I was up at 4:30, all ready, packed, bike loaded, everything on board, shower, breakfast, then work intervenes and I’m running late to my own Meet
I also got a text from a guy in Edinburgh that him and his Mate had decided to cone for the day and they would meet us at the Bridge (Queensferry crossing) Ok, I replied, we’ll be there about 10am. I pulled onto the Robins Nest Pub car park, said my hello’s, introduced myself to those I didn’t know and a quick talk about how the day would hopefully go and confirmed that everyone knew the ‘2nd man drop off’ system, and we were away at 09:35.
Roll call :
Herman (Peter)
Boxerscott (Chris)
Archie (Alan)
Lozboxa (Loz)
Rob - not on the site
Jeznewsome (Jez) - who was only with us for today
And Last but certainly not least our Boxertrix.com leader, Paul, who had very kindly agreed to be my Tailgunner for the day
The guys who rode from outside Edinburgh this morning had rose through rain but the weather was now dry and fingers crossed, that’s how it would stay.
I lead the Boxertrixsters down onto the Bypass and west around Edinburgh, up the M8, along the M9 onto the M90 and over the bridge. As we went passed the slip road on the left just before the bridge, I looked back up it and waved to Martin, who was joining us there, he waved back and that was the last time I saw him
hey ho.Up the M90 about 8 miles and we pulled off at Glenrothes/Crook of Devon where we met Ewen, who had rode down from Kinross and who I’d arranged to meet there
We were literally stopped for 1 minute, Ewen had his helmet on and we were off again without hesitating. We headed straight East on the B9097, skirting along the South edge of Loch Leven and the sun started to poke its nose through the clouds and do you know, it looked very promising
We joined the A911 at Auchmuirbridge and followed it through to Windygates seeing very little traffic, with no incidents and everyone in tow, where we joined the A916 all the way into Cupar. Ah, Cupar, never to be forgotten for a couple of good reasons 
I had committed the schoolboy error of not filling up before we set off on a days ride and so pulled into Tesco to fill up. Everyone followed and did the same, only, one of the group decided he would try the black pump, rather than the green line the rest of us
Now you may ask Why ? How ? As we all did in our own heads but nevertheless, turns out these BMW R nine T Racers don’t actually run on diesel and thank god Chris realised this during filling his glorious bikes tank and didn’t attempt to actually get more miles to the gallon on this run by using that mucky, horrible, smelly oil thick stuff. He had realised his mistake and did the ‘walk of shame’ away from the pumps and relayed his story to us. Ok, no dramas, I told Chris not to move 
and I led the group to Cupar Motorcycles, a planned stop and the very helpful and kind guys there sent one of their lads out of the workshop in a van to syphon out the derv for Chris and he was back with us in no time at all, all sorted 
The second reason Cupar will live long in the memory is for one of those incidents you see, and you just don’t believe your eyes that it is actually happening, right infront of you and no, You’ve been framed’ we’re not filming. While at Cupar Motorcycles, we stood outside the shop and ‘chewed the fat’ while a couple were fiddling with a new MV Tourismo Veloce, apparently it had a 1000 miles on the clock and looked very nice I’ve got to say, as all things Italian do, especially cars and bikes - and their women - and their food
One of the Guys from the shop cane out front and pushed the bike around the back of the shop, to sort something I guessed and soon forgot them. NOT FOR LONG. As we stood chatting, this MV, with just the man on board, and from the back of the shop, totally out of control, the bike jerked left, then right and into a metal gate post along a wall, at full throttle. Not content with that, as the bike fell into its left side, the guy bravely kept the throttle pinned 
spun away from the gate post and round in a circle on the floor where he and the poor bike came to a stop. Help arrived from the shop staff and the bike was wheeled around the back of the shop once again for a check over I’m guessing. It turns out, this couple had bought this MV and were riding it to Malta Yes, you read it right, Malta, today and all he’d ever ridden was a twist and go scooter 
