Month: July 2026

It’s been some years since I’ve gone abroad for a motorcycle trip now. Five?

Since ’21 when we escaped to Ireland and Scotland for a couple of weeks of pandemic-approved socially-distanced motorcycle adventure, and had a buncha fun despite the relentless rain.

So when Chris said, “Hey I’ve got a Magic Number birthday coming up, let’s go back to Scotland on motorbikes?”

This would be my third time back to Scotland. Twist my arm, eh? Hard to say no.

It would also be the longest time I’d yet been away from my boys, who are 3 and 1, and from Jackie since the last long solo moto-trip I did some eight-and-a-half (!) years ago around the perimeter of CA. My wife has wonderful grace, and I am endlessly grateful for her and all that she does. [Stacking such a trip on top of Father’s Day probably helped to tip the scale, don’tcha think? -Ed.]

There were a few key things we figured it would be worthwhile to see and do:

1. Visit the Isle of Man, and ride the TT course
2. Stop by the Davidson Legacy Cottage
3. Ride the NC500
4. Circumnavigate the Isle of Skye

Bonus points for Whales and the (now defunct) BSA factory.

Nonetheless, planning such a ride for my buddy’s birthday seems like a nice enough gift (and of course there’s the question of whether the plan survives battle):

And then we set about the business of executing such a motorcycle trip.

Gear, always, is my first consideration. Especially when schlepping it overseas. Packing for a moto-adventure is ever an exercise in optimization; I always am learning how to better do it based on how I did it last. This time my loadout consisted of:

1. Black Diamond 60L duffel
2. Portable air compressor/tire inflator
3. Touratech Zega bag liners (3 bags)
4. Bottle of Sahara tire sealant
5. Shoei RF-1400 Helmet
6. Aerostich Roadcrafter R-3 riding suit and armor
7. Highway 21 motorcycle boots (now water resistant, no longer proof)
8. Monogrammed toiletries bag
9. Tobacco pipe, pouch, & accessories
10. Quadlock wireless charging waterproof handlebar mount w/ vibration dampener
11. Bungie cables & zipties
12. Spare phone case
13. USB charging cables & power plug adaptor
14. Rad sunglasses
15. ~1 week of clothes: 3x pants & shirts, 7x socks & underwear, sneakers, hoodie, light jacket
16. Multitool
17. Iain M. Banks’ Excession in paperback, plus my very obsolete Kindle
18. Spare lithium battery for charging devices

I was able to fit everything except my clothes in the duffel, with just my clothing, reading material, and smaller eletronics in my carry on (the Zega bag liner makes an excellent smaller duffel).

The plan was for all of it to be able to fit on the bike, with or without side-cases, so no arrangements for storing luggage would need to be made while we rode. The bikes we’d settled on (a pair of Triumphs roughly a half decade old) purported to come with side and top cases, but if motorcycle adventuring has taught me anything, it’s to optimize for a little “meaningful redundancy”. In this case, even if the cases on the bikes we rented couldn’t cut it for some reason or another (ask me why I worry about this some time), I should still be able to strap my duffel to the bike and more or less make it work.

As for the bikes themselves, really the only criteria was Chris’ desire to ride a Triumph while in the UK, since they ostensibly originate there. There’s some choice to be had here, but the pool of rental agencies and available bikes is still pretty small in Scotland, more so given we would be renting them for 10 days and most of the rental durations average about half that time.

We ultimately chose a rental outfit based in Glasgow, on a 2021 and ’22 red and silver pair of Tiger 660 S bikes outfitted for touring. While hardly glamorous, these bikes ticked enough of the boxes for us that they made the most sense for the scale of the trip. Someday I’m gonna find a place that’ll rent me a Rocket 3 to ride around, but this was not that trip.

With everything in order, it was off to the airport! Some odd 17 hours plus a layover later (never fly through Newark EWR), and I found myself in Glasgow enjoying the kind of shepherd’s pie that’s just plain hard to get in the ‘States, followed by whiskey and a cigar.

The following day we acquired the rental bikes, wired them up with our farkle, and then hit the road!

Two understatements at the start of the trip, both of which would prove just as true throughout the entire trip: 1) Scotland is starkly beautiful even in the drenching rain; and 2) my “waterproof” Aerostich was going to make me look like I’d peed my pants the entire trip. So much “excitement” I just couldn’t contain it!

Day 1 ended in Dumfries, where we enjoyed some sandwiches, a local beer and some whiskies.

Day 2 would take us to the Isle of Man, but we’d have to get up early and slab it for just a bit to catch the last Heysham/Douglas ferry, since there are only 2 a day! Fortunately it was warm, sunny, and mostly dry all the way there.

