Adventure motorcycling, once a niche that was the preserve of a hardy few, is now a well established and mainstream part of the industry. Many people take to the roads on machines capable of dealing with a vast array of circumstances, in search of that elusive term - an Adventure. In reality most don't go beyond the public road and the local cafe so adventures are fairly benign. I've owned four such bikes that in reality are so good that in most cases you don't have an adventure, although you will probably enjoy yourself.
It wasn't always like this, and if I were to apply the term 'adventure' to my motorcycling escapades, I'd have to go back long before it became a marketable thing.
I was notionally part of the Edinburgh Uni Motorcycle Club, a bunch of students, ex students and other hangers on, trying to run a variety of old bikes on a limited budget. Runs were a regular feature, typically to regular biker hang outs: St. Andrews, North Berwick, Moffat or Tyndrum. Overnighters were done during the summer - A group of us would head for some suitable destination on some highly dubious machinery, the idea being that we would find a quiet spot near to the road to camp, have a fire and alter our mental states via various means. On every trip at least one bike broke down, several had bits fall off, someone always got lost and progress was hardly faster than my days of cycling thanks to the golden rule of faff:- the amount of time spent faffing is an exponential function of the number of people in a group. Adventure? oh yes...
One trip in particular stands out. Myself and another guy were on fairly sorted 650 BSA's and another lad had a Triumph T140 that despite having been rebuilt sprayed oil everywhere. Night one was on the back road to Braemar, a popular roadside camping destination. Unfortunately we only had one tent between us and three large blokes didn't really fit in it. Just as well we were good friends!
The next day we headed north then west, the weather alternating between rain and shine. The first intimation of doom came on the road out of Inverness. Chris's T140 was misfiring at low revs. The solution seemed to be to ride it fast so off we went on a mad thrash west. I well remember going down the Torridon road and getting sprayed by gravel as Chris gunned it round the bends in a bid to keep going. Eventually we made it to Kishorn and a promising dead end road, at the end of which was a track which provided a fine place to camp. The midges were fierce but a fire kept them at bay.
The next morning Chris's bike wouldn't start. Just back along the track we'd noticed a seemingly abandoned car which on closer inspection was unlocked but seemed to be in use as there was some change on the dash and stuff in the back. There was no sign of the owner so we popped the bonnet, attached a couple of wires from its battery to Chris's and then had breakfast. Thereafter his bike started and off we went. It was clear that Chris's bike wasn't charging properly but he just hared off; me and Niall adopting a more leisurely pace. Sure enough at Loch Carron there he was with a dead bike and a glum look. We set too removing the primary chain case to have a look at the alternator. Oh dear. The rotor nut had come loose and the rotor was busy smashing the stator to bits. Chris bolted it all back together but he hadn't located the rotor into its driving pegs so unbeknownst to him, the rotor went on squint and bent the stud on the end of the crank. Of course this meant the rotor would further destroy the stator. So it proved and at Inverinate garage he gave up and phoned the AA.
So on we went, until Spean bridge that is. As I pulled into the car park my bike died. We had food and then set off but pretty soon it was clear that I now had charging problems. Any use of lights killed the engine and it would only run if I gunned it. So it was my turn to ride too fast, this time down the famously bendy Lagan road. Eventually it died just by a house by the road. Annoyingly as I waited for Niall I noticed a Golf GTi approaching at speed and recognised the driver - another biking mate Derek out for a thrash in his parents car. But he sped past with a wave. Bugger. Niall appeared and we wandered down to the house in order to use the phone. The guy who answered the door looked highly dubious about letting two bikers in to phone the AA. Niall wanted to get back before dark so he left me too it. The AA man turned up quite quickly as he was based in Kingussie and soon enough I was being trailered down the road. Not for the last time....
As time went on the bikes became more reliable (or we got better at fixing them) and runs became more regular and less fraught with breakdowns. After too many group rides involving someone being left behind, someone holding the rest of us up due to a bike running badly, someone getting lost and highly dodgy overtakes trying to follow the leader; we figured on just setting meeting points and all heading up at our own pace. Cries of "I'll just follow you" were ignored. If you didn't have a map, you were on your own.
I suppose the most epic of these trips was to the infamous Dragon rally, held in mid February in Wales. The ride down became the usual mix of mad thrashing, getting lost (we were trying to avoid the motorway as much as possible) and horrible weather whilst trying to navigate the famously lumpy and twisty Welsh roads in the dark. We'd all got split up and then Me and Rick encountered a couple of Ural outfits, one towing the other which had expired. They were doing about 20mph with a huge queue of traffic behind and Rick suddenly decided we should follow them as the rearmost bike didn't have any lights. This lasted for about a mile before I got fed up and sped off. Rick soon followed as he had no idea where he was. Finally we got to Betwys-Y-Coed, had a pint and food and sussed out where the rally site was.
