Winton Massif Frosty Pubes Rally

I've always fancied the Elefantentreffen, or Elephant Rally, the most famous of the winter bike rallies held in the German hills in the middle of winter. I'd got the Hornshit as my trusty winter hack, now all I needed to do was see if anyone wanted to come with me.
Ah, so no one wants to ride to Germany in the middle of winter.
Hmmm, I'd need to take a week off to get there.
It's no gonnae be the cheapest either....

I KNOW! We'll do our own one!

A quick message round the Massif threw up a few keen replies. Mikey, Other Mike, Snake and Smillie were all keen.
"Will we open it up to anyone who wants to come?"
"Aye!"
We needed a name, and so was born the Winton Massif Frosty Pubes rally.
Now all this was happening back in November or so. We'd chosen Sunart Camping to have the rally at. Our friend Tim runs the site and he was keen to do a winter rally. We were hoping for blue sky and a crisp winter day. A nice run over Rannoch Moor and through Glencoe, the hills dusted with snow and looking spectacular in the winter sun. It'll be awesome!

On the weekend of the rally the weather had different ideas to my idyllic winter's day I'd imagined. Warm and wet was what we had. Well, warm for January in Scotland anyway. Never mind, I strapped my amazing, home made ADV luggage on to the Hornshit, loaded up the massive tankbag with stuff I'd forgotten to put in the suitcase, sorry, ADV luggage, set the heated grip to hot and set off. 

I'm 6'4. After an hour sitting on the wee Honda I felt like I needed a hip replacement. I think I've been a bit spoiled by the legroom on the big bikes I'm used to.

The roads were wet but the rain only fell in wee showers making the run up an enjoyable experience. The usually packed road up the side of Loch Lubnaig was relatively quiet. A brief stop at Killin to refill the Hornshit's thimble like fuel tank before heading up to the Green Welly to meet Tim and have some Cullen Skink (a nice Scottish fish soup)
It was good to see Tim again. He'd got his old Buell back on the road after a few years of hiding behind his other bikes in the shed. It was one of only two bikes in the Green Welly's famous bikepark. The Green Welly is one of Scotland's most famous biker haunts but for me its a bit over rated. the food is pretty overprices and often lacking in quality. Saying that, the Cullen Skink was braw and it was nice to get a heat and catch up with Tim.

Rannoch Moor and Glencoe were equally quiet. Overtaking the few slower vehicles on the road was easy and, despite the rain and the lack of a dusting of snow, the scenery was stunning. Usually the A82 through Glencoe is nose to tail with tourists, trucks and other slow moving traffic. Having it relatively quiet threw up some rose tinted memories of bantering through the glen on my ZRX1100 back when I was 22. Even the usually packed viewpoint at Glencoe only had about three folk at it!

At the Corran ferry one of Tim's mates who works aboard told us a guy on an XT600 had crossed not long before us. Assuming it was Mikey and the rest of the Caithness crew who had left much earlier than I had, we battered along to Strontian to meet them. On arrival at Sunart Campsite were were greeted by Ian from Gairloch on his new XT660 Tenere. Don't get me wrong, it was great to see Ian again, but we were all getting concerned for the whereabouts of the Caithnesians. I'd seen on Facebook that Mikey has set off about 7.00 and now it was beginning to get dark. Where the fuck were they?

Tim on the Corran Ferry

It was properly dark when we finally heard some bikes approaching and in rolled Mikey, his brother Glenn, Snake and Liall. Glenn's R80 had developed a clutch problem on the way down the road and he'd had to nurse it gently down to Strontian. Glenn can pretty much fix anything and we could have had a look at the bike in Tim's workshop, but instead we got some food and beer into ourselves before wandering along to the pub.

We woke up to more rain and the onslaught of excuses. Other Mike had been ill for a couple of days before the rally as had John, so we didn't expect them to show up. Smillie bottled it due to the weather, throwing up a few raised eyebrows questioning why someone would sign up for a winter rally and worry about the weather. Would anyone else turn up?

We'd all just got back from breakfast at the cafe when I received a phone call from Andrea. He'd made great time and rolled in to admiring glances to his Africa Twin from Snake and Glenn. Tim, Liall, Snake and I had decided brace the rain and to go for a run up to Mallaig. Mikey, Ian and Glenn stayed behind to inspect Glenn's stricken Beemer as did Andrea, who'd already had more than his fair share of riding in the rain that day.  