The ferry itself is a cargo freighter, and takes almost 4 hours to cross the Irish Sea to the city of Douglas, the largest township on the Isle of Man. It’s a pretty posh ferry, and a little cursory research indicates that the Steam Packet Company, which operates the MV Manxman, makes a tidy profit on the shipping lines to and from the Isle.

The town of Douglas itself has some beautiful views and colorful history, as well as plenty of moto-focused pubs, dives, and eateries. Decent nightlife, even if most places close on the earlier side. No worries — we had some proper motorcycling to do the following morning anyway!

Day 3 was to be the entirety of The Isle of Man, nee Mann, starting with the pole position of the TT track itself! The race itself had just concluded about two weeks prior, so all the race markings and barricades were still in place along the whole course. And what a course! Distractions abound among the absolute beauty of the isles themselves, let alone at the average race speed of 135mph. (We did not push our plastic rent-a-bikes near to this.)

Second time around the island was the entire perimeter of it. This allowed us to do some sightseeing.

Day 4 began with the early ferry from Douglas to the very modern looking Liverpool, and found us winding our way down through the lovely mountains of Wales all the way to Birmingham. We’d arrived just in the peak of the record setting heat wave, and Birmingham being a metropolis basically right in the middle of the landmass, was accordingly skillet-hot.

Here we would take in some sights, visit the BSA factory where motorcycles used to be made, and wind down the evening drinking whiskey at the hotel bar and smoking on the patio in the soft rain.

Day 5 we rode many miles north, negotiating the local “average total speed” cameras as best we were able, ultimately to Edinburgh by way of Newcastle. It was a long day, and the whole of the UK basically remains as scenically pastoral as ever it has. Today I confirmed that the worrisome clunking I was feeling when shifting through gears 1-3 was real, and very likely chain slap due to a worn front sprocket.

Makes a kind of sense. Probably the sprocket needed to be replaced soon after the last rental, but a moto-rental shop on a budget might make the calculation to spread a pair of sprockets across two chains instead of replacing both sets during a chain service.

Of course a worn chain and sprocket is liable for a litany of mechanical failures and dangerous performance; any category of failures where a chain smashing through the crank case of a the motor is one of the “safer” failure modes is not to be trivialized.

But what to do when I’m on a tour with scant time, parts, or budget for a service on a rental bike? How to know if this is “safe-enough for now” or if I need to arrange a tow and maybe replacement bike? Given that the owner of the bike rental company we hired was on his own moto-tour through the Alps while we were hooligan-ing around the UK, the latter of these seemed unlikely.

We would need more data to know for certain. Did changing riding style alter the likelihood? Was there a way to feather the clutch and negotiate the gears to accommodate the pull on the front sprocket? And can I expect my kevlar riding suit armor to stop a snapped chain from lacerating my leg? And no liquor stores are open anywhere past 10pm in all of Scotland?! I was left to ponder such questions that evening after dinner and a relatively early evening.

Day 6 took us to the Davidson Legacy Cottage some ways north of Edinburgh, and then further north through the wondrous (and as it happens rather sunny) Cairngorms all the way finally to Inverness.

We would stay the night in Inverness while the Scots would lose to Brazil in the World Cup. I’ll give the Scots credit: they’re not sore losers, based on the level of party in the streets afterward despite the loss.

It stayed light out at night until well past midnight, that’s how far north we were. I do enjoy Inverness.

Day 7 we pressed further North still to John o’ Groats, and then West through the Highlands proper into the start of the Hebrides, ending the day some ten miles south of Durness. All the roads out this far are wet single track. It’s difficult to find words to fit the sights of the highland and Hebrides landscape way out in these rural parts.

Day 8 saw us continuing along the North Coast 500, concluding our day in the coastal town of Gairloch, drinking and guffawing with a German from Mallorca late enough into the night that the hotel staff chastised us for noise. Well earned.

Day 9 took us from the NC500 to the Isle of Skye whereupon we got properly and almost completely unpreparedly drenched. We ate and drank well enough, and went to bed.

Day 10 we rounded the perimeter of Skye, wound our way down toward the ferry on the Southerly town of Armadale, and pressed on through national forest and along lake and loch to conclude our evening in Oban. Some light racing with a local on a vintage Enfield Bullet on the way into town. Again, whiskey and pipesmoke to wrap the evening up.

Day 11 saw us back to Glasgow to drop off the bikes earlier in the day, and to unwind from a tenday on the road. Some shopping the following day for souvenirs for wife and boys, and then off we went to the airport and ultimately home. For me, this meant back through Newark to my displeasure, where the security guards shake you down for priority line access for a dollar. Remind me never to fly through EWR again.

Regardless, it’s fair to say that the bikes delivered us safely enough back, and the trip completed against the plan admirably so.

Total miles we clocked? 1,904.