Scotland 2022 . 26th, 27th & 28th August

[Pete.L]

Bikes All Serviced and ready to go!

The hard luggage arrived today too so now I don't have to strap a bag on the back seat

Pete.l

[sirch345]

I hope you all have a great weekend Guys

Chris.

[alanfjones1411]

Have a great time lads and stay safe.

[Duffy1964]

Have a great time everyone


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[AMCQ46]

Pete, I will keep an eye out for you learning to filter on the M6 with panniers, it messes with your head when you know the handlebars aren't the widest part of the bike.

[tony.mon]

Pete, I will keep an eye out for you learning to filter on the M6 with panniers, it messes with your head when you know the handlebars aren't the widest part of the bike.

Just ride with your knees out instead of gripping the tank.

[Pete.L]

Pete, I will keep an eye out for you learning to filter on the M6 with panniers, it messes with your head when you know the handlebars aren't the widest part of the bike.

Just ride with your knees out instead of gripping the tank.

Yes it does. I only got to practice in the works traffic last night. You'd think I was driving a bus

Thanks for the advice Tony. All I need now is to find out how to stop the flies splatting on my new paintwork. And driving in reverse is not an option

[Lloydie2954]

Brilliant weekend, amazing company - so glad I got the opportunity to tag along / gents thanks for memories if any places come available on the up coming Yorkshire/Wales & Devon runs - shout me up & I'll be there in a heart beat

[AMCQ46]

Great meeting you Lloydie #2


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[MacV2]

Brilliant weekend, amazing company - so glad I got the opportunity to tag along / gents thanks for memories if any places come available on the up coming Yorkshire/Wales & Devon runs - shout me up & I'll be there in a heart beat

You have a PM re meets...

[AMCQ46]

That’s me home now, I have left Budd up in Kircudbright with his family but OP Storm Scotland is now over.

As usual I will do a full write up later, but the spoiler is that ……

it didn’t rain
a few tyres were destroyed,
no sheep were hurt.
A lot of faces are hurting from grinning.
A newbie was initiated.

Thanks for the best company lads


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[AMCQ46]

Scotland trip day 1 ride report.

As with the Irish trip, it will be all words in this post and then I will follow up with the photos using tapatalk app on my phone.

I had only managed to book 6 rooms at the loch side inn, and although a couple of people opted to share a room, plus 2 of us would be in our vans, one camping and a few had got a local B&B, it wasn't going to be as busy as previous years. The initial plan looked like there was going to be 14 of us, but as ever life throws in last min changes and Jake had to drop out as his KTM Superduke needed warranty work doing, but this allowed Husky 701 SuMo rider James to cancel his B&B and move onsite for the weekend (makes drinking so much easier). then wellgroomed Andy (KTM 790), and Edward (BMW S1000R) also had to pull out, leaving just the 11.

The turnout was going to be a good mix of the usual suspects, plus a couple of people trying the Scottish trip for the first time.

The firestorm count was high for this trip, with 4 of them making it the most common bike and Honda the top brand..... That is the first time in years that it hasn't been BMW or KTM
The line up was:
Me on my yellow firestorm (the KTM won't fit in the back of the van without removing parts).
Flatline on his silver storm,
Ashley over from "Norn Iron" on his clean blue Storm, we already know him from the Irish meeting, but this was his first time on my Scottish ride.
Lloydie #2 on his clean and near standard yellow storm, taking the brave move to come and join his first OP Storm weekend having read about it on the forum..... I think he is hooked now.
PeteL arrived on his brand new Suzuki GSX1000GT to test it as both a tourer on the way up and as a sports bike at the weekend.... I think it passed.
Grumpyfrog out for the first time with us this year on his KTM 790duke, was great to see the big lad and his whisky bottle.
Kermetlefrog surprised us all by bringing his commuter bike, a KTM 390 Duke rather than the V4 Tuono, which turned out to be ideal for some of the roads..
Budd came on his KTM 1290 superduke GT with his 2 mates, little Chris (BMW S1000r) and Mick curly ( BMW GS)
And my sparring partner James over from Ireland on his Husky 701 SuperMoto for his annual reminder of just how great the Galloway roads are.

Everybody was getting excited and counting the sleeps on the whatsapp group In the run up to the Friday set off, and a lot of the lads were planning to meet up in Hawes, then ride to Kendal and up the A6, so they could have fun on the way there.
I on the other hand had to cope with bank holiday Friday traffic on the M6 in a van, and I had the journey from hell taking 2 hrs longer than normal and even contemplating parking the van up and getting the bike out!
James played his joker at home and had decided to come over on the Thursday morning ferry, and had already done 2 days exploring the backroad before I turned up late Friday afternoon.

By the time I arrived with the beer supply and the BBQ, only Ashley, who was on a ferry docking at 6, was not already there. so to the unexpected bonus of clear blue sky's and bright sunshine, I got the van unloaded, got the BBQ fired up and settled in for a night of talking baldrocks, drinking beer and initiating Lloydie#2 into his first firestorm weekend.

