HELLO HELLO!

Richard Forsyth has not really got the hand of the phone kit he has fitted to his helmet.

Yesterday Lecter purchased himself an intercom for his helmet so he could join in the chat. I mention this because he is wildly known to be as tight as a ducks arse and so this represents quite an investment. He purchased the same make as the rest of us to ensure faultless compatibility. The evening was spent with us all sat in the living rooms watching TV with our helmets on trying to get them to connect. 1 episode of live island and a film later we could all hear each other.

Of course this morning they had all stopped working again. This sent Glitter into a bit of a spiraling sulk which he profusely denied having. The best thing to do when someone is having a sulk is to just let them get on with it, so of course we take the piss to see if we can get him to cry.

Speaking of crying, last night Lecter decided to take the 'breakfast pancakes' smear them in cold butter offer them around the team NOOOOOOOOOOO! Don't want anyone to think I was bothered but it was just WRONG! WRONG I tell you. But like I say I'm not really bothered.

 

German reliability and Lee the cobbler

Another interesting day. We all agreed we were going to head north. We started by trying to find the smallest castle ( Hermit's Castle, Achmelvich)  n Scotland. We thread our way down a small beach track, and came to a fork in the road. Williams headed one way and Mark headed the other. We met back 20 mins later both having spoken to some locals who told us it was about a 10 minute walk and not really worth it. Being a lazy bunch of fat middle aged blokes we chose to just have a look at pictures on the internet instead. 

So here you go, save yourself a trip and enjoy these images shamelessly stollen from google.

 

 

We headed out on the B869 and got temporarily separated due to stopping for photo opportunities. 

 

   

While we waited for Stobart, Glitter and Lecter to catch up we had a quick check of the bikes. Forsyth was a little unimpressed with the excrement that Williams had thrown up on his bright yellow bike. 

 

 

 

Here we can see Glitter giving us a friendly wave as he goes by or at least that's what we think he was doing!

From here on things started to go a bit pear shaped. Or to be more precise, Richard Forsyth started to go a bit pear shaped.

 

 

 

That red stuff that looks like the the inners of some road kill on Richards front wheel is actually coming from his front wheel bearing which decided to give up the ghost, the BMW reliability curse hits again! Using Williams over priced and quite frankly shite SAT Nav we located the nearest BMW dealer in Inverness and set of at a careful a careful pace to get it fixed. The careful pace quickly turned to a full out race once Forsyth's Dementia kicked in and he forgot about his failing front wheel. 

We stopped at a hotel trapped in time to call the Dealer and make sure they had the part and for a cup of tea. Gavin Glitter got quite tearful at the smell of the place saying it reminded him of Nana Glitter. We hope this was the smell of pee he was referring to.

 

 

It was difficult to tear Forsyth away as it "reminded him of home", the owner of the "hotel" sensing another paying resident opportunity.

After about 5 attempts we finally managed to get hold of someone at the BMW dealer only to be told they would have to order the part in. A bearing for Christ sake! And they don't have it in stock, typical BMW service. 

Stobart did some ringing around and managed to find another motorcycle garage who said they would fix it today if we brought it in.

A short blast to Inverness and the BMW was fixed. Forsyth's problem never stopped there though, his boots which he had had "since I was a lad" decided that 40 years of use was enough and disintegrated. Little did we realize that we had a cobbler in our mists though. Lee Lecter Hughes got his leather cobblers bag out and set to work with all his tools right there in Aldi car park. We were astonished and only 30 minutes later and with much craftsmanship the boot was repaired to 'almost as good as new' and certainly another 40 years of life left in them.

 

Lochiniver B&B

The day started slow after we all smashed a bottle of wine each, except Gavin Glitter who had decided to take it steady on the Guiness. 

We were stopping the night in Lochinver that evening so it was important we left bright and early. Everyone took this onboard and for once we were all ready on time.

Our first stop of the day was a small golf club where we enjoyed tea and scones, very civilized, the man and wife (or brother and sister, or maybe both) couple were charming with the old boy warning us about the one unmarked police car in Scotland.

 

We took it in turns to take the lead but it was Mark Stobart Breeze who drew the short straw over the Applecross Pass. OMG talk about dodgey. Zero visibility, slating rain, tiny twisty near vertical (ok maybe a small exaggeration) slippy roads with Kamikazi camper van drivers coming at you in the opposite direction. Mark took his responsibility as leader of the group in true TopGear fashion heading to the to with barely a concern or look back to his teammates behind him. Last to the top was Gavin Looking less than impressed with the danger we had just put him and his beloved Triumph in (mainly the Triumph). Hanible Lee Hughes shook his head on reaching the to exclaiming that in all his 62 years riding that was the "stupidest thing he had ever done on a bike". We had a choice to make, head back the way we had come which would have cut many miles out of our route to Lochinver, or continue down the pass and take the coast road. There was a unanimous decision that there is no way any of us wanted to go down the road we had just ridden up and so we soldiered on to the sea.

