BIKE (UK)

A 82 Glencoe

Surreal beauty and wonderful riding in the Scottish Highlands

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Back in 2000 I’d just started on Bike and was told to tour the UK for a feature called Cool Britannia with Dan Walsh – a journalist who rightly qualifies as one of motorcycli­ng’s best ever writers. I was on a new Kawasaki ZXR750, he was riding a Fazer 600 and we were heading north. Way, way north for our first time.

Our first taste of the A82 starts at Loch Lomond and it’s bone dry – a rare state as the overhangin­g trees normally drop water and leaves on the pock marked tarmac 300 days a year. As we are swept along by the meandering, wiggling road my mind drifts to the inky black water on my right side and the massive pike patrolling the water’s edge.

You approach the gateway to the Highlands on the A82 snaking out of the village of Tyndrum, its Green Welly fuel stop the venue for a great Scottish breakfast for thousands of bikers every year. The road hugs the mossy green hillside for a few miles, the view across the valley growing wider and more dramatic with every mile. Then the A82 opens out across the Bridge of Orchy, runs alongside Loch Tulla’s choppy waters, then climbs up towards Rannoch Moor where you’ll doubtless see herds of deer on the distant hills.

Rannoch Moor is a flat, desolate plateau strewn with grey boulders and peaty black pools, ringed on all sides by snow-capped mountains in winter time. It’s like a scene from a Lord Of The Rings movie and it’s easy to imagine bands of bedraggled dwarves, hobbits and wizards making their way between the tufts of brown grass towards the Gates of Mordor. What you might actually see is a Hercules RAF transporte­r flying at road level through a valley off to the right.

Never stop here late afternoon in the height of summer as you will be eaten alive, not by Orcs but by zillions of midges. At this point the road starts to drop, and the mountains that previously crowded the horizon suddenly arrive in full view – this is Glencoe, a U-shaped glen formed by an Ice Age glacier. It’s a series of mountains and high ridges framing a river valley, but it’s the scale of the scene that impresses the most – there’s nowhere else in the UK that can deliver such a spectacle.

At this point Dan has a spiritual experience, despite the bugs, and lights another cigarette to further enhance his moment. This far down the line the brand escapes me.

The A82 now winds down between steep rock faces into the valley bottom, where it’s impossible not to be tempted into taking advantage of one of the laybys. Here you’ll find motorhomes and coaches, their occupants gazing stupefied at their surroundin­gs. But don’t be too judgementa­l, you’ll be doing exactly the same. Oh and expect musical accompanim­ent from bagpipes too.

We pull into our accommodat­ion for the night – The Glencoe Inn – and take advantage of the bar. A dram or two is really the only way to come to terms with such a fantastic road, and such a superb day riding motorcycle­s.

Some views and experience­s you can never forget and this trip has been burnt into my memory for ever. Chippywood

‘Rannoch Moor is a flat, desolate plateau strewn with grey boulders and peaty black pools…’

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