Ride Out Reports – Page 2 – Clyde Valley HOG 9894

Cairndow: A wee bit dreich

24/06/2025

On Sunday we had a chapter ride out organised by Road Crew Marshal, Andy Burns to the Cairndow Inn, supported by RC Raymond Brodie. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas and brought in some pretty heavy rain that worsened the further west you went.

As a result the turn out was down on what had been “pre-booked” with Cairndow, which just meant more for everyone that did turn out and it gave them longer to dry their gear out before squeezing into sodden gloves and boots for the ride back.

A group of motorcyclists in riding gear gathered outside a motorcycle dealership, engaging in conversation while several motorcycles are parked nearby. — It wasn’t wet at WCHD…but threatening

Motorcyclists preparing for a group ride outside a dealership, with several bikes parked and people in riding gear. — It wasn’t wet at WCHD…but threatening

Reports are it was a bit fairer on the return trip than the outbound (wet) leg…and wet feet, and wet well, everything really…

Motorcyclists riding on a scenic road surrounded by lush greenery, with a speed limit sign in the background. — At the Rest waiting for the lights

Motorcycles parked outside the Stables Restaurant on a rainy day with overcast skies and misty mountains in the background. — At the Rest waiting for the lights

We have gathered a few photos together from various Social media sources ( Pete Chisholm, Scott Sinclair and Nicole Tanzabel…this means you!!! Thank you! ) to document the day.

Motorcycle riders gathered inside a cozy inn, drying off after a rainy ride. They are dressed in riding gear, chatting and enjoying the indoor atmosphere. — Lining up for nose bag

A table set up with a selection of sandwiches and plates, accompanied by a teapot and cups in a cozy indoor setting. — Lining up for nose bag

It did look nice for the ride back to Irvine looking at Pete’s shot.

Clearing the Grid Lock : Buchlyvie Ride Out

09/05/2025

Last Saturday’s ride out led by Kenny looked during the recce, that there might be a few hold ups leaving the city. In the event the expected holdup’s never materialised and I guess we were lulled into a false sense of security….home free…open roads await.

Then fate dealt a losing hand. As we passed Asda at Bearsden, we couldn’t help notice the Kirkintilloch Road was closed. No worries we weren’t going that way anyway. Then as we entered Bearsden main street it all ground to a halt. There was a broken down car slap bang in the middle of the road. Whatever was wrong with it, it was going no where and some guy was doing his best to direct cars past it, first in one direction then the other. One of those things.

Bikes at Buchlyvie — Arriving at Buchlyvie

Chapter photo at Buchlyvie — Arriving at Buchlyvie

Then no sooner had we cleared that than as we turned up past Bearsden Rugby Club it all stopped again. This time it was worse. Sometimes we barely moved a car length at a time. The problem was extra traffic that couldn’t use the Kirky road cutting up here then hanging a hard right on the traffic lights but as there was no filter….you wouldn’t ordinarily make this sort of turn, it was taking forever to get through. Being on a ride out, filtering was a non starter so it was sit and wait it out in the sun. It must have taken 20 minutes I reckon?

Anyway once clear of that chaos, it was indeed pretty clear roads all the way. A ( known) road closure meant we had to skip the road down the side of Lake of Menteith and carry on to Thornhill before passing Flanders Moss and then picking up the A811 back to Buchlyvie and a well earned break.

On board video from Raymond

Burnsy was gasping.

A nice wee run for the dozen or so bikes that participated and dry roads.

Training Weekend 2025

28/03/2025

A season wouldn’t be a season without a training weekend. The Saturday lets new members of the road crew learn about roles and responsibilities, and existing Road Crew members get a chance to blow off the cobwebs and share their experience with the newcomers.

We have quite a big Road Crew this year so there are quite a few new faces. You can read about them on our Road crew page.

Saturday: Training Day

The ride started at WCHD heading across to the east side of the city for a briefing, before the bikes ( 19 in all!) headed into Newhouse and Wishaw to practice drop offs, sweeping and dealing with issues.

