Rest and be Thankful.
 

Just back from a few days touring in Scotland. Beautiful country, ****e weather.
Even found a nice easy lane provided by the forestry commision.
Tenere was flawless, apart from a damp coil causing stuttering, it perfomed incredibly. Laning 2 up heavily loaded on road tires didnt put a wheel wrong.
1300 ish miles in 4 days, 1000 of them in the rain. Or thats how it felt haha. Having never been to Scotland before I was awestruck at the scenery around Glen coe and Ben Nevis.
Few piccies when it was dry enough too stop haha. Mine and the missuses first big trip on the Ten. Cruised up there at 80 on the motorway no problem. Averaged around 58 to the gallon. Impressive so heavily loaded. Tall screen etc.
Rest and be thankful.
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Forest drive
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Middle of nowhere.
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Jaw dropping scenery and machinery.

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View from hotel in the morning and evening
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Sunshine ish in Oban.

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Felt like a moonshine runner on the way home. Loaded up with whisky at Ben nevis distillery. We then set off with a gentle pace in mind but then ended up running for the border trying to escape the encroaching rain before it could reek havoc on the coil again. Im glad to be back but Cant wait to get planning the next one.

I Love My Tenere B-)

Sound's like a good trip...and great photos!, what camera did you use.? Steve (11 sleeps till Ireland! )

Hi Steve, all pics were taken on a Sony xpreia z3 compact phone, (used in manual mode, has a suprising amoumt of controls). And uploaded to photo bucket. Got a few more on the slr but havnt had chance too upload them yet.

Ireland looks amazing too. I may have to go there next. Or maybe the south coast.

Strange thing was i never saw another XT all the time i was up there i saw litterally 100s af beemer GS s, we wer in a car park in Fort William with maybe 12-15 beemers, and was just about too set off and we wer stopped by a nice chinese man with limited English skills. He got my attention by pointing at bike and givving thumbs up and waving camera. Saying "good good" He took loads of pics, shook my hand and ******ed off. Haha im an international celebrity.

Looks fantastic mate. I see you riding solo in one shot, did you forget something/someone ????!!

Try wrapping some amalgamated tape around the coil & HT lead join. I put some on mine from new after being advised of people having similar problems. It's worked well for me (in the rare occasion it does rain here) but have crossed a fair few flowing creeks no problems. I have also wrapped some around the regulator ,rectifier plug too.

Cheers

Thanks Desert Racer ill give that a try. I had to do the same trick on my old TDM 850, the coil used to get wet and then arc to the frame/or my leg. Strange thing is ive had the Ten for nearly 2 years now and never had a problem with the rain/snow/river crossings. Must have been specially wet Scottish Rain. :dontknow:

Will get it sorted.

As for the solo riding it was the missuses idea, (think she wanted a rest) so she had me ride past and took some pics.

My good lady and daisy the Tenere.
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I'm lucky enough to only be a couple of hours from the highlands.

Worth remembering that Southwest Scotland and the Borders is spectacular to. Most just hit the A1/A68/M74 and pass straight through.

Oban is lovely, we love it there, Mull, Arran and the other isles are well worth a trip.

We were in the same area on the Crosstourer in April. We had sun, rain, hail, ice and snow in the same day!

Looks like you had a great time and like you, I found the XT to be a great ride two-up and always had enough grunt. Nice route, great report, cheers for sharing.

I Im afriad we where a little guilty if that, but our accommodation was all pre booked so that kind of dictated where we travelled. I will deffinatly be going back and doing more. As for the weather. I was amazed to see snow on the tops in june. :eusa_think:

I even managed to convince the missus this is what travelling is about not a week on a beach in Megaruff or somewhere. She loved it.

Thats for looking everyone ill add more pics when i can get the camera to play nice with the laptop.

Question still is where were all the Xts hiding whilst we were there. All i kept thinking after every valley and mountain is this is XT terrain.

That looks like a +1 scenic trip. Would love to go there one day. Thanks for showing us, mate.

Everyone is, that's probably the beauty of it !! If you head this way again, I'll be happy to give you some ideas of wheres nice. From Rochdale, it's even weekend-able....

Mine to, although the trade off is some comfort, nice overnights etc. We were up in Peebles a couple of weeks ago and stayed in a cracking place (Castle Venlaw) with great food and a lovely ride there and back.

I do have to throw in the odd summer-sun holiday though. Not so sure about this years, we're off to Kefalonia in 2 weeks, but the way the BBC is portraying it, it'll be shut and the world will have stopped turning. (I love the Greeks, so I'm sure we'll have a great time)


There will be a couple floating around in September, big circuit of Scotland through the Borders, Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, northern coast, Skye and the western coast. Can't wait.