The four of us set off towards Salen then the Acharacle/Roshven road round the coast. The wee Hornet was hard work! I've gotten lazily used to the ease of riding a big twin, where you rarely need to change gear and can use engine braking more than the actual brakes. I was having to concentrate way more than usual to keep up with Snake who looked to be ambling easily along the wet, greasy roads on his Varadero. Liall, who'd left his GSXR back at the site and borrowed Mikey's XT600, was having great fun. He'd passed me and was lining up to overtake Snake when suddenly the back end stepped out, big time. He was bucked around all over the shop as the XT went into a massive tankslapper. 

"Fuck. He's coming off!!!!"

Somehow, Liall didn't come off. He managed to keep the XT upright and as soon as it was stable again he was back on the gas, just not quite as severely as before. Mad bastard.

A wee bit wet.

A wee stop at Arisaig gave us time to have a wee chat and for Liall to inspect his pants. Liall said he'd gotten a proper fright. He'd opened the throttle up to pass Snake and suddenly the back end snapped out. Riding behind him I'd caught the action on my helmet camera. You can't really see what happens but it was one of those moments where everything slows right down. I really thought Liall was going down, the back end kicked right out then the bike went into a wild tankslapper, bucking Liall's legs off the bike as it flapped from side to side. He did well to keep everything together and the shite out his pants. I've tried to zoom in on the video so you can see what happened, but the rain on the lens obscures it a bit. Now the XT isn't exactly a power house of a motor, so we chalked it up to a combination of shite tyres and greasy roads and carried on to Mallaig to get a heat and a coffee.

It looks like fuck all on the video but it was definitely a brown moment.

Mallaig was closed. After some wandering we found somewhere to get a coffee and tried to dry out a bit  while at the same time not flooding the shop out. Originally the plan was to head back down the side of Loch Eil but the daylight was going, increasing the chance of deer on the road. Tim led the way back at an easy pace. Thankfully there were no more brown moments.

Liall, Tim and Snake in a very wet Mallaig.

It was dark by the time we got back to Strontian. Gerrit had arrived a couple of hours before and greeted us as we splashed in. The evening was spent once more in the Strontian Hotel where we celebrated Mikey's birthday (you won't believe it, but he's only 27!!!) and all had a rare insight to the bizarre Caithness motorcycle sales ring, a weird phenomena that seems to affect the north east of the country. Or maybe it's just Mikey, Glenn and Snake....

 

The birthday boy. 

Andrea and I had a wet run home, the sun only coming out when we got closer to the east coast. Still, despite the rain we'd all had a great weekend. Everyone made it home safely, Glenn getting the beemer home without needing to call the breakdown folk and Mikey having a few more twitchy moments on the XT.

Same time next year?

Mike

Europe Tour 2016 Part 5 - The last leg.

Continued from Part 4

Having had a great kip in Hotel Altitude we packed up and headed north again. Today's ride would be a short one, with Beaufort being our destination, just over the next pass. Beaufort was where HB and I had got stranded for three days when the 1150 GS's fuel pump shat itself back in 2009.

Riding away from Val d'Isere it seemed like we were going down for ages before the road climbs sharply up the tight twists and turns to the top of the Cormet De Roselend. Aidan loved this pass, flying off in front,  chucking his Triumph through the tight turns. The pass opens up at the top offering great visibility to really have fun in the corners. We stopped at the top where there was a guy selling juice and some local meats and cheese. He offered us a wee taste which we took, despite the flies landing here and there. 

We tore off down the hill once more till Aidan pulled over for a photo in nearly the same spot as we had broken down years ago. There's great views of Lac de Roselend, which the road flows around before a wide hairpin decent to Beaufort. 

We stopped in Beaufort for a coffee and some superb cakes over which we discussed our options. I suggested staying in Beaufort, another hotel guys? I left the guys at the cake shop and headed to tourist information, then round the corner to the two hotels that were open in the small town. The cheaper of the two looked the nicest and also said if we stayed we could park our bikes in their garage. By the time I got back with the options everyone else had decided we'd definitely be staying in Beaufort. They agreed on the hotel with the garage and in no time we'd stashed the bikes, had a shower and were back at the cake shop having a braw cold beer. I'd always said that if we we're back in Beaufort it would be good to stay in a nice hotel and get a good meal rather than being stranded bikeless in the tent. That evening we went out for that meal before heading back to the hotel for an early night (for us).

