OT Short Way Up or....Two Yanks in Scotland, The FINAL Chapter...Last post Options

[stephenaki]

Every great adventure starts with an idea that somehow or another blossoms into a grand scheme that sends our minds on a whirlwind of anticipation and visions, or delusions, of grandeur. Burly men and lusty wenches, beer, rum and…oh wait, that’s the other delusion I had…never mind. Back on topic, as the title would loan itself too, it is a play on the Long Way Down (motorcycle documentary of Ewing McGregor and Charley Boorman as they rode from John O' Groats Scotland to South Africa on BMW GS1200 motorcycles) and not even a 10th of the mileage; one, neither Lee or I are rich and have a full fledged support crew and two, neither Lee and I are rich and have a full fledged support crew. Did I mention that neither Lee nor I are rich and have a full fledged support crew? I won’t bore you with the details but after several discussions and then Lee’s acquisition of a shiny new GS1200 we finally settled on taking a 10 day trip to Scotland from our little slice of Deutschland. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif)

I don’t remember exactly how it came to pass but I do recall looking at the big map in our cubicle and discussing options of where to go and by the end, the destination was Scotland. With the general destination now set it was time to determine where and when. Over the course of the next few months it evolved from Glasgow to Inverness and then one fine day Lee said, “hey, why don’t we ride up to John O’ Groats?” At first the idea didn’t quite register as to why in the hell anyone would want to ride up to the top of nowhere but, after some thought, the hamster powered dimly lit light bulb in my mind flickered and remembrances of Charley and Ewan’s starting point in the Long Way Down played across the back of my mind like an old 8mm film that had past its time and flickered a lot. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

So I thought to myself, sure, why the hell not? I hear the country is beautiful and they speak English…of a sort. Now what? Oh yeah, I guess ‘we’(which really means ‘I’) should plan a route up and a route down. This would also lend itself to an ever changing plan of attack with no rhyme or reason as the only input I really got from Lee was, ‘dude, I just wanna ride.’ Gee thanks bro, you’re about as helpful as financial advice from Madoff. Oh yeah, we also settled on 10 to 20 May as our target date for the trip and no, we didn’t realize we were leaving on Mother’s day until later on.

I will have to say though that Lee did insist that there were at least two things he wanted to see and visit, Ace Café in London and Stonehenge. I was a bit worried about Stonehenge as he kept referencing Pagan rituals and furry goatskin pants…At six plus feet tall that would be a curious site to see.

Goatskin pants aside, we had also decided that we would visit a friend of mine up in Warwick to have a look at his 1920s era British motorcycle then visit the National Transport Museum in Coventry where Charley Boorman’s bike is supposedly on display. Since our interest was primarily on riding in Scotland we sorta decided to keep to the main roads on up towards Glasgow before disembarking from the ‘M’ series highways to the smaller country roads.

The original plan also called for a trip up to Bastogne, Belgium then across Northern France to the coast and then north to Calais. I then set to work using Google Map as my planning tool and using the terrain and satellite feature with the photos option flipped on and off intermittently to develop a first draft plan. Once I had a draft I posted our route to my Vulcan Drifters Owners Group UK (VDOG) to get some feedback and sent it off to my friend Alan in Warwick as well. Several things happened when I did this, Alan was reminded by his wife that the time we were coming they would be in Spain watching a formula one race and several members of my VDOG UK group offered some suggested changes as well as lodging for us.

After several discussions with Lee and route changes based on feedback as well as input into Google to gauge riding time and overall trip impact, we axed Bastogne and the country roads through France. Instead, we opted to avoid the toll roads in France and make it to Dover on day one of the trip with a stay in Dover that night. In case you’re wondering, Stuttgart, Germany to Calais France via autobahn is approximately 757 KM or 470 MI; reality is we did 500 miles that day with an unintended side trip into Luxembourg but that will come later. We had also decided that we would push on to the southeast perimeter of London if we felt up to in on that first day to buy us some additional time for the next day’s activities.

The other change was that we would cut over to Rhayader, England and take the A470 up through Wales to Conway before pressing on to Scotland. This was recommended by Andy, a VDOG UK member who offered us a place to stay and met us at Stonehenge. We did not stay with Andy but pushed on to Rhayader instead; never the less I did bring Andy a bottle of wine and 4 bottles of Andechs Doppel Boch for his offered hospitality.

Of course, as the Army says, no plan survives first contact and some minor changes would be made along the way but, the initial route was set and our accommodations would be campgrounds and a night at Bongos (yes, I’ll get to Bongos as well).

Now the only thing that remained was to try out my new sissy bar travel luggage and get used to using a GPS. For this we planned several rides whereby I would construct a route using Google then transfer it to my TomTom via a program called TYRE or Track Your Route Everywhere. TYRE allows you to import a route from Google maps, adjust it to suit your needs and save it to an ITN file that the TomTom can pull up as a programmed itinerary. Great little program and it is free.

Several rides later we were comfortable with each others riding styles, use of the GPS and how my bike felt with a full load. Lee tested his panniers and additional load on a business trip to Garmisch from Stuttgart in April as well. So lets meet our intrepid adventurers, get to some pre-trip photos, and close out the first chapter in this little adventure.

Lee on his brand new BMW GS1200
(IMG:http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj217/stephenaki/Lee/IMG_0729.jpg)

Yours truly on a vehicle that is actually running as opposed to my 914.
(IMG:http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj217/stephenaki/Lee/IMG_1082.jpg)

Finally the first draft load out of the bike with my Riggpack sissy bar system. Final adjustments would be done later to clean it all up.
(IMG:http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj217/stephenaki/Lee/CIMG3002.jpg)

The following installments will have much more pictures I promise. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)