So today was meant to be sensible, and on a schedule.
As you can probably guess, it was neither – but surprisingly ,we were still on time. See, I had a test ride booked for today in Kilmarnock – 2 of them in fact, and I’d be damned if I was missing them.
We had some time to kill before the test rides, so we went South initially to Leadhills and over the Mennock pass, as you can see below, the weather was pretty much perfect conditions, but as we’d left earlier than normal we didn’t run into many #neveroots so the road were clear and ours. Bloody Loveleh.
Once we’d cleared Wanlockhead we turned south towards Thornhill where we got some breakfast from the bakery there – the square sausage is brilliant, and if you haven’t had some, go and get some.
Once we’d refuelled our bellies, we took the road from Thornhill to Carsphairn via Moniave – a road I’m intimately familiar with close up – but instead of following the road as we usually would, we turned right at one junction to see what was up there, and we found ourselves up by the water of Ken in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere.
It was glorious. Beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, a wee break and even though I’d only gone about 200 yards up a gravel track I’d seen more off road action that half hour than the average GS rider does in a lifetime (unless you count cottaging which isn’t the same damned thing).
We discussed where we were going to go next and decided we’d head to see my folks so we could wind up my recently CBT’d brother. We got back on the road through the top of the Galloway forest and found a wee road that took us through Dalry and down the A713 to Castle Douglas.
Today it was John’s turn to fall in love with a stretch of tarmac and I think there may be some extra white lines on that road now because I’m fairly sure he was creaming all the way down.
After a cup of tea, and getting my dad to try on a couple of the bikes for size, we had to leave to get back up the road for these test rides I was booked onto so we shot up the A713 toward Ayr and then up to Kilmarnock.
We arrived with around 5 minutes to spare (and we weren’t pushing it!), so I was able to get booked in to try the new 2024 MT-09, and the XSR900GP. The XSP just didn’t fit, so I didn’t take it out for a run as it would just have broken my shoulder again.
The MT-09 however… I think I cheated on my wife with that machine. I need to own one, so some work needs to be done now.