The Long Way Home...

Well, my epic two week trip around Scotland, and believe me, it has been around Scotland more than once, has finally come to an end. The Raasay Rumble on the Isle of Raasay, just off Skye was a bit of a wash out. The rain started on Friday evening, and I can't remember it stopping! It went from drizzle to torrential to biblical and back again continuously throughout the weekend - throw in a howling gale, some nippy temperatures and you've got yourself one fairly miserable setting. Shame, because there's some amazing trails on that island. There'll be a full story once I get home.

Right, best hit the road, I'm in unknown territory in my road atlas (i.e. a brand new unused page), and it's a hell of a long way home...

SSWC 07 - leaving town

So the World Champs are over for another year (the real world champs, not that rubbish that's going on in Fort William this weekend). Beer, riding, friends, derbys, crashes, dancing, beer, mickey taking, heckling and endless story telling, perfect. Sat in Cafe Mambo in Aviemore, drinking great coffee with C.G. an American friend I only see once or twice a year, and Ricky/Chris, the random Canadian guy we picked up last night and has decided to hang out with us for a while. We're on first name terms with the baristas and practically have seats with our names on. We have no plans, just a big van full of bikes and stuff. This is what singlespeeding is all about.

Browsing the interent to find all the photos, posts, threads and things being said about the event is proving interesting. The photos tell the best stories, everything else seems a little distorted. It always fascinates me the amount of comments that are made by people that weren't even here! It was legendary, you missed it, get over it.

Adam Craig and Kellie Emmett won with true style, the course was amazing, not that I rode it, there was some world class heckling, lots of beer and I think Billy Spaceman won the ass slapping contest. We went for a walk, skimmed stones in the loch, drank coffee, ate cake and ice cream and laughed, lots! (I think we may have ridden our bikes at some point too, but that was only to get to the cake shop.)

Another plate of nachos and we'll be off to Pitlochry, making sure we stop by the Cairngorm brewery to stock up. We're passing (meaning, dropping by) some distilleries on the way too. I think this mornings vows to not drink any more this week aren't going to last very long, another few minutes maybe...

If you want to see any photos Garrison's, aka Baby Bear, are on flickr. And yes, the in-jokes are going to continue for many years to come. And no, it's unlikely you'll ever get most of them...