On arrival it was clear we were in for a hard night. It was windy and raining and I suddenly realised my tent was seriously lacking in strength and water-proofness. Rick's tent would blow flat everytime the wind gusted so we both ended up in mine, which really wasn't big enough. After a very rough night we were damp and cold as the tent had multiply leaked. Rick had a total sense of humour failure and decided there and then he was off home. The rally didn't officially start until that afternoon so I was reluctant to leave with him but my wrecked tent and wet bag was of concern. Eventually I just thought 'fuck this, I'm going home.' So off we went followed by the jeers of our fellows. We didn't muck around, just followed main roads to the M6 and headed north.
Now I was on an ex army BSA B40 - a 350 single which cruised at about 55 - 60. Rick was on a rough BSA A10 which ran OK but used rather a lot of oil. As we progressed north it got colder and colder with sleet and then snow showers increasing. I took the decision to use the A7 as it would get us off the motorway and hopefully away from the black skies to the north and west. It did until the hill after Hawick where the snow came in, in earnest. We made it over to Selkirk but after here it got worse and worse. The snow finally stopped but as the skies cleared the temps dropped alarmingly and the road was covered in snow. Ricks bike then started icing its carb, resulting in it cutting onto one cylinder (or out) and then firing on both with much wheelspinning as a result. Every so often he had to stop to allow heat from the engine to thaw out the carb and then off we went again. I was actually OK as the B40 had trail tires and wide bars and being a nice soft 350 thumper, the ideal tool for snow riding. It was now dark of course and progress slow. At one point I noted Rick's bike slowing so I pulled up behind him, leaned forward to place a hand on his top box and gave him a shove until his carb thawed once more. Finally we descended down to Edinburgh and out of the snow. We were both freezing so headed straight for the pub, hot food and beer.
In 2002 we decided on an expedition to the Western Isles, following on from some of the gang having done a trip there the previous summer, with tales of long sunny evenings and fab roads. The goal was Calanish stone circle in Lewis, along with lots of hippies and tourists.
The run up was good fun - Kate met me at Crieff where I'd been at a training course and we then headed north to join the others at a hostel in Nethy Bridge. The weather was dry and sunny hinting at fun times to come. From there it was north and west to Skye as we were getting the boat to Tarbet from Uig.
It was a good start, weatherwise. If only we knew what was coming...
Other bikes were at the port, belonging to a club from Edinburgh who some of us were part of. Also noted were various desperate looking hippy campers and some bemused normal tourists eyeing us up with a small degree of concern. The ferry trip went without incident however the weather got progressively gloomier, the nearer we got to the island.
It rained from the moment we arrived to the moment we left. We hammered the fab road from Tarbet to Calanish and pitched up on the hillside next to the stone circle, the rain falling continuously. Fortunately one of the group had brought 50kg of coal which proved to be a life saver (along with whisky, beer and other herbage). Thereafter followed a damp and slightly bizarre three days during which time the rain never let up...
We nearly got lynched by the locals after one of us shouted at their kids for nicking valve caps off the bikes. After some diplomatic discussions from one of our group he became good friends. The feral children belonging to some of the travelers scared even the hardiest of us and this group of stereotypical crusties provided much amusement to all with their dilapidated campers, tramp like dress and total disregard for any form of personal hygiene. Maybe they saw us as kindred spirits as we had not changed out of our leathers all week.
At one point a soup kitchen turned up, run by the local Free Church of Scotland. By this time we were damp and fed up so hot soup was a life saver. None of us converted however! In fact we heard them commenting how popular their kitchen was that year as a constant stream of local young people came and went. Only later did we twig why as it turned out that one of our party was selling ecstasy and word quickly spread round the islands youth population.
The solstice itself was something of a let down, given the weather. The hippies and various locals all tried to commune with pagan spirits apparently resident in the lumps of stone but we crouched round the fire, vowing never to come here ever again.
Not sure the stones cared one way or another....
Finally we left, all terrified of getting stranded as the next day (Sunday) meant no ferries. The rain didn't let up so we ended up in the Hostel in Portree on Skye. After the continuous rain of the last three days it was bliss to relax in warm and dry comfort, reading the paper and venturing out to the pub for food and much recuperative beer. It rained all the way home as well.
2003 saw us visit foreign climes (Ireland) and much welcome sunshine. In a bid to avoid any chance of damp campsites we'd pre-booked Donegal hostel. This signified a change of fortunes as we were all earning now and the desperate wrecks we used to use on runs were all getting replaced by more modern tackle, or in my case a British bike that was now thoroughly sorted. Plus camping had fallen out of favour after the washout of the previous year. Much guiness was drank, fish caught and fine wee roads ridden.