Everyone had a good time and the crew are ready and raring to go in 2025. Big Sean won the Coolest dude in sunglasses competition though Davie Fulton came close with his new “bins”.

While its fair to say it was a nicer day than it initially looked, there was a lot of salt mixed into the wet roads and everyone’s bikes needed a really good clean when they got to their respective homes.

All the images from training day are on our Flickr Album

Sunday: Largs

Sunday was a ride out both to let the new road crew members try their new skills for real, and also to give our many new members exposure to how we ride on a short ride through the countryside.

The conditions were not the best with some wet and slippy roads in places but everyone reached large safely and no one got lost….so the Road Crew duties worked!

Nicole looked after the ladies of Harley on her first ride out in this capacity and…well, maybe take a flag next time….

DSC_6751-Edit — All the Images from Sundays ride out to Largs are on our Flickr Album

Linlithgow Shop Ride Out

08/10/2024

We had about a dozen bikes and riders away to Ride to the Wall at the weekend, so it is fair to say a big turn out wasn’t expected for a wee shop ride out on Saturday. In the event, we had 11 bikes and a dozen members at WCHD. The destination was to be Linlithgow which by coincidence was hosting a market day. We were a little concerned about our planned parking up area but in the event it turned out OK. We had a plan A+ and a Plan B to deal with any eventualities arising! ( Apart from Chris going to the totally wrong town… all we could do was try to stop him turning off the route ).

Once Nicole had turned up ( she was sweeper for the run, along with Frazer taking up the tail position) we headed off along the M8 picking up the A89 and skirting around Coatbridge and Airdrie before heading out across quiet country roads up through Caldercruix, Avon Bridge and in to Linlithgow on the Linlithgow Bridge road.

A really nice set of roads, in reasonably good condition ( there is a shocker) and some nice twists and turns, on what turned out to be a very pleasant Saturday morning.

Once parked up at the cross and after a few chapter photo’s most of the riders dispersed to the various coffee shops and the farmers market. Who knew what a Lamington was…..?…Nicole evidently!

It was such a nice day I think everyone was quite content just to sit around and blether but eventually everyone departed with a group taking a run in to EHD as its not too far away.

Wanlockhead Ride Out

19/09/2024

Burnsy took us on a brilliant ride through North Ayrshire, heading to the Custom show at Wanlockhead Inn and after a bit of a grey cool start it ended up a pretty nice day. We headed down some great roads to Muirkirk for a break.

Unfortunately we had to abort the official ride here due to unforeseen issues, but some of the bikes still made their way to the show which was very busy with some great bikes on display.

Dumfries Aviation Museum Ride Out

19/09/2024

While many were up north enjoying Thunder in the Glens, Scott took a small group to Dumfries Aviation Museum by way of a shop ride out and they had pretty good weather for it too on the most part.

Pictures from Ian MacKay

Comrie Chapter ride out August 2024

27/08/2024

Last Sunday ( 18th August) we had a Chapter ride out to somewhere a bit different ( and soon to be no more) the Tullybannocher Cafe by Comrie, in Perthshire. As it was a Sunday and the plan was to try to evade motorways and the main A9, we started the ride from the Maccy D’s at the Showcase on the east-side of the city. The weather while forecast to be bright and sunny was a bit overcast and rain kept threatening while down on the southern ( Glasgow) end of the route but it did eventually turn out to be not a bad day.

The route took around 22 bikes up the A73 ( lots of roundabouts) and then onto Kilsyth ( even more tricky roundabouts) so many of the riders popped their proverbial cherries at second rider drop off. I think almost everyone was called upon to take care of a turn at some point. We do generally try to limit the drop off’s as much as possible but there is a trade-off to be calculated between roads with basically no turnings ( ie Motorways and trunk roads) or taking the route less travelled and more interesting roads and accepting that we might need to steer the chapter down the right path.