Richard Forsyth then took the lead and headed out to Eilean Donan castle which we all knew from films such as Highlander and The World is Not Enough. We were glad of an opportunity to get off the bikes as the weather had been shocking. Forsyth, enjoying his escape from the nursing home enjoyed his time in front of all them there "whipper snappers"

 

 

    

 

  

 

We made it to Lochinver and took a wonder to the pub and then on to Peet's restaurant. We were tempted to tell them the obvious spelling error but decided not to just in case they did something to our food.

As young blokes we all get the privilege to pass on the legend of the beer scooter. A mythical machine that come the morning is the only possible explanation for how you got home after the pub. Well we discovered not one, but two of these magical machines upside Peet's restaurant.

 

 

The road starts and ends here

"Just a short run out today lads". Mark said. 300 miles later we had been up to john o'groats and back again. We woke up in the morning and left Lee sleeping. There was some debate  about weather there had been a power cut in the middle of the night and his Sleep apnea machine had stopped working. As it turned out no one could be bothered going to check but our concern was put to rest when he staggered out of his bed room half way through the morning.

Williams, Richard Forsyth, and Gavin Glitter went for a stroll in the morning to check out the 'back garden' of the cabin. 'Stunning' is the only word for it, or  'raining' could be another word for it.

We have made a bike discovery today. The newer your bike is, the more chance there is that something will fall off. Shortly after taking the above photo, Glitters Triumph street triple r decided that it did not need the right hand foot peg anymore and wobbled itself loose. Glitter was most upset, the rest of team all taking turns to try and make him feel better, or "take the piss" as we like to put it.

After some fast riding on some fantastic roads Gavin Glitter alerted the team he only had 50 miles of fuel left. "Don't worry" Williams said (sitting on nearly 130 mikes in his tank) "I will pull over at the next station." " err I'm down to 23 miles" stated Gavin the fuel worrier. "You'll b ok" said williams now sitting on 130 miles if fuel in his own tank. "8 miles" stated a now tearful Glitter. We pulled into the station in Thurso with zero miles showing in Glitter fuel computer. What a fuss about nothing, big girl!

 

 

RICHARD Forsyth is slowly donating his bike to the rest of the team taking a bolt out of his top box rack to fix Mark Stobarts wobbly exhaust. Stobart, a professional sponger by trade, now has his eye on Edwards headlight and his back wheel.

 

 

Cabin fever

Our Cabin is based in Cannich, not far from Lockness

 

 

Slaters Arms

When we got to the cabin we sent Lee "I may die in my sleep" Hughes.l to scope out the pub. We took the opportunity to put him in his own room as we suspect he may snore just a little and non of us really wanted to be responsible for giving him the kiss of life if he stops breathing in the middle of the night. "It's alright, it's only down the road" he said with some confidence. 3 hours later and drenched we arrived at the slater arms after a decidedly long walk.

Mark "Stobartt" Breeze can be seen here counting the number of excuses Gavin Glitter has come out with today as to why he was just not quite as quick as he thought he would be. "It's only a 675, it's got no fairing, it's damp, it's Saturday, I'm a bit effeminate, blah blah blah"

Rain rain, sun rain

 

Rich and Rob ordered a taxi from the apartment at 7.30 in the morning and then went Back to the flee pit that was the park hotel for Breakfast. Have to say the breakfast was brilliant and the Landlord very chatty and apologetic. After finishing our breakfast we said our goodbyes and sent to retrieve our bikes from their "home" for the night. Interestingly, the bikes home was considerably better that the one we had to stay in.

 

It was chucking it down. Just as well we had kept them covered. We checked the bike tyres for nails, all looked good so we headed off to the Premier Inn to collect Gavin, Lee and Mark. We probably should have just stayed in bed. It was puddling it down and Gavin was being like an old woman packing and then re packing his bag and then trying to get it "just right" on his bike while we stood on, watched and took the Michael.

Once we finally got on the bikes we headed out towards Knockhill passing over the forth bridge for a photo opportunity. 

Before then though we stopped for a brew in Abington because we were piss wet through. Below you can see Lee (thingimcstranger's replacement) dripping wet, strangely his feet were bone dry, almost as if they had been shattered from the rain somehow). 

 

 

 

 

 

At Knockhill we met the stig, he never said much and was smaller that I thought he would be.

We reached Lochness, and had a chippy in the Monster chippy, Williams had translate for lee as the young lady in the chippy was largely incomprehensible. 

Lee, "I may stop breathing when I sleep" Hughes. Has brought his Sleep Apnea machine to ensure he does not ruin our holiday by inconsideratly dieing in the middle of the night. 

Apparently power is very important, and a sudden power loss could be life or death. Luckily we are not staying in a cabin in the middle of no where with dubious wiring hey? I think we may have got to the bottom Of why lee has no space in his luggage.....

Anyway meet Lee, the only guy I know who can make Hanible Lecter cry with fear.