himself in Glasgow, are they?

When we did our lap of Germany (a very much bigger country than the UK) it was 21 days, including the crossing of Holland and the northern part of France. He has two weeks. We ‘did’ the cities of Berlin (a very big city), Dresden, Passau, Garmisch (quite a small place) but we liked the train ride and Germany’s highest cable car, which we’d have missed. Lubeck and Stralsund we visited and somehow still managed most of the good roads of Germany in between each of the places, along with Rugen island as a bonus.

If I’d of listened to UKGSer I’d not have gone anywhere near Berlin, for no other reason than it’s a big city. That would have been a pity as I’d have missed seeing the famous zoo, the rebuilt Reichstag, the Berlin Wall museum, Unter den linden, the hookers, going on the U-bahn, the memorial church and having a bier in the sunshine. I’d have swerved Dresden entirely, so would not have seen the sights there, so I’d not have seen the rebuilt Frauenkirche nor read how they rebuilt it stone by stone by stone. I’d have definitely avoided Passau (a place I’d been assured by UKGSer was a seething hotbed of illegal immigrant crime) and - as a consequence - would have missed seeing the Danube. I definitely would have kept a million miles from Lubeck, as it’s a city, so I’d have missed the old town, the afternoon boat ride and discovering that it is (apparently) the birth place of marzipan. As to Rugen, I’d have been told to keep away from the city of Stralsund, so I’d have missed the island, which I knew nothing about before I went there.


Now, you can tell him the ‘must see’ sites (he suggested distilleries, though I am sure there’s more to Scotland than those) outside of the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh - which he shouldn’t go near - and the great secret (and not so secret) roads that join them all up. C’mon, I have done my bit to build his holiday...... over to you. You can start with the best distillery, I guess. After that, the most awesome castle and the finest loch, that’ll leave the visitor slack jawed with wonder.
 
Completely agree.......except for 'There is only one big city in the UK. That city is London':D

I spent yesterday in Edinburgh. One of my vehicles was being serviced next to to the park and ride at Halbeath, so between that and my...and wifes...bus passes:D, we spent the day in town. Visit to the tailors and then The Scottish National Gallery, Rose Street for lunch and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. A really good day out....and mostly free!(Apart from the tailor!) Edinburgh is smaller than London....but it is still a big city...we only managed 2 major attractions!

But I would never suggest that to a first time visitor/holiday maker on a motorcycle. I'm lucky...I can do the best roads from home in a day out. Or spend a day getting cultured up....but I'm not going to use a valuable day of my motorcycle hols wandering round in Embra....or Marseille or Lyon or Paris. I would cheerfully go to these towns...but not on my first motorcycling trip. None the less, our Finnish chum has asked for advice, and my advice to a motorcyclist is to motorcycle! Especially round Scotland. You have toured extensively round Europe, and have a greater knowledge than most on European roads; you can afford the luxury of visiting some of the towns near your path. It sounds as though our flying Finn has not and therefore needs to get the most from his hols. It would be a shame if he spent a day looking at art, or indeed covering the miles between Glasgow and Liverpool, when he could be travelling between Ullapool and Tongue. He can do all the ancillary stuff on his subsequent visits!

A distillery is a distillery is a.......visit one decent one....overnight in /near Pitlochry and go to Edradour....... and then buy your malts in Tesco's!
 
As I read it, the bloke is a tourist to the UK, who has two weeks in summer to go Epping (outskirts of London) to Scotland and back.

...

Well said sir. There are some gems to visit/discover that aren’t just roads and in 2 weeks he can have an awesome trip (and I can steel ideas for mine)!
 
:beerjug:

There is only one big city in the UK, that is London. That is simple maths.

That is not to suggest that the lesser cities are not its equal, at least in some respects. Edinburgh is a capital, after all.

I am sure that the fellow will have a great holiday and he’ll never want to go back to New York. Fingers crossed for the weather; if he’d have done it in 2018, he’d have been laughing. In 2019 he might be swimming.

PS The Finns are probably the equal of Jocks when it comes to midges. They maybe even beat them.
 
There is only one biggest city in the UK, that is London. That is simple maths.

That is not to suggest that the smaller big cities are not its equal, at least in some respects.

I am sure that the fellow will have a great holiday and he’ll never want to go back to New York. Fingers crossed for the weather; if he’d have done it in 2018, he’d have been laughing. In 2019 he might be swimming.

PS The Finns are probably the equal of Jocks when it comes to midges. They maybe even beat them.

That's better.
 
Lot's of tips :D, thank you very much!