2003 saw us visit foreign climes (Ireland) and much welcome sunshine. In a bid to avoid any chance of damp campsites we'd pre-booked Donegal hostel. This signified a change of fortunes as we were all earning now and the desperate wrecks we used to use on runs were all getting replaced by more modern tackle, or in my case a British bike that was now thoroughly sorted. Plus camping had fallen out of favour after the washout of the previous year. Much guiness was drank, fish caught and fine wee roads ridden.
Midsummer 2004 saw us heading further north to the Orkneys. Me and another guy (Zack) pre-empted the others with a few days buzzing around the highlands before we hit the Northern Isles. I'd first explored these roads the previous year on a trip by myself and was hoping for better weather as I'd managed to pick the only wet week of the summer back then. Inevitably, after a good start, The weather was once again horrible. Staying in bunkhouses meant we could dry off at night but the only problem was that as we were tending to cut short our day rides due to the weather, and end up in the pub from 3pm to midnight. One of the bunkhouses was a set of railway carriages in a place called Rogart. Best of all there was a pub next door and the guy behind the bar was most welcoming as we were the only folk in but spent a fortune eating and drinking.
We met the rest of the gang at a very gloomy and damp Gils Bay, just along the road from John O'Groats. A private outfit ran a couple of clapped out rust buckets between here and St. Margarets Hope on South Ronaldsay. The crossing was much cheaper than the Northlink boat from Thurso plus you went right across the roughest bit of the infamous Pentland Firth. At one point the pilot seemed to aim for the biggest wave in the violent currents leading to much leaning over of ship. This was a taste of things to come. The first night was in Kirkwall YHA - a former barracks and as appealing.
After too many beers in the pub we were forced to get up at 6am for the early boat to Westray. It was slashing rain and blowing a gale. The guy at the ferry port said some immortal words:
"Right lads, its going to be a rough crossing and we can't guarantee your bikes'll be in the same number of pieces at the end as the start"
Given that we were now up we couldn't be doing with waiting for the afternoon boat (which we'd been told may be too busy for us all to get on) so carried on. Much tying up and padding of bikes in the cattle pens ensured they'd be largely fine. The crossing was indeed rather rough.....
Arriving in the small town of Pierwall was a bit like a cold and wet version of that scene out of the Wild One when Marlon Brando and his gang rock up to a quiet American town to the consternation of the locals. Everything seemed to be shut (it was only 8.30 am) and some of us needed fuel. We pulled up outside a petrol pump and stood in the rain looking for evidence of a kiosk or garage. Then a very elderly lady peered out of the next door house and it turned out she was the petrol station owner. After filling up we headed up to our digs.
We'd booked the whole of Bis Geos hostel which was real luxury after previous trips. We weren't due in until 2pm but the owner was happy for us to use the facilities for the day, given the weather. The current occupants didn't seem to happy with this but we were too wet and tired to care. So we spent the rest of the day watching the weather improve whilst checking out the views. By this time the entire island knew that a dozen bikers were in town and we added to their fears by all riding in to check out the shop and source beer. The shop stocked everything but beer so we bought food and then headed to the craft shop which had an off license. The two rather attractive middle aged women who ran it were very pleased to see us as they had a couple of crates of out of date Orkney Red Macgregor which they sold us cheap.
Westray proved to be a gem of a place. Much fishing, riding without lids (there are no Police on Westray) and generally relaxing followed. The first night we all rode the bikes down to the Pierwall hotel, had a fab meal of locally caught fish and quite a lot of beer. We debated walking home however it was clear the locals were arriving and departing by car, in view of the lack of Polis; so in the event we jumped on the bikes and rode back to the hostel up the (empty) road, thoroughly over the limit. This continued all week and was quite enlightening really as it dispelled any myth you can ride a motorcycle whilst drunk unless you are on an empty road doing 5mph in first gear with one eye shut... Further bemusement was caused when we aired a film on the pub DVD player that a few of us had made earlier that year for a local borders film festival - 'Fowl Play at Midnight' The last night saw us and various befriended locals having a beach party to the wee small hours.
These were happy days. We were generally doing a trip in the spring, Midsummer and Autumn, plus regular day rides. Perthshire, the Borders, Dumfrieshire, Mull, Skye, the Northwest - all providing a seemingly never ending series of empty, twisty roads. Roadside camping had become verboten thanks to armies of neds spoiling it for everyone else at places like Loch Lomondside, Loch Rannoch and Loch Earn so we were tending to use campsites or hostels, plus even the odd B&B!
We did go back to roadside camping in later years as we sussed out quiet spots away from prying eyes. Hostels were now expensive and we were becoming sensitive to other occupants views of a bunch of blokes turning up on bikes, getting wrecked and crashing about in the night. After too many unfriendly receptions in B&B's we'd also given up on them. The next years midsummer trip was being planned. Where next? Further north? Now that sounds like an adventure!
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