‘It takes all sorts’ ! He walked away unscathed by the way, just so you know. Chris arrived having missed all the fun and games at the shop and we were soon ‘gathered up’ and back on the road heading for our lunch stop at The Clattering Brig.We followed the A91 East out of Cupar joined the A914 then the very nice and quiet B945 through Tayport and across the Tay Bridge into Dundee. We skirted the edge of Dundee and the route was a bit boring through 30’s & 40’s at this point until we turned off at Barry, headed North picking up the lovely B9161followed by the A933 into Brechin. The A966 took us out of Brechin, under the A90, through some lovely tree laden bits, through Edzell and into the very picturesque Fetercairn, where we discovered at lunch, that Ewen had attempted to sabotage the run by taking the wrong route
but he, Archie and Paul soon realised they emerge going wrong and found us at The Clattering Brig Big Rob & his good lady Gail aswel as Cats (Dave) we’re already there and we settled down to lunch in the sun, sat outside, magic Following lunch, we paid our respective bills, mounted our stead’s and headed straight up the Cairn o’Mount road. It’s not a long stint from the bottom but nice and quick early on with a couple of tight bends at the top to slow you down for the view point where we pulled in for photos
Rob & Gail where going to take a different route home but would meet up with us again tomorrow and Jez left us at this point to head back home too. Thanks for turning up and joining the Friday run North Jez, good to meet you, it was a pleasure to ride with you today, you kept a good pace and was safe at all times and hope to see you again soon Mate From here we rode the best roads of the day and h almost had them all to ourselves, no bugger was there
We rode at a very good pace in the afternoon and the roads were sublime, they had everything, long straights, fast sweepers, tight bends, sone idle which tightened up on themselves, eh Chris ? Luckily there was run off, if ever anyone needed it, not that we needed any, eh Chris Tillydrine, Torphins, Alford,
And then joining the A97 which took us to Huntly and then all the way into Banff and to our overnight stay. The whole afternoon was rode in superb weather where black visors where essential so you didn’t get headache and it was warm too. The weather makes such a difference, as we all know on a bike trip and this day was a great day to ride with Mates. Beers all round apart from Dave who still had to ride home and had tea, at our hotel, sat out in the lovely grounds. Thanks for your company Dave, yet another safe rider with a good pace
Loz and Rob were staying at another hotel so went to book in, freshen up and walk back up to our hotel for their evening meal. Now this was a first but for obvious reasons during this current climate, we all had a table each, in the dining room And Loz and Rob sat at each end of the biggest table to social distancing rules. The day was dissected, the appropriate piss was taken, each rider had their own story and moments to tell the group and the food was very nice and so was the bottles Peroni and Corona that we’re supped. All in all a very, very good first day
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as per norm, I wrote and posted my report for day 1 to fill in some time. The sun was already up and was filling my room with it's glorious rays so it was only polite to join it. I had my shower and quietly left my room and the hotel to explore the local area before breakfast. Immediately outside the grounds of the hotel was a forest walk which took me down towards the beach. At the end of the wood was Duff House, a most handsome building from days of yore resplendent in its own grounds. The stone architecture was beautiful and I felt very lucky to be able to walk around it and take some lovely photos in the early morning sunshine. I walked around the club house and roadside of Duff House Royal Golf Course and admired the perfect fairways and greens, it looked majestic and some golfers had already tee'd off to make the most of the day. The beach was soon reached and a short walk at the bridge over the causeway and I made my way back to the hotel for breakfast.
who rode on past us to pick up the A68 and head home to Jedburgh. Hang on a minute, theres only 2 of us left, slowing right down to 56 mph for a short while and still no bikes appeared. I then pulled me and Alan over onto the slip road for the A772 to take us to their Digs and we waited for a few minutes then decided to go to the pub where we met this morning and see if they were there already - no was the short answer but we got Paul on the phone and they had come off at an earlier junction and gone straight tot the digs. I took alan round there and then I shot home, got a shower and Carolyn took me back with a cooler bag full of Perone so we could enjoy every last ray of glorious sunshine that day. We sat in the garden of the B&B and has a few beers and dissected the two fantastic days we just had then jumped in a taxi and headed to the restaurant for our evening meal.