It’s May 2019 and its time to once again plan out annual motorcycle adventure. This year, with Brexit confusion in the air we have decided to stay in the UK. It’s not the first time we have ventured north of the border to do battle with the midges, brave the weather and sample some of the greatest roads in Europe. In 2014 we hired a cabin to use as a base, renting the same cabin in 2017.
This time it is going to be a little different though. For starters there is only 3 of us.
Gavin, know to his friends as ‘Gavatron’ is a self confessed worrier. He worries, sheep, he worries parents and most of all he worries his travelling companions. For the sake of simplicity we will also use the handle ‘Gavatron’ in this blog but would like to make it very clear from the onset that no friendship is implied or wanted, Gavatron is simply making up the numbers. A mechanic by trade, his travelling companions will have to work hard to restrain him this year from ‘tinkering’ with his bike during the trip, in fact we are going to hide the monkey wrenches, sorry, correction, the monkey’s wrenches in a bid to avoid us all being stuck at the side of the road as this so called mechanic hits his bike with a spanner pretending to fix something that just wasn’t broke until he tried to make out he know something about spannering. Gavin takes the tour on a Triumph Sprint so at least we will get plenty of opportunity to admire the views while stopped waiting for the AA.
Richard known to his friends as ‘I don’t believe it Edwards’ due to his uncanny similarity to that miserable bastard know to many in the 90’s as Victor Meldrew, will be wearing his motorcycle helmet for the full duration of the trip, on the bike, at dinner, at the bar, in bed and most importantly in the shower. Edwards forgot to mention his ‘special requirements’ on the last trip and the lack of decent handicap facilities in the toilets plus Gavatron’s deposit on the floor during one of his ‘alone’ moments lead to an unfortunate incident between the old man’s head and the terracotta floor tiles. Edwards is also famed for his ability to find a shit hotel in a haystack of decent ones, this year he has been entrusted with booking the AirBnB on the Isle of Harris, at least it will make for good reading in the blog. Richard Rides a Honda Cross Dresser, perhaps a nod to his own personal confusion on his sexuality.
Williams ‘does my bum look big in this’ is a bit self conscious this year having put some weight on since the last adventure. We are not trying to say he is fat but a recent tumble down the stairs left the people he works with thinking it was an episode of Eastenders ‘dum dum du du dum’. In a bid to hide his considerable weight gain he has purchased a bigger taller bike. He is not fooling anyone though and we are highly expecting him to be video’d by someone travelling the NC500 by van wanting to get 200 quid off You’ve Been Framed. Williams will be riding an Africa Twin, a bike that is so ridiculously tall that it is often mistaken for a penny farthing.
This year we will be booking accommodation on the fly, with the exception of the first night in Peebles and the nights on the Isle of Harris where worry that we will not be able to find accommodation has lead to concede we are not the Bear Grylls adventures we tried to make out.
The plan is to take in the NC500 and then add excursions around it. For those that don’t know The North Coast 500 is a 516-mile (830 km) scenic route around the north coast of Scotland, starting and ending at Inverness Castle.[1]The route is also known as the NC500 and was launched in 2015, linking many features in the north Highlands of Scotland in one iconic touring route. Of course, 516 miles is not a lot on a bike over 8 days so we plan on getting lost a lot. We also plan on videoing the trip and as all of us are pretty crap with tech this is unlikely to go viral, ‘shits and giggles’ therefore being the main motivation.
Anyway, that’s it for now, not long to go now.
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