The Ride Out that wasn’t Irvine:

A wee shop ride out yesterday and not in the best weather it has to be said, though it could have been worse. Maybe Lairdy would argue otherwise….that strap on…then Jigger and the Spoon.

At least while great and cold and with the roads pretty wet in patches, it never rained particularly heavily at all around Renfrew and West Dunbartonshire. Unlike the ride from Stirling down to Glasgow that morning, let me tell you which was disappointingly wet.

Anyway, we still had a pretty good turn out of about 11 bikes and Tommy’s Trike. Mixing it up with the road crew, was Raymond on Road Captain duties, Kenny on Sweeper and Janice on the tail. However, we had plenty of spare bodies with Jigger , Davie , Tommy and Lairdy from the Road Crew along for the ride as well! We also had the pleasure of the company of five Ladies of Harley…and two flags…. sometimes we have none….flags that is! *

The destination seemed to surprise many ( the many that don’t read the website event list evidently, mwah ha ha ha) and was to the Scottish Maritime Museum at Dunbarton….not Irvine as some “assumed”.

So maybe the ride was a wee bit further from home than was anticipated!

The run took us out to Faslane over the Old Military Road, a great road to ride even on a less clement day like this was…one day we will have to arrange a photo of the chapter riding through some of the dips, there are some good photos to be had here without a doubt! Then it was back towards Helensburgh and Dunbarton, where Lairdy turned off unexpectedly…almost certainly trying to escape. Having suffered the strap on rumours were rife Jigger had brought a spoon as well.

The Dunbarton branch of the SMM is known as the Denny Tank and is a former design and test building for the shipbuilding industry where hull designs were tested on a long water-filled tank. It still has a substance in it loosely composed of the chemical element of water, but looking at it probably has a few other biological and chemical agents in it, which mean you really wouldn’t want to fall in.

It does though house a dynamometer….maybe someone should tell West Coast HD! Not sure how you would strap on a Harley to it mind…. though there was a little too much Strap On action on this particular ride (Lairdy) …and what was going on in the public car park between John and Karen that led to them fumbling with their trousers….. Can’t take this lot anywhere!

Not the nicest day for motorbike riding but what else could you be doing on a grey Saturday in April?..always great to be out, see something new and have a laugh. A great day out.

Oh, and allegations that Kenny was doing the Madness dance to One Step Banana** in the car park at the Denny Tank are entirely without foundation …nae photies…didnae happen.

*No Burnsy….probably in Egypt.

** Once you hear “One Step Banana” by Madness you can’t unhear it…just like “I’m a Single Ex” by Beyonce…#fact