Beaufort was to be our last night in the Alps. Our next destination was at the end of another long motorway stint. We were headed for Aubigny sur Nere, a town with a big Scottish connection and is twinned with the town of Haddington where Euan and I went to school. 

At one of the fuel/water stops I got stick for riding too slow. I had been sitting at 130-140 kph according to the GPS but Euan Rossi and Aidan Marquez thought I was driving miss Daisy. I suggested a wee race too Aubigny which, once was re-worded into a "challenge to Aubigny" to satisfy Aidan's paranoia about cursing ourselves, was on. I sat at my 130 - 140 and watched the pair of them pull off onto the distance. We chilled out and followed the GPS off the motorway onto and A road before we were guided along some really nice, almost single track backroads. We passed Sancerre and rode through its awesome vineyards which came right to the roadside. Soon after we pulled into Aubigny and found our campsite. The weather was once more superb, but making a hot tent less appealing, especially when there was "mobilehomes," wee chalet type things available. Our plan was to stay two nights at Aubigny so HB and I made the executive decision to take one of these  chalets for the four of us.
I asked if there were any other bikes here. Surprisingly the answer was no. I expected Euan and Aidan to have made it here before us, but they were no where to be seen. We chilled out on the front of our chalet and I nipped back and forth to reception to access the wifi and check for messages. After an hour we started to get a bit concerned. Still no sign of Euan and Aidan. My mind flashed back to Aidan's worried voice about cursing ourselves by having a race....
Eventually the phone went. They were fine and had arrived in Aubigny town centre. I gave them directions to the campsite and they rolled in, happy with the decision to take a chalet.

Our time in Aubigny was spent chilling out at the chalet and wandering around the town. France were playing is the football competition (world cup maybe? I cant remember) and the wee old lady in the shop gave us a lip stick type thing that painted red white and blue French flags on our bodies. There was also a few shouts of "Viva l'Ecosse!" to us, I dunno if this was down to Brexit or the Auld Alliance. We tried to visit the Stuart's castle, but it was closed for renovation. We sampled loads of nice food and drinks, from local French black pudding to a kebab and cocktails in the Cutty Sark pub where we watched the football. France won and the locals went mental, driving around beeping their horns and shouting and waving flags. We also got more "Viva l'Ecosse!!" shouts as we walked back up the street to the campsite.

Leaving Aubigny Sur Nere took us onto another motorway blast north. Bouillon was our destination; a small Belgian town just over the French border and only a few hours ride back up north to the ferry at Ijmuiden. We had crossed the border and I had dropped my speed a wee bit as the sat nav was all over the shop thanks to its out of date maps not quite matching the roads. I had spied a few signs for Bouillon, so I new we were close. Just as I was looking for the slip road to take Euan blasted past (he must have been hangry) taking the lead. About half a kilometer later there was the slip road, about a hundred meters after the junction was Euan. His flight of the navigator pace was no match for the beemers brakes. Luckily the dual carriageway we were on was empty cos Euan's solution was to ride back up the road. It was only a hundred meters or so.....

In Bouillon we found Hotel Godefroy easily, and got the our shit off the bikes. This was to be Euan and Aidan's last night, they were getting the ferry home the next day. We had a great meal at Chez Betty's had a few Belgian Beers and sampled some cafe gourmand, coffee served with wee cakes and desserts. Aidan and Euan set off earlyish the next day while it was still relatively cool. HB and I had an extra couple of days which were spent relaxing around Bouillon while trying to hide from the 32 degree heat.

It's an easy run north to Ijmuiden for the ferry. We got up there in no time and chatted with other bikers beside the boat. Once onboard it was the usual meal and a couple of beers in the bar. It's only a couple of hours run home, if you include a breakfast stop for a bacon roll just over the border back in civilisation.

It had been an amazing three week trip, but if you fancy a trip to the alps or the Black Forest you can do it in ten days or so. It's not that far away so get yer passport dug out and get yer arse over. You'll be glad you did.

Mike.