Couple of things that came into my mind when reading your comments...
What I've learned while riding around europe:
-Even small villages will slow down your average speed when there is a village after a village. And there are, at least in germany, Poland and in England. In Finland we can easily maintain 80 km/h average speed as here are not so much villages.
-Within 2 weeks I can not see everything.
-Every bigger city is painful when riding throug.
-Many cities in Europe has "old town" which I'd like to see. And walk throug. Keep in mind that when you built castles there, we were living in caves :)
-Whisky and motorbike is a very bad combination. But visiting maybe one distillery is something I'll do.

And yes, we have midges. Lot's of them :blast
 
There’s a couple of Americans posting a RR of the UK and Ireland trip they did in the summer on the ABR forum at the moment. Might give you a few ideas and a little inspiration.
It’s called “left to live” :thumb

Which ferry port are you using?

This time I'll put my bike to a truck both ways. I have only 4 weeks vacation which of 2 weeks I'll stay on my cottage.
Riding from Finland to England takes too many days. Better ride there that remainig 2 weeks.
 
Finland

338,424 km2 (130,666 sq mi) - Pop. 5.5m

UK

242,495 km2 (93,628 sq mi) - Pop. 66m

Scotland

77,933 km2 (30,090 sq mi) - Pop. 5.4m

Yup, it’s a lot less busy in Finland and Jockland is pretty empty, too.
 
Good plan on trucking the bike over. I met some fun Finns in Bavaria, who’d ridden their Ducati bikes there.

Can you tell us the name of the trucking company you use, please? It might be useful, for anyone going the other way, perhaps?

As you can see from the demographics, the UK is quite a small place. Most if not all of the largest towns and cities have pretty good ringroads so you can avoid the real middles. You can ride Epping to York in a day, easy. I guess I would aim for:

Ride two days, day off. Ride two days, day off. That way you make it a riding holiday and a see something holiday. For example, on the end of day two, you’d be in Edinburgh, a fine city (and I’m very English) to spend a day on the tourist stuff. That’s roughly how we did our lap of Germany and a lap of France I did.

PS A great place Finland. I used to go quite a lot, doing some work for UPM and Stora-Enso.
 
I’m not suggesting you pay to go on it but you could very easily work out where this BMW branded tour goes and copy / adapt it. On paper at least it looks like it would give you a pretty good look at Scotland, leave you time for sightseeing and still leave you enough to get up from Epping and back again.

http://www.motorrad-tours.com/tours/classic-tours/highlands-and-islands/

Duration 6 Days / 7 Nights

Distance 1,150 Miles / 1,850 Kms

My suggestion would be to plot the places on the other routes I put up in this thread to see how they might match-up

4ce5d49ae910097754b1a9c0ad29bba6.png


7b4c8e76447b2187f5723dd5fa18e3ed.png


c8142db9e5b71e8aa4f2a14d742044f0.png


You can see already that the route I lifted from the Alpentourer magazine is, not surprisingly, pretty similar to that from BMW:

c88581f8d1d186404e506e2306fffc05.png





This site may give you some good ideas:

https://www.motorcyclescotland.com/


You could adapt (with a bit of imagination) some of the ideas from this site:

https://www.haggisadventures.com/


Play about in here:

https://www.visitscotland.com

https://www.nts.org.uk/


This, if you spent £15 this might work but other than maybe giving you more detail on the routes, you could probably do it all yourself:

http://www.highlandmotorcyclehols.com/
 
Good plan on trucking the bike over. I met some fun Finns in Bavaria, who’d ridden their Ducati bikes there.

Can you tell us the name of the trucking company you use, please? It might be useful, for anyone going the other way, perhaps?

As you can see from the demographics, the UK is quite a small place. Most if not all of the largest towns and cities have pretty good ringroads so you can avoid the real middles. You can ride Epping to York in a day, easy. I guess I would aim for:

Ride two days, day off. Ride two days, day off. That way you make it a riding holiday and a see something holiday. For example, on the end of day two, you’d be in Edinburgh, a fine city (and I’m very English) to spend a day on the tourist stuff. That’s roughly how we did our lap of Germany and a lap of France I did.

PS A great place Finland. I used to go quite a lot, doing some work for UPM and Stora-Enso.

The transportation company is Motologistica (http://motologistica.fi/), I couldn't find english pages...
They have terminals in Tampere and Epping, near North Weld. Or the terminal there is AMG North Weld. Very simple to deal with them, you just drop your bike and gears there and they'll do the rest. In Epping it might take little longer as one of the guys there has / had GSA too ;)
 


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