A quick check of the weather forecast confirmed both Saturday and Sunday were also going to be sunny, so it didn't matter if I took the route to the North East, or the north west. We had done the NW direction last year, so that made it an obvious decision to do the other one this year, but just to keep it interesting I would do it in reverse.
We familiarised Lloydie #2 with the 2nd man drop off marking system and set off just a bit after the planned 9.30 start for a great warmup blast down the A712 from Crocketford, stopping in at the Church at Corsock to say hello to Norman on the way past before filling our petrol tanks in Dalry.
Mick curly, flatline and Ashley are sharing the last man role, but the smaller group is working well and everybody is showing good skills and big smiles as I lead them onto a series of roads, each of which takes the title of "the best road so far" only to be replaced by the next one. Even some of the roads I am using to connect the perfect sections are way better than I remembered, and we have already ticked off the Dalveen pass, the Devils Beeftub before we stop for lunch in Moffat.

Bellies and petrol tanks filled in Moffat and we head north again onto the St Mary's Loch section of riding nirvana. As we leave town our fun is spoiled, its just been gritted . Fortunately it is only a couple of miles and then we are back on good tarmac for the next 20.
James was cunning and made sure he was 3rd or 4th man leaving Moffat, so he would be near the front by the time we hit the good bits, then he used the gravel section to get to 2nd man.
Once the gravel stopped I did my best to lose him, but he wasn’t going to give up that easily and we called it a draw by the time we got to our turn off road and stood around giggling like big kids till the rest turned up.
The loch its self was very busy, with visitors parking on any roadside sections which had access to the water, so caution needed passing these honey spots, but other than that there was very few cars moving on the road, so all of the lads were hyped by the end of that section.

From the fast flowing and undulating St Mary's loch section, we take a right onto a Single track B road to get us across to Sami Ling's Buddhist temple. In the wet and on a bigger bike, that road would be a bit of hard work, but in the dry and for those like James, Grumpyfrog and Kermetlefrog on small bikes, (and a firestorm with flat bars like mine) there was still a lot of fun, especially on the big air jump where I managed a good second of airtime and landed flat. Looking in my mirrors I watched Budd execute the less favoured front wheel landing!! He had a black visor on, so I couldn't see the fear in his eyes.

We stopped at the temple to regain our inner peace, but in the process I am pretty sure we disturbed the peace of everybody else :0, noisy bikes, chatting and smoking!!

As we stood there meditating, James declared that he enjoyed chasing me on that last section of B road so much and he thought that it was more fun than the logging road from Eskdalemuir down to Lockerbie, which we were just about to do. I know james likes SuperMoto and tight and twisty roads, but no way was this better than the logging road, but he said he did the logging road on Friday by himself, so this was a fair comparison.... "Ok", I said, "But we will recheck your verdict after we ride the logging road together".

15 miles later, I win my bet . Great roads are even greater with somebody to play with.

Ice cream stop in Lockerbie and some tinkering with sheep, then drop back to Dumfries with James and Grumpyfrog swapping bikes. I think James likes the 790 duke as it has more comfort and more top end than the SuperMoto and not too much bigger, but not sure what Grumpyfrog thought about the husky.

Grumpyfrog and Ashley went directly back to the Inn on the main A75, while the rest of us did some more backroads via Dalbeattie. And so we finished 200 perfect motorcycle miles with a cold Guinness and lots of people on jetskis having fun on the loch behind our hotel.

Cold shower, changed and more drinks as we waited for our 7pm table booking, and everybody is buzzing from the day. Even the regulars on this ride are saying this was the best days riding they had ever done, and our OP Storm virgin Lloydie #2 (Ryan) is completely addicted. I promised him great roads, but this exceeded his expectation, and I don't think he was expecting the social side of our group to be such a strong part of the weekend, everybody gets on so well, and nobody takes themselves too seriously ...... His observation was that we really had something special here with this group. Special needs more like! So I tried to describe how it works as follows.....

The only criteria for being part of this group is that you are not a massive d1ckhead, but once you are part of the group you are encouraged to be a d1ckhead and have fun.....
It made sense when you are drinking.

A cracking meal and more drinks in the bar, then back to the van for a few more beers and banter.

And so ended the best days riding we had all ever had, great weather, great roads, great riding buddy's, good progressive riding, great banter topped off with beer.

Thanks to everyone who came

[neil]

Great to read about the meets and some names in there I was only wondering about only the other day (good to know you're still out and about Grumpyfrog & Flatline, wonder what Adyf is doing?). Happy memories of the time Helen and I met you in Kircudbright in the monsoon. Wishing I'd been there now

[AMCQ46]

Neil, You missed the once every 10 yr dry bank holiday in Scotland. It was bloody perfect


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[AMCQ46]

Packed and ready to go

After hours in idiot traffic I wasn’t looking forward to a trip to the supermarket. To make it worse it was just at school kick out time so it was full of mums and wains bickering about chocolate.

Waking up to this




Setting off



The devils beeftub.

PeteL mick curly and llloydie#2





The peace was shattered when we turned up


The sheep riding race






Disclaimer…. No sheep were hurt in the making of this day and any touching was full consentual.


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