Tag: Loch Doon

The Met Office had been full of foreboding for Saturday’s outlook with some very heavy downpours predicted. Presumably, it was this that deterred many from turning out for what is a brilliant road winding down through the Ayrshire countryside. Captain Fulton certainly has a nose for sniffing out great bike roads in my experience and this one is no exception.

He also has a nose for the black stuff….no not Guinness… Tia Maria. The ritual presentation of the Bar and Shield for services to Coffee flavour liqueurs was conducted before the intrepid 7 ( 6 bikes and a pillion) departed WCHD…

…waved off by all those who couldn’t get their bikes wet or simply just forgot them…

…it just goes to show… non-attendance doesn’t let you escape without some directed banter!

Enough of the japery…. there was a serious ride to conduct. With so few bikes and a group of seasoned ride-out vets, this was conducted as a mates ride and we steamed off into the wilds heading at times headlong towards huge black clouds. There were rain showers to the left and rain showers to the right and threatening skies ahead….but the anointed ones singularly failed to encounter as much as a spit of rain all the way down to Loch Doon.

Yes, we rounded a few bends and found the road ahead wet, yet half a mile further on…it was bone dry again. The rain gods smiled on Davie and his flock all the way there. It drizzled a wee bit admittedly while we chewed the fat in the car park at Loch Doon preparing to head for our respective homes ( is there anything worse than putting a wet head of hair into a crash helmet?), but even then, your humble scribe never encountered rain all the way back until literally passing Newton Mearns. He stopped in at WCHD to hopefully let it pass, and yes it came on in biblical fashion for about ten minutes, but then he rode all the way to Stirling in bright sunshine from WCHD to home, again on mostly dry roads with the odd river or loch where you might not normally expect…..the old A8 we are talking about you….