What time do you call this — Oh dear…was someone late…. Nicole?

As it was no one was lost, and we allowed for a wee regroup and fuel stop at Stirling just to make sure everyone was still with us and able to make it up to Comrie and back without needing to refuel.

After a 10-minute leg stretch we headed off around the Stirling Ringroad…more roundabouts, then Bridge of Allan, around the nasty A9/M9 roundabout then right through Dunblane to Kinbuck, Braco and then off through the glen to Comrie past Cultybraggan camp.

It is probably fair to say the last section of the ride out went down particularly well with the riders, being through some picturesque scenery and quiet roads. A successful day and the run back via Loch Earn and down the side of Lubnaig is never to be missed.

Comrie Chapter Ride Out — Images from the day out to Comrie on Flickr

The Dukes Pass and Loch Katrine

15/08/2024

On Saturday, the shop ride out took us up to Aberfoyle and then over the Dukes Pass on what transpired to be a pretty decent day. It had started with a few heavy showers but the ride was in dry conditions and very pleasant.

They seek him here, they seek him there… Gordon on the Stealth bomber

In all we had over 30 bikes out which is a good number. One member kept appearing and disappearing but we think Gordon was mostly there…. it has been said that he isn’t all there on ocassions 🙂

It was kept quiet.. by everyone but Gilly… shh…who said that?….but rumour has it the RC (ahem, Scott…oh that’s a bad cough I have)… might have turned into the wrong opening after crossing the Dukes Pass and heading into Katrine but none of the bikes at the back noticed as there was so many ….apparently it was used as feet up U turn practice….

Some additional images courtesy of Connor Edinborough at WCHD

Gilly never mentioned at all about the wrong turn…..

Connor at WCHD’s camera had an Invisibility penetrating lens so could see Gordon clearly

All the pics from the day are at Flickr below.

Dukes Pass and Loch Katrine 2024 — Photos at Flickr

Kirkudbright Ride out

05/08/2024

On Sunday we had another Shop ride out which was destined to head for Kirkudbright, a nice run to somewhere different led by Davie Fulton. In the event a yellow weather warning was issues for rain approaching from the south west so the decision was taken to curtail the ride and head to Girvan where there was a RNLI gala day in progress and which had been a planned stop for the riders returning back from Kirkudbright anyway.

Nicole (ready to stop some traffic and dig some roads) and Lairdy ( using Denis and his new Heritage softail as a sat nav apparently and managing to get lost later in the day) took up the crew duties.

Though the threat of a warning on weather seemed to have put off some members we nonetheless took 10 bikes down and they rode through very quiet roads in the Ayrshire countryside and reached Girvan nice and dry. (as is so often the case on days with threatened bad weather).

Photo’s from Catherine Fulton.

Kircudbright ride out — All our photos on Flickr

Cairndow Inn Ride Out

01/08/2024

On Sunday we had a shop ride out led by Road Marshal, Andy (Burnsy) Burns, supervised by Road Captain, Davie Fulton which went from WCHD up to the Cairndow Inn on the south side of Loch Fyne.

We had very good weather for the run and a turn out in excess of 30 bikes which is great.

While out we learned that Activities Officer and Road Captain, Davy Henderson had been involved in a Hit and Run incident near his home at Shotts while out on a “Birthday ride”. The people who caused the collision have yet to be traced. Any information please get in touch with the Police. Davy has found himself in Hospital with a number of painful injuries which will require surgery. His recuperation is likely to take a while and a GoFundMe has been set up by his sister to help him out financially while unable to work. Any contributions would be most welcome.

The first leg went from WCHD to Balloch where we had a stop at thew CO-OP car park and as progress was being hampered by a lot of traffic on the backroads out through the Campsies, ( in large part due to road closures on the M8 but also just general Sunday road users) we decided to cut the run a little shorter than planned and take the direct route up Loch Lomondside to Cirndow via the Rest and Be Thankful.